Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when he plans to respond to emails sent by the Rt Hon. Member for Godalming and Ash dated 18 November 2025 and 20 January 2026 concerning a case relating to a Magistrate.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

A response was sent on 24 February and the Department apologises for the significant delay in replying. We recognise that, on this occasion, the delay falls short of expected standards.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that Cystic Fibrosis patients living in North London are not adversely impacted by the proposed removal of respiratory services from the Royal Brompton Hospital.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Any changes to services must follow established statutory processes, including full clinical engagement, consideration of patient impact, and public consultation where required. These processes are designed to ensure that any proposed reconfiguration maintains or improves the quality, safety, and accessibility of care for patients.

The Department expects NHS England and local commissioners to demonstrate that any changes will not adversely affect patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) and that services continue to meet the national service specifications for specialised respiratory and CF care. This includes ensuring that specialist multidisciplinary CF teams remain accessible, that transition and continuity of care are safeguarded, and that travel times and capacity implications are assessed and mitigated.

Although the location of some services will change, there is no reduction in CF services capacity and no loss of specialist expertise as a result of this change. The full paediatric CF multidisciplinary team, including specialist clinicians, nurses, physiotherapists, psychologists and dietitians, will continue to care for patients as a single specialist service.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to help improve the global competitiveness of the City of London.

Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

The government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy , co-designed with industry, sets out the government’s ten-year plan to make the UK the world’s centre of choice for financial services investment now and in 2035.

Since July, the Government has been squarely focused on delivery the Strategy, including launching the Office for Investment: Financial Services to attract and support global firms to establish and grow in the UK and UK listings relief – exempting shares from Stamp Duty Reserve Tax for the first three years that a company is listed.

The government will continue working at pace to deliver the reforms it has committed to.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how the functions of local Healthwatch will be delivered by ICBs and local authorities.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The abolition of local Healthwatch (LHW) and the transfer of its functions will require primary legislation. The timing of this is subject to the will of Parliament and will happen when parliamentary time allows.

We are proposing to place responsibility for the health function of LHW with integrated care boards. Local authorities will be responsible for the social care LHW functions.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the (a) prevalence of respiratory disease and (b) number of emergency hospital admissions for respiratory conditions in Godalming and Ash constituency compared with national averages.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Data is available for emergency Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) where there was a primary diagnosis of 'respiratory conditions’. The following table shows the number of FAEs where there was a primary diagnosis of 'respiratory conditions’ for Godalming and Ash and England, for activity in English National Health Service hospitals and English NHS commissioned activity in the independent sector, for 2024/25 and provisionally for 2025/26:

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS England.

Available data on trends in respiratory conditions can be found on the Department’s Fingertips dataset. Data is not available by parliamentary constituency. Data is available at regional, county, unitary authority, and integrated care board level. Information for Surrey, which includes Godalming and Ash, can be found at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/search/Respiratory#page/1/gid/1/pat/15/ati/502/are/E10000030/iid/40701/age/163/sex/4/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/1/cid/4/tbm/1

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