Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what economic steps she has taken against Russia since its invasion of Ukraine.

Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

We have stood shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine and against Putin’s illegal invasion. This government has significantly increased our economic pressure on Russia. This includes our recent sanctions against Lukoil and Rosneft last October, which means the largest Russian oil companies are now sanctioned. This action was closely followed by the US. We also recently announced a maritime services ban on Russian Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), in parallel with the EU, which will ban the involvement of UK service providers in the global trade of Russian LNG. We will use all the economic tools at our disposal to stand up for what is right.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of military hospital provision.

Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)

Armed Forces personnel in the UK routinely receive secondary care, including specialist hospital treatment, through the NHS, working with the Defence Medical Services (DMS) to ensure that specific defence requirements are met.

The Royal Centre for Defence Medicine is the UK's primary military medical facility. Based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, military medical personnel are integrated with NHS staff to provide specialist treatment for injured military personnel, including those evacuated from overseas. It further serves as a centre for training and research.

Additionally, there are over 1000 military Doctors, Nurses and Allied Health Professionals permanently based in 56 NHS trusts across the UK, ensuring military medics maintain the skills they require to support military operations across the globe and providing essential support to our NHS. Through this partnership, Defence is supporting the government’s mission to build an NHS fit for the future with military healthcare professionals routinely treating members of the general public, however, for security reasons they are not always identifiable as being serving members of the Armed Forces.

DMS is working closely with NHS England and health services in the Devolved Administrations to ensure non-deployable personnel awaiting NHS treatment are returned to fighting fitness. Further, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is working with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to meet the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) recommendations including rebuilding capacity and capability, in partnership with the NHS, to meet the demands of warfighting.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she made of the potential implications for her policies of trends in the level of coral bleaching; and what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle coral bleaching.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The impact of climate change and marine heatwaves on coral reefs is increasingly concerning. A network of global coral reef scientists under the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) confirmed the 4th global coral bleaching event in 2024. While we cannot yet quantify the full impact to reefs, we do know this is the largest bleaching event ever recorded. UK Government is currently working with international partners at the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network to develop the Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2025 report, which will combine monitoring data from over 120 countries to provide a comprehensive view of the status and trends of the world’s reefs.

We have taken action both at home and abroad to support a resilience-based management approach in addressing the range of threats facing coral reefs. By tackling local and regional threats and combined with action on climate change, we are supporting coral reefs to resist and recover from coral bleaching and changing environmental conditions. This includes funding the Coral Conservation in UK Overseas Territories working group to share best practice on reef management and support partnership working between UK Overseas Territories, committing £40.25 million to the Global Fund for Coral Reefs between 2021 and 2026 through our International Official Development Assistance Marine Programming, and contributing our scientific technical expertise to international organisations like ICRI and the Coral Research & Development Accelerator Platform.