Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the potential impact of roadworks on the economy.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department is unable to provide a current estimate of the overall impact of roadworks on the economy. This is because road and street works are carried out by a wide range of organisations, for different purposes, and the Department does not collect the data that would be required to produce a reliable national estimate.
Road and street works are essential to maintaining and upgrading utility services and the road network, and they play a vital role in supporting economic growth by enabling continued investment in critical infrastructure. Where street and road works do result in disruption, we recognise the wider impacts this can have on the economy. We remain committed to minimising these effects wherever possible. This includes strengthening penalties to improve compliance, enhancing coordination through the use of digital tools, and supporting local highway authorities to adopt lane rental schemes, which encourage works promoters to plan and deliver works more efficiently, thereby reducing delays and congestion.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to help ensure local planning authorities enforce Construction Environmental Management Plans.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Construction environmental management plans are usually required by conditions imposed on the grant of planning permission.
Local planning authorities already have a wide range of powers to deal with breaches of planning condition. It is for authorities themselves to decide when and how they use those powers.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with industry on the expansion of manufacturing sites for glioblastoma treatment development.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer provided on 22 December 2025 by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, to Question 99356.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to answer Question 99357, tabled on 11 December 2025.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 29 January 2026 to Question 99357.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, when he plans to publish a response to the Statutory review of Pubs Code and Pubs Code Adjudicator 2022 to 2025.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The third statutory review covering the period 1 April 2022 – 31 March 2025 is in progress and the government’s report will be published as soon as practicable. My officials are currently analysing the evidence collected from last year’s call for evidence and from other publicly available sources. Stakeholder responses to the call for evidence have greatly assisted my officials in identifying emerging themes and are further informing the review’s content. I am grateful for the helpful input provided by stakeholders and will continue to engage with them in taking forward the conclusions to the review.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps he is taking to regulate pub-owning companies and breweries with fewer than 500 tied tenants.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government currently has no plans to consider regulating pub owning companies with less than 500 tied tenants, or to regulate breweries. Pub owning businesses that don’t meet the qualifying threshold for the Pubs Code can, however, join a voluntary scheme administered by the Pub Governing Body. This scheme, also known as the Voluntary Pubs Code, provides signatories with a dispute resolution service and fair methods of determining rent by an independent expert.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what funding the Government has allocated to support new or expanded manufacturing facilities for advanced glioblastoma treatments.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
This Government has made funds available to support UK manufacture of medicines and medical technology products, including up to £520 million to the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund and £50 million to the pilot Life Sciences Transformational R&D Investment fund. These funds are open to applicants looking to establish, expand or improve UK based manufacturing of treatments for glioblastoma and other cancers, as well as a wider range of capabilities that improve UK health resilience.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 4 December 2025 to Question 97317 on Local Government: Reorganisation, whether he expects the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners and the re-organisation of local government structures to have any impact on Department spending.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Government is committed to cutting the cost of politics by reducing unnecessary layers of governance and bureaucracy.
Both the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners, alongside local government reorganisation is intended to deliver savings for the taxpayer over time, with efficiencies reinvested in frontline services.
Exact savings from local government reorganisation will vary depending on the area and the final decisions on which proposals, if any, are implemented.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the MHRA on the potential impact of regulatory reform on the time taken to develop glioblastoma treatments.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is an executive agency of the Department and regulates medicine, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion in the United Kingdom, with responsibility for ensuring medicines meet appropriate standards of safety, quality, and efficacy.
The impact of the new regulatory reform on the development of glioblastoma is that the new regulations will introduce notifiable trials, including initial and modification trials, which will be approved within 21 days without further assessment if they meet the inclusion criteria. Therefore, these submissions will be approved with a short turnaround time. This approach will free up assessors’ time to provide more support for trials that require closer scrutiny. The trials in glioblastoma are part of the oncology area, which represents almost 30% of all submissions received by the MHRA.
Asked by: Lewis Cocking (Conservative - Broxbourne)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an estimate of the potential impact of traffic congestion on the economy.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Department for Transport publishes transport analysis guidance to help assess the economic cost of congestion associated with different policy interventions. It also regularly publishes statistics on speeds, delay and reliability on different types of roads. However, it does not routinely assess the economic cost of congestion on the road network as a whole.