Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will assess the adequacy of the provision of heart and lung transplant services, including (a) access to specialist care, (b) post-transplant follow-up services, (c) psychological support for transplant recipients and their families, (d) long-term management of transplant recipients and (e) variation in outcomes between transplant centres.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring timely and equitable access to heart and lung transplantation services and of improving patient outcomes. This response relates to England only.

Access to transplantation is based on nationally agreed clinical criteria, with donor organs offered, or allocated, through a national system managed by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) to ensure equity according to clinical need. NHSBT publishes data annually on access and outcomes in its organ-specific reports, with further information available at the following link:

https://www.odt.nhs.uk/statistics-and-reports/annual-activity-report/

This data shows some variation in post-transplant survival rates between centres, but good overall rates. In addition, it shows some geographical variation in lung registration rates and no evidence of variation beyond chance for heart and lung transplantation rates. Further work is needed to understand and address unwarranted variation in access to transplantation.

Variation in patient outcomes, including longer‑term survival and listing outcomes, are reviewed through established NHSBT and NHS England clinical governance processes, including routine outcome reviews and centre‑specific follow‑up where indicated. The National Transplant Clinical Panel has been established to provide expert clinical interpretation of transplant outcome data to support quality oversight, including where issues of statistical variation are identified.

Heart and lung transplant services provide multidisciplinary assessment, ongoing follow‑up, and access to psychological support where clinically indicated, ensuring that care addresses both physical and mental health needs across the patient pathway, before and after transplantation. The quality and effectiveness of care is monitored through national audit, service review, and patient feedback, with oversight provided by the National Transplant Clinical Panel.

To improve equity of access, transplant activity, and outcomes, NHS England has established a national improvement programme, informed by the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise. This programme, alongside NHS England commissioning structures, includes work to improve referral pathways, organ utilisation, and service consistency, through strengthened peer review processes, audit of organ acceptance practices, and work with transplant centres to support consistent decision-making. Further information on the national improvement programme and the Implementation Steering Group for Organ Utilisation’s Cardiothoracic Information Collation Exercise is available at the following two links:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/blog/from-ambition-to-action-improving-heart-and-lung-transplant-services-in-england/

https://nhsbtdbe.blob.core.windows.net/umbraco-assets-corp/34815/report-on-uk-heart-and-lung-transplantation-services.pdf

While progress has been made, including increases in transplant activity and reductions in waiting lists, NHS England continues to work with partners and patients to ensure services are consistent, resilient, and able to meet patient need across the country.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that pupils with medical conditions receive appropriate healthcare support during the school day; what assessment she has made of the respective roles and responsibilities of schools, NHS bodies and healthcare professionals in delivering that support; and what measures are in place to ensure that school staff undertaking healthcare-related tasks receive appropriate training, clinical oversight and support.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

I refer the hon. Member for Eastleigh to the answer of 23 June 2026 to Question 10306.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on (a) legal fees and (b) associated costs defending judicial review proceedings brought by the WASPI Campaign since December 2024.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Based on the information held, since December 2024, the recorded legal costs on litigation brought by WASPI including disbursements and VAT and costs paid to WASPI are £348,566.14.

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 the adequacy of speech and language therapy provision for children with speech, language and communication needs in Eastleigh constituency; what data his Department holds on (a) waiting times for assessment and intervention, (b) the number of children receiving face-to-face speech and language therapy support and (c) vacancies in speech and language therapy services in Hampshire; and whether he plans to review the availability of specialist training for speech and language therapists in supporting children with complex communication needs.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales

Community health services, including children’s speech and language therapy services, are locally commissioned to enable systems to best meet the needs of their communities.

We have set a clear target for systems to work to reduce long waits in NHS England’s Medium Term Planning Framework.

By 2028/29, at least 80% of community health services activity should take place within 18 weeks, and in 2026/27, integrated care boards (ICBs) and community health services providers must also develop plans to eliminate 52 week waits. Whilst targets are not service-line specific, capacity growth and waiting time targets should impact positively on children and young people’s speech and language therapy services.

Alongside the new target for community health services, in 2025 we published an overview of core community health services. Setting clear expectations of the core community health services, ICBs should be providing help to ensure consistent delivery of community health services, support effective commissioning, and improve patient access to care.

As of April 2026, there were 66,695 children and young people on waiting lists for speech and language therapy.

The Department does not hold specific information on speech and language therapy services in Hampshire.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment his Department has made of the prevalence of asbestos-containing materials in components used in wind turbines operating in the UK; what information his Department holds on the number of turbines identified as containing such materials; what assessment he has made of the potential risks to (a) workers involved in the installation, maintenance and decommissioning of wind turbines and (b) members of the public; and what steps his Department is taking to ensure the safe identification, removal and replacement of any affected components and to prevent the importation of asbestos-containing materials.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is leading work with industry to establish the extent of any asbestos-containing components in wind turbines operating in the United Kingdom. DESNZ does not hold comprehensive data on the number of affected turbines.

The Government takes health and safety risks across the wind supply chain very seriously and expects all developers and suppliers to comply fully with existing legislation, including strict controls governing hazardous materials such as asbestos.

HSE has advised that, where present, asbestos is contained within sealed systems and monitoring has not identified airborne fibres or evidence of risk to workers or the public. They will continue to work with industry to ensure it delivers safe and prompt removal of affected components.

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 the forthcoming Modern Service Framework for Dementia and Frailty will (a) improve the quality and consistency of dementia data and (b) improve data capture on dementia at the local level.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales

We are considering all options to help reduce waiting times and improve dementia diagnosis and care, including reviewing targets, metrics, and data.

We are engaging with a wide group of partners to understand what should be included to ensure the best outcomes for people living with frailty and dementia, and as part of this exercise, we will develop a list of best evidenced interventions following analysis of the evidence gathering exercise submissions and wider research.

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the context of The Children’s Society’s latest report which highlighted the importance of low-cost activity options for parents during the school holidays, what steps her Department is taking to widen the availability of low-cost holiday activities for children through museums, libraries and leisure centres, which are not covered by the temporary VAT relief on family activities.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)

This government recognises the importance of our treasured museums, libraries and leisure centres in providing free and low-cost activities for families during the school holidays.

This government is providing billions over this Spending Review period to support our celebrated cultural institutions, such as National Museums or to Libraries via the Libraries Improvement Fund, to ensure cultural activity is accessible to all.

This builds on the existing VAT refund scheme (VAT 33a) available to museums and galleries that offer free admission, and a VAT cultural exemption scheme for eligible bodies that removes the VAT from ticket sales.

DCMS has also committed £400 million to transform sports and leisure facilities over the next four years to promote health, wellbeing and community cohesion for all.

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the availability of guidance to parents following the planned social media ban for under 16s; what steps her Department will take to involve parents in the protection of their children online; whether her Department has assessed the risks of AI chatbot functions which are not covered by the planned regulation on sexualised AI chatbots including, harmful advice, over-reliance and emotional dependency and what steps her Department is taking to address the high-risk features of messaging platforms which are not addressed by the up-coming ban including disappearing content, which can perpetuate practises such as intimate-image abuse.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)

The government will provide a package of support for parents and carers to support children in navigating the online world safely. This includes an expanded media literacy campaign and Kids Online Safety Hub, providing advice, practical tools and support to help parents and carers support their children in navigating the online world safely and confidently.

The government will also restrict risky features, including contact with strangers, across a wider range of services - banning them for under-16s and making them off by default for 16 and 17-year-olds. The government also announced that we will make it impossible for children to take, share or view naked pictures on their devices.

Finally, we have announced mandatory breaks for under-18s using chatbots, alongside committing to stronger action to address dangerous, misleading or unverified mental health advice.

Merchant Navy Day

Retirement of Godfrey Asare and Margaret Labulo from the Members' Tea Room

Richard Pengelly

Hampshire Day 2026

30 years of the Spice Girls

Duty to assess mental capacity

Carbon monoxide alarms

Potential merits of a knighthood for Harry Kane

Deaths of humanitarian de-miners from Norwegian People's Aid

Found: also present (Standing Order No. 137A): Dame Caroline Dinenage Mr James Frith Natasha Irons Liz Jarvis

Found: Hampshire) Dr Rupa Huq (Labour; Ealing Central and Acton) Natasha Irons (Labour; Croydon East) Liz Jarvis

Found: Caroline Dinenage (Chair); Mr Bayo Alaba; Vicky Foxcroft; Damian Hinds; Dr Rupa Huq; Natasha Irons; Liz Jarvis

Found: Hampshire) Dr Rupa Huq (Labour; Ealing Central and Acton) Natasha Irons (Labour; Croydon East) Liz Jarvis

Found: Caroline Dinenage (Chair); Mr Bayo Alaba; Vicky Foxcroft; Damian Hinds; Dr Rupa Huq; Natasha Irons; Liz Jarvis

Found: Hampshire) Dr Rupa Huq (Labour; Ealing Central and Acton) Natasha Irons (Labour; Croydon East) Liz Jarvis

Found: Q426 Liz Jarvis: Good morning.

Found: Q426 Liz Jarvis: Good morning.