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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs during Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions on 13 November 2025, Hansard col 291, on what date does she plans to publish the animal welfare strategy.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

As set out by the Prime Minister, we will publish our Animal Welfare Strategy this year which will set out our priorities for animal welfare.

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 patterns of social engagement by young men about issues concerning (a) anabolic steroids and (b) image and performance enhancing drugs are captured as part of improving men's health literacy.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

On 19 November 2025, to coincide with International Men’s Health Day, we published the first ever Men’s Health Strategy for England. The strategy includes tangible actions to improve access to healthcare, provide the right support to enable men to make healthier choices, develop healthy living and working conditions, foster strong social, community, and family networks, and address societal norms. It also considers how to prevent and tackle the biggest health problems affecting men of all ages, which include mental health and suicide prevention, respiratory illness, prostate cancer, and heart disease.

We are taking a range of actions to improve men’s health literacy. For example, our landmark partnership with the Premier League will bring together football clubs and the Government to improve health literacy, particularly around mental health and suicide prevention. We are also ensuring health literacy improvements are embedded at the community level, building the evidence base on heath literacy in men, and identifying ways to build media literacy skills in men to help them critically assess health information and protect against misinformation that harms health.

We will consider the impacts on young men in the implementation of the strategy. The strategy sets up a strong foundation for improving how we think and act on men's health and we will learn, iterate, and adapt as new challenges emerge. As a first step, we will work with the Men's Health Academic Network and the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector to develop and publish a one-year-on report, highlighting the improvements made and where future efforts will need to be targeted.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 23 October 2025 to Question 82925 on Special Educational Needs, what recent discussions she has had with (a) children, (b) parents and (c) experts on SEND provision; and if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of establishing (i) consultation portals and (ii) additional contact mechanisms for the public to share ideas.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

This government is determined to deliver reform that stands the test of time and rebuilds the confidence of families. To ensure lived experience and partnership are at the heart of our solutions, we are currently engaging with children, young people and their families, experts, charities and other sector organisations through our special educational needs and disabilities Ministerial development group, regional and online engagement sessions, and ministerial roundtables as well as through our online portal which can be accessed here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/send-reform-national-conversation/.

We want to hear from as many people as possible, from parents and young people to those working in schools, colleges and early years – building a consensus on what works to help deliver lasting reform. The experiences shared during these engagement opportunities will be vital in ensuring that our proposals effectively deliver meaningful reforms for families. We will also continue engagement as part of a formal consultation following the Schools White Paper publication, and the responses received will be carefully considered in shaping the reforms.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the number of additional NHS appointments delivered between (a) July 2024 and June 2025 and (b) July 2023 and June 2024.

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

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment for the reasons for the difference in the number of additional NHS appointments that were provided between (a) July 2024 and June 2025 and (b) the preceding 12 months.

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

The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to continue the Mental Health Investment Standard.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Despite the challenging fiscal environment, the Department expects all integrated care boards to continue to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard in 2025/26. Spending on mental health support in 2025/26 is forecast to increase compared with 2024/25, reaching £15.6 billion. This represents an increase of £688 million in cash terms.

The Government recognises the need for a new approach to mental health in order to reduce waiting times, improve the quality of care, and increase the productivity of mental health services. Funding is a key component of this. The NHS Medium Term Planning Framework therefore sets out that integrated care boards will be required to meet the Mental Health Investment Standard over the next three years by protecting mental health spending in real terms, ensuring that spending increases in line with inflation.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 2 December 2025 to Question 87411 on NHS England: Redundancy, what proportion of the £860 million will be spent in each financial year.

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

The £860 million figure reflects funding brought forward from the Department’s 2025 Spending Review settlement. It will be brought forward to earlier years to bring NHS England into the Department, resulting in one organisation, and significantly reducing integrated care board running costs. This investment now will deliver savings of at least £1 billion per year by the end of this Parliament. This reprofiling was agreed following detailed discussions with HM Treasury and was announced at the Budget in November 2025.

The cost estimates to support this reprofiling were calculated jointly by the Department and NHS England’s finance teams, with input from subject matter experts. The calculations remain subject to ongoing policy development and refinement as part of wider transformation planning and prioritisation. Relevant material financial information will be published in due course in line with transparency obligations.

The profile by financial year has been published by HM Treasury within table 4.1, page 90, line 38 of the 2025 Budget policy paper, a copy of which is attached. It should be noted that these figures represent United Kingdom-wide allocations informed by the Barnett formula, rather than the England-only value referenced in the question.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to question 87411, if he will publish the calculations for the figure of £860 million.

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

The £860 million figure reflects funding brought forward from the Department’s 2025 Spending Review settlement. It will be brought forward to earlier years to bring NHS England into the Department, resulting in one organisation, and significantly reducing integrated care board running costs. This investment now will deliver savings of at least £1 billion per year by the end of this Parliament. This reprofiling was agreed following detailed discussions with HM Treasury and was announced at the Budget in November 2025.

The cost estimates to support this reprofiling were calculated jointly by the Department and NHS England’s finance teams, with input from subject matter experts. The calculations remain subject to ongoing policy development and refinement as part of wider transformation planning and prioritisation. Relevant material financial information will be published in due course in line with transparency obligations.

The profile by financial year has been published by HM Treasury within table 4.1, page 90, line 38 of the 2025 Budget policy paper, a copy of which is attached. It should be noted that these figures represent United Kingdom-wide allocations informed by the Barnett formula, rather than the England-only value referenced in the question.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made about the current levels of [i] drink driving and [ii] drug driving related accidents and fatalities on roads in the [i] UK, and [ii] Leicestershire.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

Statistics regarding drink and drug driving in personal injury road collisions in Great Britain are based on data reported to police using the STATS19 system.

The estimated number of collisions and fatalities in drink-drive collisions for Great Britain and Leicestershire for 2023 (the latest figures available) are given in the table below.

Figures are rounded to the nearest 10 therefore 0 fatalities for Leicestershire indicates that the estimated number was less than 5:

These are based on the results of breath tests conducted by the police at the scene of personal injury road collisions and combined with data from coroners on blood alcohol levels of those killed in collisions.

While STATS19 does not attribute cause of collision, reporting officers attending the scene are able to assign up to 6 road safety factors which, in their opinion, based on the information available within a short time of the collision, they consider may have contributed to it.

In 2024, the latest year available data there were 18 personal injury collisions in Leicestershire where “affected by drugs” was assigned to a driver or rider in the collision. This is 3% of all collisions in Leicestershire where a police officer attended the collision and assigned at least 1 road safety factor, the comparison for Great Britain is 3% of collisions.

There was 1 fatality in Leicestershire in a personal injury collision where “affected by drugs” was assigned to a driver or rider in the collision, this is 4% of all fatalities in Leicestershire in collisions where a police officer attended the collision and assigned at least 1 road safety factor, the comparison for Great Britain is 8% of fatalities.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what materials will be provided by the Government for the (a) the Premier League and (b) Samaritans in the Together Against Suicide Partnership.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

As part of England's first ever Men's Health Strategy, the Government announced a groundbreaking partnership with the Premier League to tackle male suicide and improve health literacy. We will work with the Premier League to co-create materials that promote signposting to existing mental health and suicide prevention support. The partnership will also champion NHS England’s new Staying Safe from Suicide guidance, embedding its principles across club staff and driving adoption of the associated e-learning among mental health practitioners within club networks, ensuring best practice reaches those supporting players and fans. Further information on the Staying Safe from Suicide guidance and the associated e-learning is available, respectively, at the following two links:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/staying-safe-from-suicide/#

https://www.minded.org.uk/Component/Details/849008

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent topics has he discussed with external bodies when considering the potential impacts of proposals to reduce jury trials.

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

In developing his recommendations, Sir Brian Leveson and his expert advisers, including Professor David Ormerod, engaged with several external bodies with invaluable expertise of our Criminal Justice System including criminal legal organisations, charities, academics, and members of the judiciary. A full list is at Annex C of his report.

When considering Sir Brian’s recommendations and developing our proposals, I have engaged regularly with stakeholders and relevant sectors over the last 12 months including representatives from the legal sector (Law Society, Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association), victims and victims representatives (the Victims Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Rape Crisis), judiciary (Circuit leaders, Judicial leadership), magistracy (Magistrates’ Association, Magistrates’ Leadership Executive), non-governmental organisations (Appeal, JUSTICE, Transform Justice), court staff in criminal courts around the country (Wood Green, Snaresbrook) and similar international jurisdictions. For example, I met judges and visited courts in Canada, which uses types of judge-only trial.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, which external bodies has he recently spoken to about the potential impacts of proposals to reduce jury trials.

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

In developing his recommendations, Sir Brian Leveson and his expert advisers, including Professor David Ormerod, engaged with several external bodies with invaluable expertise of our Criminal Justice System including criminal legal organisations, charities, academics, and members of the judiciary. A full list is at Annex C of his report.

When considering Sir Brian’s recommendations and developing our proposals, I have engaged regularly with stakeholders and relevant sectors over the last 12 months including representatives from the legal sector (Law Society, Bar Council, Criminal Bar Association), victims and victims representatives (the Victims Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, Rape Crisis), judiciary (Circuit leaders, Judicial leadership), magistracy (Magistrates’ Association, Magistrates’ Leadership Executive), non-governmental organisations (Appeal, JUSTICE, Transform Justice), court staff in criminal courts around the country (Wood Green, Snaresbrook) and similar international jurisdictions. For example, I met judges and visited courts in Canada, which uses types of judge-only trial.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with [i] Local Councils and [ii] third party charities and advice organisations to understand the potential challenges faced with [a] supporting people with council tax debts and [b] using bailiffs to collect unpaid council tax.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

The government has recently consulted on the administration of council tax, including its collection and enforcement. As part of this consultation, my officials held direct engagement sessions with local councils and the debt advice sector on these issues. The government is currently considering all responses to the consultation and will publish its response in due course.

Separately, the Ministry of Justice has consulted on proposals to introduce independent statutory regulation of the enforcement sector. The government will publish its response to that consultation in due course.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to consider increasing the number of sitting days at [a] Leicester Crown Court [b] Coventry Combined Court Centre and [c] Warwick Crown Court.

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

The Government is committed to bearing down on the backlog. In the Crown Court for this financial year, we have allocated 111,250 sitting days - the highest number of sitting days on record and over 5,000 more than the previous Government funded for the last financial year.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Lady Chief Justice continue discussions on the allocation for 2025-26 as part of the Concordat process and we will say more in due course.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to PQ82726 answered on 21 October 2025 about Cross Country Strikes, whether her Department has recently had discussions on that dispute with key parties to seek a resolution.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

CrossCountry kept the Department advised on their progress this autumn resolving issues raised by the RMT. It was welcome news that on 2 December the RMT confirmed to CrossCountry that proposed strike action was suspended and they were no longer in dispute with CrossCountry, so passengers can book their travel on this basis.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December 2025 to Question 87412, how many applications have been received to NHS England’s voluntary redundancy scheme.

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

NHS England’s voluntary redundancy scheme opened on 1 December 2025 and closed for applications on 16 December 2025. Applications to the scheme are currently being reviewed.

Our ambition is to let as many people leave voluntarily as possible and alongside ongoing recruitment controls and natural staff turnover, we believe this will allow us to make significant progress towards the 50% headcount reduction.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December 2025 to Question 87412, if he will make an estimate of the potential cost of the applications received to NHS England’s voluntary redundancy scheme.

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

The estimated overall cost of redundancy exits across the Department, NHS England, integrated care boards (ICBs) and commissioning support units is estimated at approximately £1 billion to £1.3 billion. This calculated estimate was informed by inputs from subject matter experts across both organisations, including human resources, the transformation team, and other relevant functions, to ensure that the estimate reflected the full range of financial and operational implications, as well as staff exit estimates provided by ICBs. The process included designing modelling frameworks, integrating workforce data, stress-testing scenarios and ensuring alignment between the Department’s and NHS England’s finance teams.

The redundancy and restructuring programme is now in the stage of active policy development. Final costs are subject to actual take-up of exit schemes and calculated individual costs, which is being continuously monitored.

Found: legal experts” as well as the DHSC had helped reach the wording of the bill.50 Shadow minister Dr Luke Evans