Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department has taken to support water, sanitation and hygiene programmes through Overseas Development Assistance.

Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

Our portfolio includes the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Systems for Health programme, which supports governments in eight countries to strengthen the systems needed to provide climate-resilient and inclusive WASH services. To help governments and others use data to inform decision-making we support the international monitoring mechanism which tracks WASH progress against global targets. We also continue to support progress through our political and diplomatic levers, including engagement with the G7, G20 and UN processes.

Following the Spending Review, internal allocations will be determined over the summer which will outline Official Development Assistance allocations from 2026/27 to 2028/29.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the consultation entitled Boiler Upgrade Scheme and certification requirements for clean heat schemes, published on 30 April 2025, whether her Department plans to update the list of Energy Saving Materials to include heat batteries for space heating.

Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

This Government is committed to improving the quality and sustainability of our housing stock. This will be vital to making the UK more energy resilient and meeting our 2050 Net Zero commitment.

Between 30 April and 11 June 2025, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) consulted on changes to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and proposals to mandate the Microgeneration Certification Scheme as the sole certification scheme for all DESNZ clean heat schemes. DESNZ will respond to the consultation in due course.

Installations of qualifying energy-saving materials (ESMs) in residential accommodation and buildings used solely for a charitable purpose benefit from a temporary VAT zero rate until March 2027, after which they will revert to the reduced rate of VAT at five per cent. This support – worth over £1 billion – will aid households and charities in improving the energy efficiency of their buildings.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential (a) implications for her policies of the (i) financial and (ii) housing pressures experienced by kinship carers and (b) impact of those pressures on the sustainability of Special Guardianship placements.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The government recognises the significant financial, and wider, pressures faced by kinship carers and their impact on the sustainability of special guardianship placements.

That is why the government announced £40 million investment in a Kinship Allowance Pilot, which will test the impact of providing an allowance to kinship carers. The Expression of Interest for this pilot launched on 17 June 2025 and more information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apply-to-become-a-kinship-allowance-pilot-provider. The programme is expected to begin in autumn 2025 and will support approximately 5,000 kinship children.

Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, we are enshrining the first definition of kinship care in law and mandating local authorities to publish their kinship local offer, increasing their accountability for ensuring all kinship families are getting the information they need about the support available to them.

The department also funds the charity ‘Kinship’ to provide over 140 peer support groups and a free training package for kinship carers across England.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve coordination between public services and local authorities in cases involving safeguarding concerns for children under Special Guardianship Orders.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The multi-agency statutory guidance ‘Working together to safeguard children’ outlines how sharing of information between organisations and agencies within a multi-agency system is essential to improve outcomes for children and their families, including those with Special Guardianship Orders.

As part of the roll-out of the Families First Partnership Programme, the department is ensuring stronger multi-agency approaches to child protection and safeguarding for all children, including those under Special Guardianship Orders. This includes legislating for new multi-agency child protection teams and a strengthened role for education in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements.

£555 million will be available for 2026/27 and 2027/28 to local authorities to roll out these reforms across the country. This in addition to the £500 million made available for 2025/26, which will also continue for each year of the spending review period.

‘Working together to safeguard children’ was updated in 2023 to place additional focus on strengthening multi-agency working across the whole system of help, support and protection.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of local authority compliance with the requirement to provide support plans to kinship carers under Special Guardianship Orders.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

There is a general duty on local authorities to arrange for the provision of special guardianship support services in their local areas.

Children who were previously looked after by a local authority, and their special guardians, have an automatic right to an assessment for special guardianship support services from the local authority that last looked after the child. Other special guardians may request an assessment, but it is at the discretion of the local authority whether to carry one out.

Ofsted has a crucial role to play in upholding children’s social care standards, including the support services provided by local authorities to families and children who have special guardianship orders in place. They provide independent, up to date evaluations on the quality of support, safeguarding, and leadership, making sure children are safe and supported.

In May 2025, the Law Commission began a project to consider the scope for reform to simplify and streamline the orders underpinning kinship care placements and how to better support the consideration of kinship care as an option for children who cannot remain with their parents. It will consider the adequacy and consistency of the legal orders underpinning kinship care placements, including whether the current legislation meets the needs of children and kinship carers.

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 potential implications for his policies of the potential role of heat batteries in homes that are unsuitable for a heat pump.

Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

Though heat batteries can utilise time-of-use tariffs, do not require outside space and can be cheaper to install, they are less efficient than heat pumps. If heat batteries do not have sufficient storage capacity, they could draw electricity at peak times, adding burden on the electricity network and increasing energy bills.

The Department is building our evidence on heat batteries through studies like the Homes for Net Zero Trial.

The Government is analysing responses to the consultation on the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which gathered views on supporting alternative electric heating technologies, such as heat batteries.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent companies de-listing in London.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

We have already delivered an ambitious set of reforms to boost the competitiveness of UK markets including overhauling the Listing Rules, providing more flexibility to firms and founders raising capital. To create a stable regulatory environment, and complementing these reforms, the government is also establishing a 10-year strategy for financial services, with capital markets as a core pillar, which will be published at Mansion House on 15 July 2025.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to increase public and investor confidence in small and mid-sized quoted companies listed in the UK.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

We have already delivered an ambitious set of reforms to boost the competitiveness of UK markets, including for small and mid-sized quoted companies. This includes overhauling the Listing Rules, reforming the Prospectus regime to provide more flexibility to firms and founders raising capital and reducing reporting requirements for the smallest companies.

The government also maintains generous tax reliefs for small and mid-sized quoted companies including the Growth Market Exemption which provides relief from Stamp Taxes on Shares for companies on Recognised Growth Markets.

To create a stable regulatory environment, and complementing these reforms, the government is also establishing a 10-year strategy for financial services, which will be published at Mansion House on 15 July 2025.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to implement regulation that increases risk appetite among investors.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

We have already delivered an ambitious set of reforms to boost the competitiveness of UK markets, including for small and mid-sized quoted companies. This includes overhauling the Listing Rules, reforming the Prospectus regime to provide more flexibility to firms and founders raising capital and reducing reporting requirements for the smallest companies.

The government also maintains generous tax reliefs for small and mid-sized quoted companies including the Growth Market Exemption which provides relief from Stamp Taxes on Shares for companies on Recognised Growth Markets.

To create a stable regulatory environment, and complementing these reforms, the government is also establishing a 10-year strategy for financial services, which will be published at Mansion House on 15 July 2025.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to recognise the economic contributions of small and mid-sized quoted companies.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

We have already delivered an ambitious set of reforms to boost the competitiveness of UK markets, including for small and mid-sized quoted companies. This includes overhauling the Listing Rules, reforming the Prospectus regime to provide more flexibility to firms and founders raising capital and reducing reporting requirements for the smallest companies.

The government also maintains generous tax reliefs for small and mid-sized quoted companies including the Growth Market Exemption which provides relief from Stamp Taxes on Shares for companies on Recognised Growth Markets.

To create a stable regulatory environment, and complementing these reforms, the government is also establishing a 10-year strategy for financial services, which will be published at Mansion House on 15 July 2025.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to incentivise investment in small and mid-sized companies.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

This Government believes that small businesses are vital to the UK’s high streets and communities, and essential to the success of the government’s growth mission.

To support small businesses, the Government announced generous tax reforms at Autumn Budget 2024 including, most notably, more than doubling the employment allowance to £10,500; commitments in the Corporate Tax Roadmap to maintain the Small Profits Rate and marginal relief at their current rates and thresholds; and freezing the small businesses multiplier for 2025/26.

At the Spending Review, we have increased the financial capacity of the British Business Bank to £25.6bn, which will enable a two-thirds increase in support for SMEs across the UK. This investment is expected to crowd in tens of billions of pounds of private capital and will support innovative businesses to start, scale and stay in the UK.

We are also continuing to take measures to tackle late payments, which severely impact the cash flow of small businesses. This year we will be laying requirements for large companies to include information about their payment performance in their Annual Reports and launched the Fair Payment Code. We will also soon be launching a consultation on additional legislative measures to address late payments and long payment terms.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to increase liquidity for small and mid-sized companies.

Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)

This Government believes that small businesses are vital to the UK’s high streets and communities, and essential to the success of the government’s growth mission.

To support small businesses, the Government announced generous tax reforms at Autumn Budget 2024 including, most notably, more than doubling the employment allowance to £10,500; commitments in the Corporate Tax Roadmap to maintain the Small Profits Rate and marginal relief at their current rates and thresholds; and freezing the small businesses multiplier for 2025/26.

At the Spending Review, we have increased the financial capacity of the British Business Bank to £25.6bn, which will enable a two-thirds increase in support for SMEs across the UK. This investment is expected to crowd in tens of billions of pounds of private capital and will support innovative businesses to start, scale and stay in the UK.

We are also continuing to take measures to tackle late payments, which severely impact the cash flow of small businesses. This year we will be laying requirements for large companies to include information about their payment performance in their Annual Reports and launched the Fair Payment Code. We will also soon be launching a consultation on additional legislative measures to address late payments and long payment terms.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the potential contribution of small and mid-sized quoted companies to the Government's growth mission.

Answered by Gareth Thomas - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

SMEs, including quoted companies, are an integral part of the Government’s growth mission in creating vibrant and prosperous local communities and being critical to supply chains for key industries. They are a diverse group operating in every sector, region and international market.

The SME Strategy - due to be published this summer - will set out the Government’s intentions on supporting businesses across key areas, including thriving high streets, making it easier to secure finance, improving productivity, accessing new domestic and international markets, encouraging entrepreneurship and building business capabilities such as digital adoption, whilst tackling the scourge of late payments.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure the (a) accessibility and (b) affordability of audit requirements for small and mid-sized quoted companies.

Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

Audit standards for UK companies are adopted and set by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), with reference to internationally-agreed standards. The Government is aware of concerns about the cost and availability of high-quality audit for smaller quoted companies, and supports the FRC’s work to make sure that every UK company, including small and mid-sized quoted companies, can access good quality audit services at a proportionate cost, including through its current year-long campaign to support small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, the Government will consider these issues as it develops legislation to reform audit and corporate governance.

Found: Members present: Bill Esterson (Chair); Sir Christopher Chope; Torcuil Crichton; Wera Hobhouse; Luke Murphy

Found: Members present: Bill Esterson (Chair); Sir Christopher Chope; Torcuil Crichton; Wera Hobhouse; Luke Murphy

Found: Collier Josh Newbury Mike Martin Ian Sollom Dr Marie Tidball Natalie Fleet Calum Miller Luke Murphy