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 Royal Mail meets its statutory obligations.

Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

Ofcom, as the independent regulator of postal services, has powers to investigate and take enforcement action should Royal Mail fail to achieve its obligations without good justification.

Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21 million for failing to meet its quality of service targets in 2024-25 and instructed Royal Mail to urgently publish and implement a credible plan that delivers major and continuous improvement.

I met the CEOs of Royal Mail and its parent company in November and raised concerns about Royal Mail’s performance. They reported continued targeted action to improve reliability. I will continue to raise concerns with Royal Mail if quality of service does not improve.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department has taken with Homes England to help support start-up builders.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Small and medium sized housebuilders are essential to meeting the government’s housing ambitions and supporting local economies.

The government is acting to support SME housebuilders by increasing their access to land, providing further financial assistance and easing the burden of regulation.

To that end, we have provided a £700 million extension to the Home Building Fund to help them build a further 12,000 homes and doubled the ENABLE Build Guarantee scheme to boost SME access to finance.

We are making more Homes England land available to the sector through SME-only land sales with less bureaucratic sales process.

We have also committed to simplifying the planning system with proposals for a new medium site size definition with corresponding policy and regulatory easements to help SME housebuilders thrive and grow. For further detail, I refer the hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement made on 16 December 2025 (HCWS1187).

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure the widest set of projects as part of biodiversity net-gain calculations.

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

Biodiversity net gain (BNG) applies to every planning permission in England granted under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, unless exempted. The Government has announced plans to remove BNG requirements for sites under 0.2 hectares, and that BNG will apply to Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects from May this year.

Found: Gilbert (Labour; Edinburgh North and Leith) Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat; Esher and Walton) Noah Law

Found: Gilbert (Labour; Edinburgh North and Leith) Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat; Esher and Walton) Noah Law

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Sarah Champion (Chair); Janet Daby; Noah Law; David Mundell; James

Found: Gilbert (Labour; Edinburgh North and Leith) Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat; Esher and Walton) Noah Law

Found: Gilbert (Labour; Edinburgh North and Leith) Monica Harding (Liberal Democrat; Esher and Walton) Noah Law