Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the impact of pandemic-related delays on asylum seekers’ eligibility for Indefinite Leave to Remain; and whether transitional provisions will be introduced to ensure that people affected by administrative delays between 2019 and 2022 are not disadvantaged under proposed changes to immigration legislation.

Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

We have a proud history of providing protection to those who need it, for as long as it is needed, in accordance with our obligations under the Refugee Convention.

Settlement applications are determined based on length of residence following a grant of permission to stay, rather than date of initial application.

We will be holding a public consultation on the new settlement rules later this year.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on the use of MOD Garats Hay to house asylum seekers.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

As part of our commitment to close all asylum hotels, we are working across government to consider a range of more appropriate sites including ex-military sites to reduce the impact on communities.

The Prime Minister has instructed the Home Office and Ministry of Defence to accelerate work on identifying appropriate sites, with results expected in the coming weeks and months.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of abolishing business rates for pubs.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

In April 2026, the Government will introduce permanently lower business rates multipliers for retail, hospitality, and leisure properties with ratable values below £500,000. This permanent tax cut will ensure that eligible hospitality businesses, including pubs, benefit from much-needed certainty and support.

Ahead of the new multipliers being introduced, the Government prevented RHL business rates relief from ending in April 2025, extending it for one year at 40 per cent up to a cash cap of £110,000 per business.

Business rates are a vital source of Local Government funding and support critical local services, including children's and adult social care. As such, the Government has no plans to abolish business rates for pubs.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if her Department holds information on the number of UK road traffic accidents caused by immigrants driving without a valid full or provisional UK driving licence.

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

This information is not held by the Department for Transport.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will publish a national strategy for palliative and end of life care.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department and NHS England are currently looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.

Additionally, we are supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.

We are also providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. I am pleased to confirm the continuation of circa £26 million, adjusted for inflation, for the next three financial years, 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive, to be distributed again via integrated care boards. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to review the 60% disability threshold requirement to qualify for the vaccine damage payment scheme.

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

I would like to reiterate my deepest sympathies to all those individuals who have experienced harm following vaccination, and to their families.

I recognise many of the concerns that campaigners have raised regarding the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS). Their input will shape our ongoing consideration of reforms to the scheme.

In parallel, the Department continues to work with the NHS Business Services Authority, the administrators of the VDPS, to take further steps to improve the scheme, including through processing claims at a faster rate.

I will keep Parliament updated, as appropriate.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will review the covid-19 vaccination eligibility criteria for (a) frontline workers and (b) carers to ensure that (i) those who work in high-risk environments, (ii) those who provide unpaid care, (ii) carers aged 70 and over, (iv) those who have previously had contact with infectious diseases and (v) those in who cannot afford to access private vaccination services are not excluded from receiving the vaccine.

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

The Government is committed to protecting those most vulnerable to COVID-19 through vaccination, as guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). The primary aim of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of serious illness, resulting in hospitalisations and deaths, arising from COVID-19. On 13 November 2024, the JCVI published advice on the COVID-19 vaccination programme for spring 2025, autumn 2025, and spring 2026. This advice is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-in-2025-and-spring-2026-jcvi-advice/jcvi-statement-on-covid-19-vaccination-in-2025-and-spring-2026

The Government accepted the JCVI’s advice for autumn 2025 on 26 June 2025. The announcement is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/advice-accepted-on-autumn-2025-covid-19-vaccination-programme

In its advice for autumn 2024, the JCVI advised that in the era of highly transmissible Omicron sub-variants, any protection offered by the COVID-19 vaccine against the transmission of infection from one person to another is expected to be extremely limited. Therefore, the indirect benefits of vaccination, for instance vaccinating an individual such as an unpaid carer or household member in order to reduce the risk of severe disease in other people, are less evident now compared with previous years. In 2025, the JCVI conducted an extensive review of the scientific evidence surrounding the impact of vaccination on the transmission of the virus from frontline health and social care workers (HSCWs) to patients, the protection of HSCWs against symptoms of the disease, and staff sickness absences. In line with the JCVI’s advice, frontline health and social care workers and unpaid carers are not eligible for COVID-19 vaccination under the national programme for autumn 2025. The focus of the programme is now on those who remain at greatest risk of serious disease and who are therefore most likely to benefit from vaccination.

As with all NHS-provided vaccination programmes, only those eligible are offered vaccination. Any of the groups mentioned above who are otherwise eligible, because of their age or due to immunosuppression, are encouraged to take up the offer of vaccination.

As with all vaccines offered as part of the national programme in England, there is no charge for COVID-19 vaccination for those who are eligible. There is therefore no cost to those individuals that might discourage uptake.

The Government has accepted the JCVI’s advice for autumn 2025 and has no plans to change the eligibility for autumn 2025. As for all vaccines, the JCVI keeps the evidence under regular review.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has considered the potential merits of cutting duty on draught beer and cider served in pubs.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

At Autumn Budget 2024, the government cut alcohol duty rates on draught products by 1.7%, which applies to approximately 60% of the alcoholic drinks sold in pubs. This took a penny of duty off a typical strength pint at a cost to the Exchequer of over £85m a year.  Draught beer and cider now pay 13.9% less in duty than their packaged equivalents – an increase of over 50% on the previous draught discount of 9.2%.

The Chancellor makes decisions on tax policy at fiscal events.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that immigrants in the UK do not drive on public roads under a non-GB issued licence for longer than 12 months.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

While the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is responsible for issuing driving licences, enforcement of the law is a matter for the police.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has considered the potential merits of cutting VAT for food and drink served in pubs, social clubs and brewery taprooms.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government recognises the significant contribution made by hospitality businesses to economic growth and social life in the UK.

VAT is a broad-based tax on consumption, and the 20 per cent standard rate applies to most goods and services. VAT is the UK's second largest tax, forecast to raise £180 billion in 2025/26. Tax breaks reduce the revenue available for vital public services and must represent value for money for the taxpayer.

Where pubs incur VAT in producing the food they sell, this can be claimed back in the normal way, provided that they are registered for VAT. Businesses with a turnover below the £90,000 per year threshold may choose not to register for VAT, in which case they do not charge VAT on their sales and cannot reclaim it on their input costs.

HMRC estimate that the cost of a 5 per cent reduced rate for accommodation, hospitality and tourist attractions would be around £13 billion this financial year. If the scope were also to include alcoholic beverages, the cost would be approximately £3 billion greater.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her department monitors the whereabouts of people in the UK who overstay their visa.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

We expect people with no right to be here to leave the country voluntarily but, where they do not, Immigration Enforcement will seek to enforce their departure.

The Home Office does not routinely categorise immigration offenders by the manner in which they became irregular. The Home Office monitors those individuals in the UK that are here on a temporary visa and, where we know or suspect that they have overstayed, they become liable for enforcement action.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department holds information on the number of immigrants granted asylum or indefinite leave to remain that have a criminal record either in the UK or abroad.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

The requested information is not in a reportable format and can only be collated at disproportionate cost.

As explained in this note published in April 2025, systems for collecting and compiling data related to foreign national offenders in the immigration system are currently undergoing a transition to improve the quality of information held by the department. The Home Office proposes to publish more detailed statistical reporting on FNOs subject to deportation and those returned to countries outside of the UK once system developments are complete.

Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the code of practice for statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, as well as quality and availability of data. These reviews allow us to balance the production of our regular statistics whilst developing new statistics for future release.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if his department will a) include sepsis research in its publication of areas of research interest for alternative methods to animal testing and b) end the use of sepsis research involving animal testing.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

The Government’s strategy to support replacing animals in science commits to publish biennially from 2026 a list of alternative-methods research and development priorities.

Sepsis is a complex and multifaceted condition, and its study presents significant scientific challenges. We will consider sepsis during the development of our areas of research interest list to determine the best path forward for new model development that drives scientific innovation, supports improved therapy development, and reduces reliance on animals.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that Careers Advisors working in schools receive training in mental health support, to help identify and assist students experiencing mental health challenges.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The department recognises the vital role that careers advisors play in supporting young people to thrive in their future career. We do not expect careers advisors to provide clinical mental health care, but we are committed to ensuring they are better equipped to support, identify concerns and signpost students with mental health challenges towards appropriate support.

The department has been working closely with the sector to explore the development of a continuous professional development package to upskill careers advisers working with young people, including support for young people with mental health challenges. We expect the offer to be available from the 2026/27 academic year

Alongside this, the government is committed to providing access to specialist mental health professionals in every school by expanding mental health support teams (MHSTs), so every child and young person has access to early support to address problems before they escalate. By April 2026, we estimate that 60% of pupils in schools and learners in further education in England will be covered by an MHST, up from 52% in April 2025.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether her department has had recent discussions with FirstPort property management on the adequacy of their service.

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

In response to widespread concerns raised in the debate on property service charges on 30 October, I met Martin King, Managing Director of FirstPort, on 17 November.

In that meeting, I pressed Mr King and his associates on a wide range of issues stemming from reports of poor service, and I left him in no doubt that in the government’s view, FirstPort’s performance is not good enough.

I have written to FirstPort to follow up on the issues raised and have deposited a copy of my letter in the House Library.

Anniversary of the murder of Ken Smyth and Daniel McCormick

Tackling Islamist extremism

Welfare benefits for foreign nationals

Found: meeting Members present: Johanna Baxter (Chair); Rushanara Ali; David Baines; Lee Barron; Mr Peter Bedford

Found: present: Debbie Abrahams (Chair); Rushanara Ali; David Baines; Lee Barron; Johanna Baxter; Mr Peter Bedford

Found: Labour; Corby and East Northamptonshire) Johanna Baxter (Labour; Paisley and Renfrewshire South) Mr Peter Bedford

Found: Labour; Corby and East Northamptonshire) Johanna Baxter (Labour; Paisley and Renfrewshire South) Mr Peter Bedford

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Debbie Abrahams (Chair); Rushanara Ali; Johanna Baxter; Mr Peter Bedford

Found: Council • Penge Churches Housing Association • People First • Perth and Kinross Council • Peter Bedford