Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the annual cost to the NHS is of providing healthcare to illegal migrants.

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

The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England do not hold the information requested. The overall management of asylum seekers is a matter for the Home Office.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average wait time is for an NHS ambulance response to a Category 1 emergency in (a) Boston and Skegness constituency and (b) the UK.

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

The Boston and Skegness constituency is served by the East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EMAS). The latest National Health Service figures show that in December 2025, the average Category 1 response time in EMAS was nine minutes 12 seconds. This compares to the national average of seven minutes 59 seconds.

Through our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26, we are taking action to improve ambulance response times across England, including in Lincolnshire. The plan commits to reducing average response times for Category 2 incidents to 30 minutes this year. Supported by almost £450 million of capital investment, we are expanding same-day and urgent care capacity, delivering 500 new ambulances, and enhancing the speed and quality of care for the most seriously ill and injured patients. We are also tackling unacceptable ambulance handover delays by introducing a maximum 45-minute standard, supporting ambulances to be released more quickly and get back on the road to treat patients.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many UK households have experienced power cuts in the last five years due to insufficient renewable energy supply.

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

No UK households have experienced power cuts in the last five years due to insufficient renewable electricity generation. Great Britain has a highly resilient electricity system with diverse supplies, and the system operator has the tools required to balance supply and demand across a wide range of scenarios.

Where power cuts have occurred, these have resulted from factors such as severe weather or local network faults, rather than generation adequacy.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Care during the Adjournment debate on 20 March 2025, Official Report, column 610, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that all patients are offered face-to-face appointments when one is requested (a) in Boston and Skegness constituency and (b) England; how many face-to-face GP appointments have there been in each of the last 12 months; and how these figures compare with pre-COVID-19 levels.

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

We recognise the significant value of face-to-face appointments. That is why the Government has guaranteed a face-to-face appointment for all those who want one, both nationally and in Boston and Skegness. We have invested an extra £1.1 billion into primary care, recruited an extra 2,500 general practitioners (GPs), resulting in 6.5 million more GP appointments delivered to patients, than in the previous year. Our continued investment is designed to enhance access to all GP appointments, irrespective of their mode, enabling patients to choose either face-to-face or remote consultations in line with their preferences and clinical needs.

The National Health Service is clear that GPs must provide face-to-face appointments, alongside remote consultations, and patients’ input into consultation type should be sought and their preferences for face-to-face care respected unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary.

Face-to-face GP appointments in Boston and Skegness are up 7.5% since before COVID-19, rising from 569,000 in 2019 to 612,000 in 2025. Nationally, face-to-face GP appointments dropped by 1.3%, from 241 million in 2019 to 238.6 million in 2025.

Found: Clip Daisey Cooper MP (Liberal Democrats) Clip Richard Tice