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 impact of Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary Ticketmaster controlling a majority share of the UK live music ticketing market on competition and consumer outcomes.

Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

The Government is committed to ensuring markets work well for consumers and businesses. As the UK’s lead consumer and competition authority, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has a statutory duty to promote competition for the benefit of consumers. It is the role of the CMA to examine potential breaches of competition law, including abuse of a dominant position, and investigate markets if it thinks there are competition or consumer problems. As an independent authority, the CMA has discretion to investigate competition matters which, according to its prioritisation principles, it considers most appropriate.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what consideration she has given to allowing military parents more choice in how their child's Pupil Service Premium is spent.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The Service Pupil Premium (SPP) is additional funding for state-funded schools in England with children and young people of service families. It will be paid at a rate of £360 per eligible pupil in the 2026/27 financial year.

Schools can tailor their SPP expenditure to meet the specific pastoral and academic needs of individual service children and help mitigate the impact of matters such as family mobility, separation, or parental deployment. It is the responsibility of each school to decide how to use their SPP funding and to communicate this with parents.

Schools are encouraged to consider best practice in the use of SPP funding, set out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-service-pupil-premium/service-pupil-premium-examples-of-best-practice

Guidance for schools, academy trusts and local authorities on supporting service pupils is published jointly by the department and the Ministry Of Defence here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/service-pupils-in-schools-non-statutory-guidance/service-pupils-in-schools-non-statutory-guidance.

This recommends that schools consider recording their use of SPP funding as part of their mandatory pupil premium statement, unless they have reason to believe this will identify individual pupils. An optional field in the template is provided for this purpose.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she has taken to encourage schools to be transparent with how they use Service Pupil Premium funding.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

The Service Pupil Premium (SPP) is additional funding for state-funded schools in England with children and young people of service families. It will be paid at a rate of £360 per eligible pupil in the 2026/27 financial year.

Schools can tailor their SPP expenditure to meet the specific pastoral and academic needs of individual service children and help mitigate the impact of matters such as family mobility, separation, or parental deployment. It is the responsibility of each school to decide how to use their SPP funding and to communicate this with parents.

Schools are encouraged to consider best practice in the use of SPP funding, set out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-service-pupil-premium/service-pupil-premium-examples-of-best-practice

Guidance for schools, academy trusts and local authorities on supporting service pupils is published jointly by the department and the Ministry Of Defence here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/service-pupils-in-schools-non-statutory-guidance/service-pupils-in-schools-non-statutory-guidance.

This recommends that schools consider recording their use of SPP funding as part of their mandatory pupil premium statement, unless they have reason to believe this will identify individual pupils. An optional field in the template is provided for this purpose.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the total amount of Government investment in research into neuroendocrine cancers has been in each of the last ten years; and what specific funding allocations have been made for neuroendocrine cancer within the forthcoming National Cancer Plan.

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

Government responsibility for delivering cancer research is shared between the Department for Health and Social Care, with research delivered by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation.

Between financial years 2015/16 and 2024/25, through the NIHR, the Department for Health and Social Care committed approximately £8 million for new research projects, alongside supporting infrastructure, into neuroendocrine cancer. The following table shows a breakdown of the £8 million for new research projects, alongside supporting infrastructure, into neuroendocrine cancer, from 2015/16 to 2024/25:

As well as funding research itself, the Department invests significantly in research expertise and capacity, specialist facilities, support services, and collaborations to support and deliver research in England, known as NIHR infrastructure. NIHR infrastructure underpins research. The spend is not directly attributable to specific research studies for the most part, but an estimate is derived based on the number of studies in neuroendocrine cancer against the annual infrastructure spend.

The findings presented are based on point-in-time analysis for 23 March 2026. The data does fluctuate due to changes such as contract variations and updated information regarding financial reconciliations and support activity.

The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including neuroendocrine cancers. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to the public and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has considered introducing a national defibrillator strategy.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government’s position is that local communities are best placed to make decisions about procuring, locating, and maintaining automated external defibrillators (AEDs). Over 110,000 defibrillators are registered in the United Kingdom on The Circuit, the independent AED database. Over 30,000 of these have been added in the past two years, many as a result of local community-led action. For this reason, there are no plans to introduce a national defibrillator strategy.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what consideration he has given to the use of existing delivery frameworks, such as the Major Conditions Strategy, to drive improvements in early detection and treatment of heart valve disease.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are committed to reducing premature deaths from heart disease and stroke and we recognise that improving the detection and treatment of heart valve disease is an important step to achieving this ambition. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish a new cardiovascular disease Modern Service Framework (CVD MSF) later this year. The CVD MSF will prioritise ambitious, evidence-led, and clinically informed approaches to prevention, treatment, and care, and as part of its development we are engaging widely to identify and consider the role of emerging innovations across the cardiovascular pathway.

High blood pressure is a key risk factor for heart valve disease, and the Government has invested heavily in the Hypertension Case-finding Service for those aged over 40 years old in community pharmacies, which has seen nearly 4.2 million blood pressure and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring checks delivered since October 2021.

Alongside this, in 2025, NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time programme published new and revised cardiology pathways to support consistent care across primary and secondary settings, including advice regarding patients with severe symptomatic heart valve disease.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has plans to develop a national strategy for the early detection of heart valve disease.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are committed to reducing premature deaths from heart disease and stroke and we recognise that improving the detection and treatment of heart valve disease is an important step to achieving this ambition. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will publish a new cardiovascular disease Modern Service Framework (CVD MSF) later this year. The CVD MSF will prioritise ambitious, evidence-led, and clinically informed approaches to prevention, treatment, and care, and as part of its development we are engaging widely to identify and consider the role of emerging innovations across the cardiovascular pathway.

High blood pressure is a key risk factor for heart valve disease, and the Government has invested heavily in the Hypertension Case-finding Service for those aged over 40 years old in community pharmacies, which has seen nearly 4.2 million blood pressure and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring checks delivered since October 2021.

Alongside this, in 2025, NHS England’s Getting It Right First Time programme published new and revised cardiology pathways to support consistent care across primary and secondary settings, including advice regarding patients with severe symptomatic heart valve disease.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of including timber supply metrics in the National Security Risk Assessment.

Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)

The National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) is the government’s principal tool for identifying and assessing the most serious malicious and non-malicious risks facing the United Kingdom and its interests overseas.

Whilst timber supply is not currently included as a discrete risk, both threat to domestic timber and critical supply chain disruption are considered from a range of causes across the NSRA. Malicious risks impacting imports and a plant pest affecting UK forestry, for example, currently assess this topic.

Furthermore, all risks are assessed for their economic and macroeconomic impacts, and a disruption to construction materials sufficient to disrupt the UK economy (regardless of cause) may be identified here.

Both the NSRA and the publicly available version, the National Risk Register (NRR), are kept under continual review to reflect the changing risk landscape. During every update, policy makers are encouraged to consider the potential implications of their risk across a range of sectors.

The Lead Government Department (LGD) model ensures departments with the day-to-day responsibility for an issue or sector are responsible for leading work to identify serious risks and ensuring that the right planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place.

Memorial for Amrit and Saroj Lal

125th anniversary of the British Standards Institution

Scott Meenagh

Southdale Primary School

40th anniversary of Bathgate rail

Glasgow 850 Interfaith Sponsored Walk

Death of Chuck Norris

Whitburn Brass Band and the Scottish Brass Band Championships

Stand-Out Theatre School

Bonhill Primary School Pupils' charity fundraising

30th anniversary of the Dunblane Primary School tragedy

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Ruth Cadbury (Chair); Steff Aquarone; Dr Scott Arthur; Mrs Elsie

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Ruth Cadbury (Chair); Steff Aquarone; Dr Scott Arthur; Mrs Elsie