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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has considered a) regulating the cost of veterinary procedures, and b) requiring increased transparency around costs of veterinary procedures for pets.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) are finalising a market investigation into veterinary services for household pets. On 15 October, they released a Provisional Decision Report, which included proposed remedies such as increased transparency of veterinary fees, requiring vets to publish price lists, and a cap on the price of written veterinary prescriptions. The proposed remedies are subject to the CMA’s final report which is due to be released in the Spring.

Defra welcomes the CMA’s market investigation into the veterinary sector and will consider any remedies from the CMA’s final report.

Currently, businesses providing veterinary services are not regulated. Reforms to the Veterinary Surgeons Act (which are currently being consulted on) will bring in regulation of veterinary and other animal healthcare businesses and empower the regulator to ensure competition within the market.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the financial impact of participating in GCSE exams on home-schooled students.

Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)

Parents who choose to educate children at home bear the financial responsibility for doing so, including covering the costs of their exam entry. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will not change this.

However, the Bill does introduce a new support duty. For the first time, local authorities will be required to provide advice and information on accessing GCSE examinations when requested by parents, unless it would be unreasonable to do so.

This advice should help parents understand how the exam system works, identify any suitable centres, and plan their child’s education and approach to exams in a timely and informed way.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of compelling landlords to allow electric vehicle meters to be connected to a leaseholder’s residential supply.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Government is committed to ensuring an electric vehicle (EV) transition that works for all. In October 2025, we announced that we will consult on improving renters and leaseholders' ability to charge. This consultation will consider how to make domestic EV charging for renters and leaseholders easier and more straightforward.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she has taken to support adopted children’s recovery from early years trauma.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Professionals working with adopted children should receive appropriate trauma-informed training. The department has funded Adoption England with £8.8 million this year to develop national approaches for adoption services, helping ensure consistently high‑quality support across the country. Adoption England is also strengthening trauma‑informed practice across its workforce and with key partners, including schools. In addition, we have recently consulted on new social work standards that include recognising and responding to trauma, which will underpin an enhanced early‑career support offer.

On 10 February, we announced that the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund will continue up to 2028, with £55 million in 2026/27, enabling children to continue to benefit from access to specialist trauma and attachment‑focused therapies. In addition, our new ‘Adoption Support that Works for All’ consultation provides a positive opportunity for families and professionals to help shape the long‑term future of adoption support.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of trauma-informed training undertaken by professionals working with adopted children.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Professionals working with adopted children should receive appropriate trauma-informed training. The department has funded Adoption England with £8.8 million this year to develop national approaches for adoption services, helping ensure consistently high‑quality support across the country. Adoption England is also strengthening trauma‑informed practice across its workforce and with key partners, including schools. In addition, we have recently consulted on new social work standards that include recognising and responding to trauma, which will underpin an enhanced early‑career support offer.

On 10 February, we announced that the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund will continue up to 2028, with £55 million in 2026/27, enabling children to continue to benefit from access to specialist trauma and attachment‑focused therapies. In addition, our new ‘Adoption Support that Works for All’ consultation provides a positive opportunity for families and professionals to help shape the long‑term future of adoption support.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the selection criteria was for the location of the 43 new neighbourhood hubs.

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

We have launched wave 1 of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme (NNHIP) in 43 places across England, including Cornwall and the Isle of Scilly.

This is a large-scale change programme for all partners involved in delivering neighbourhood health, including the National Health Service, local government, social care providers, other statutory and non-statutory organisations and the voluntary sector. There is a strong focus on co-production and working with the people and communities they serve, and taking a ‘test, learn and grow’ approach in line with the wider public sector reform agenda.

We had an overwhelming response to the NNHIP, receiving 141 applications, which is approximately 83% of the number of places in England. Given the large volume of high-quality applications, selecting sites for wave 1 was not an easy task.

Selection was carried out in line with usual NHS England processes, with all applicants assessed against consistent criteria. This includes demonstrating strong integrated working, clear readiness to participate, robust governance and data sharing arrangements, and a focus on areas with the greatest need.

Work is underway to consider the future direction of the NNHIP, and we will share an update on this as soon as we can.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of Pharmacy First on (a) patient satisfaction, (b) GP access and (c) pharmacy outcomes.

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

Pharmacies deliver a wide range of National Health Services, including Pharmacy First, that relieve pressure on general practices (GPs) and other parts of the NHS and help patients access healthcare advice, treatment, and preventative interventions more easily.

A National Institute for Health and Care Research funded evaluation of Pharmacy First will assess how the service has been implemented across England, including impacts on prescribing in the GP setting, use of hospitals, and how the service has impacted access to care and the cost for different patient groups.

According to the latest available data, 29 January 2026, from the Health Insights Survey, 89.2% of respondents reported they were satisfied with the most recent NHS service they received at a pharmacy.

To date, over 4.5 million Pharmacy First clinical pathway consultations have been delivered. NHS England will continue to keep the Pharmacy First service under review.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how he plans to reward high-performing GP practices.

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

Practices that participate in the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) are financially rewarded for achieving performance indicators. Indicators and thresholds are designed to be stretching, but attainable.

QOF has been refined for 2026/27 to support more clinically effective patient care and to better align with updated National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.

As well as traditional achievement thresholds, for 2026/27, practices are further incentivised to perform by having opportunity to earn QOF points through improving against their own baseline achievement for childhood immunisation indicators. This change is intended to recognise and reward practices, particularly those in more deprived areas that may not meet the existing achievement thresholds but demonstrate meaningful and sustained improvement in vaccination uptake.

We are committed to ensuring that all practices receive appropriate support and resources. We are investing an additional £485 million in general practice in 2026/27, bringing the total spend on the GP contract to over £13.8 billion. This builds on last year’s £1.1 billion of investment.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what modelling (a) she and (b) the OBR has carried out on the distributional impact of measures on salary sacrifice for pensions in the Autumn Budget 2025.

Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

A Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) was published alongside the introduction of the Bill containing the changes to pensions salary sacrifice.

Almost all – 95% - of those earning £30,000 or less who use salary sacrifice will be entirely unaffected by the changes. 74% of basic rate taxpayers using salary sacrifice will be protected by the cap.

Everyone using salary sacrifice will still benefit from the NICs advantages available up to the £2,000 cap.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps the Government are taking to tackle the environmental impact of data centres.

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

The Government is taking a coordinated approach to address the environmental impact of data centres as it seeks to promote sustainable sectoral growth. Through the AI Energy Council, we are working with industry, regulators and the energy system to improve efficiency and reduce carbon intensity. UK Data and AI infrastructure is subject to the UK’s environmental and planning frameworks, which require assessment of impacts such as energy use, water consumption, land use, and local environmental factors. Larger data centres, which will be able to apply through the recently introduced Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project route, will also be subject to these requirements.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent consideration he has made of the potential merits of a national workforce strategy for community pharmacies.

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

The Government is committed to publishing a 10 Year Workforce Plan to set out action to create a workforce ready to deliver the transformed service set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.

The 10 Year Workforce Plan will ensure the National Health Service has the right people in the right places, with the right skills to care for patients, when they need it.

To support community pharmacy employers in developing their staff and deliver quality NHS services, NHS England provides a number of funded national training opportunities for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. This includes independent prescriber training, clinical examination skills, and training the next generation of education supervisors.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what plans does the UK Government have to support overseas states experiencing severe droughts and difficulty in accessing water.

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

The UK works with partner governments to strengthen water resilience, including resilience to severe drought, and to expand access to safely managed water services. For example, through the Just Transitions for Water Security programme, we have supported developing countries to build resilience to climate change and nature loss by strengthening sustainable water management.

Through the Enhanced Water Leadership in a Changing Climate programme, we have worked with the World Bank and others to strengthen national systems and mobilise finance to improve access to water, and through the Climate Adaptation and Resilience programme, we have supported climate adaptation research, including taking action to improve understanding of and responses to water insecurity and drought.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Environment Agency has undertaken modelling of wastewater discharges from the Meadfoot sewage outfall in Torquay to assess the interaction of those discharges with tidal movements within the last five years.

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

The beach is monitored by the EA during the bathing season which runs from mid-May to September. The EA monitors the bathing water for bacteria. The results from Meadfoot Beach put it in the highest class for clean water quality: it is rated as excellent.

The EA’s local Bathing Water data teams look at all data as they become available through the bathing season. Should they see any results that fall short of what is expected for that beach they will investigate the reasons and act on any findings.

Polluting our waterways is unacceptable. We have published the Water White Paper, a new once-in-a-generation plan to overhaul the water system. It sets out clear powers for the new regulator, delivering tougher oversight and stronger accountability for water companies.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will ask Ofcom to investigate the consent or pay model for websites.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

Consent or pay models are used by some websites to gather consent for the use “storage and access technologies”, the most common of which is cookies. The rules around consent for such technology are governed by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). The relevant regulator overseeing PECR is the Information Commissioner's Office, who last year published guidance on how websites can deploy consent or pay legally: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/online-tracking/consent-or-pay/

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has undertaken sampling of patient experiences since changes to the Patient Access Charter in October 2025.

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

The Office for National Statistics’ Health Insight Survey has been collecting monthly data on patient experience since July 2024. Recent findings show that overall patient satisfaction has begun to improve after a decade of decline. The survey also reports that ease of access has improved since October 2025, rising from 73.7% in that month to 76.8% in January 2026.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether she plans to standardise delay repay thresholds across operators.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

There are no current plans to standardise across all train operators.

We have one of the most generous delay repay systems in Europe and continue to make progress on improving the ease with which passengers can claim Delay Repay with the majority of the Department’s contracted train operators offering automated 'one-click' compensation.

Delivering Great British Railways will make it even easier and more convenient for passengers to claim Delay Repay, including through the upcoming Great British Railways website and app.

Hayes School mental health ambassadors

Marie Curie Great Daffodil Appeal 2026

National inquiry into child sexual exploitation

Local authority funding

Review of the student loan system

Kendal Farmers Market

Child protection from illicit vapes

British couple detained in Iran

15th anniversary of the Bahrain pro-democracy uprising

Dolphin hunting in the Faroe Islands

Found: Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Work and Pensions Steve Darling supported the bill, saying it was