Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reasons why the Woodlands for Water project delivered 9 per cent of the target hectares of tree planting.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Woodlands for Water project, funded by Defra and delivered by the Riverscapes Partnership, ran from October 2021 to March 2025. At the end of the project, 288 hectares had been planted, with over 2,200 hectares of sites identified for planting. These are being pursued through other means, including through support from Rivers Trust and progressing planting through the Community Forests where appropriate.
Defra reduced funding to the project in financial year 2024/25 and the project is now closed.
Reasons for planting being below target include particular challenges around riparian planting, which typically involves small land parcels with multiple land managers alongside practical challenges of planting alongside linear features such as rivers.
We are continuing to support riparian planting through the England Woodland Creation Offer, which has stackable supplementary payments for woodlands that improve water quality, reduce the risk of flooding, and riparian buffers that improve water habitat. Our Water Environment Improvement Fund also supports targeted woodland creation for water benefits.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people are employed by the non-departmental public bodies of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport through Skilled Worker visas.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Department of Culture, Media and Sport does not have a record of the number of people its non-departmental public bodies employ through Skilled Worker visas as they are operationally independent.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many civil servants are employed through Skilled Worker visas by each department (including non-ministerial departments) and their executive agencies.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
This information is not held centrally and would only be held by individual departments.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many cases have been referred for the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions regarding a prosecution under the Suicide Act 1861 in the last ten years.
Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General
From 1 April 2009 up to 31 March 2025, manual records indicate there have been 199 cases referred to the CPS by law enforcement partners that have been recorded as encouraging or assisting suicide. The DPP has provided consent to prosecute in six cases. Five of these cases have been successfully prosecuted, and one was acquitted after trial. These figures are published on the CPS website and will next be updated in April 2026.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the performance of ministers in fulfilling their duties under section 20 of the Environment Act 2021 regarding statements on bills containing new environmental law, and what consideration they have given to creating mechanisms to challenge incorrect or misleading statements.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In making a statement under the Environment Act 2021 Section 20, as with all other statements ministers make to either House, ministers are bound by the Ministerial Code which requires them to provide accurate and truthful information to Parliament.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 20 November (HL11652), what projects for reform of occupational health services are funded through the Small Business Research Initiative; how much funding was provided to each of those projects, and whether they will place a copy of the self-reported outcomes of those projects in the Library of the House.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The fund for stimulating innovation in occupational health (OH) funded five projects in Phase 2. Up to £300,000, inclusive of VAT, was allocated for each contract, to develop a prototype and undertake field testing for up to 12 months. The following table shows the projects to reform OH, their actual spend, and the project participant’s name:
Participant name | Project title | Actual spend |
WELLICS LTD | The enhancement and trialling of an innovative platform to improve SMEs' ability to provide occupational health services to their workforce and measure improved performance in the workplace | £296,200 |
KINSEED LIMITED | SwiftCare - INFORMATION SYSTEMS for HEALTH AND WORK | £299,347 |
| A smart digital OH portal and employee-facing app to bring the benefits of occupational health to individuals, micro and SME companies - initially addressing those employees with Long COVID of the overall total of 2,200,000 patients in the UK. | £262,956 |
LATUS HEALTH LTD | Remote access occupational health support system | £287,945 |
ARMOUR LABS LTD | Digital Healthcare Navigation for the Modern Workforce | £300,000 |
Further details on each of the projects have been published on the Innovate UK transparency page.
Following the normal practice of Innovate UK, projects will not be required to deposit their self-reported outcomes in the Library of the House due to commercial confidentiality considerations.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they conduct fingerprint checks on (1) prisoners, (2) convicts and (3) those on remand, upon being released from prison.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) does not require fingerprint checks to be conducted routinely at the point of release for prisoners, convicted individuals, or those held on remand. Where biometric data, such as fingerprints, is available, it will be checked as part of identity assurance during release procedures. The same discharge policy applies to remand prisoners who are released following a court appearance.
Dame Lynne Owens is conducting an independent review which will consider whether current discharge processes are robust and make recommendations in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) appointments, (2) tests, and (3) operations, were delivered by independent providers for NHS patients in 2024–25.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Independent sector providers have a role to play in supporting the National Health Service as trusted partners to recover elective services by using additional capacity to tackle the backlog whilst delivering value for money.
Independent sector providers delivered 5,098,290 outpatient appointments in 2024/25. This includes first and follow-up appointments.
They delivered 2,099,923 tests in 2024/25. This includes only the 15 key diagnostic tests that form the Diagnostics Waiting Times and Activity dataset and excludes activity subcontracted from NHS trusts where responsibility for the pathway remains with the NHS trust.
There were 986,480 inpatient admissions in independent sector providers in 2024/25. This includes ordinary electives and day case electives.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question
To ask the Senior Deputy Speaker whether the Procedure and Privileges Committee has considered, or will consider, how members of the House of Lords can challenge the accuracy of statements made by Ministers on the face of the Bill under section 20(3) of the Environment Act 2021.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Following the passage of the Environment Act 2021 the Procedure and Privileges Committee added a factual paragraph to the 2022 edition of The Companion to the Standing Orders (now paragraph 8.28), which summarises the procedure laid down in section 20 of that Act. The Procedure and Privileges Committee has not sought to prescribe how noble Lords can challenge the accuracy of such statements, but all the normal procedures of the House, including asking written or oral questions, tabling questions for short debate and raising issues during proceedings on Government bills, are available to them.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the success of research projects funded through the Small Business Research Initiative regarding reform to occupational health services.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Projects funded through the Small Business Research Initiative have submitted self-reported outcomes to the Government for internal assessment. The reports suggest that the fund has helped to stimulate innovation in the occupational health market and encouraged the development of new models of occupational health tailored to the self-employed and small to medium enterprises with better use of technology.