Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Hinckley and Bosworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to WPQ 110045 titled 'Nature Conservation: Crime,' answered on 10 February 2026, what recent conversations she has had with the National Wildlife Crime Unit about the effectiveness of their intelligence, analysis and investigative assistance to tackle wildlife crime in [a] England and [b] Leicestershire.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office worked in partnership with Defra to support the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) in delivering their Rural and Wildlife Crime strategy for 2025-28. The Strategy – which was published on 25 November -provides a framework through which policing, and its partners can work together to tackle the most prevalent threats and emerging issues including wildlife crime.
We also fund the National Wildlife Crime Unit who provide intelligence, analysis and investigative assistance to forces and other law enforcement agencies across the UK to support them in investigating wildlife crime. Throughout the grant agreement period, we hold regular official‑level meetings to discuss progress, engagement and delivery.
We are ensuring forces have the tools and resources they need to deal with rural crime including wildlife crime. We have hit our target of 3,000 more neighbourhood officers in March – and our target remains 13k by the end of the parliament
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the sufficiency of Ofcom's sufficient powers and resources to tackle a specific website linked to over 135 UK deaths and to prevent future sites with the same nature.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Secretary of State has been clear Ofcom has full backing to use its enforcement powers and welcomes its investigation into extremely harmful suicide forums.
Ofcom’s provisional decision published on 27 February is clear that unless its concerns are fully addressed, it will consider using all of the powers available to it, including, in most serious cases of non-compliance, imposing business disruption measures.
One of the first things the Secretary of State did in the job was to make self-harm a priority offence under the Online Safet Act, triggering the strongest possible legal protections. She has been clear she will not hesitate to go further if needed and regularly talks to Ofcom about ensuring enforcement is strong.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to maximise UK food security in the context of climate instability.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Steps being taken to maximise food security in the context of climate instability include:
An £11.8 billion allocation to deliver sustainable farming and food production over this parliament. This includes increasing spend on nature-friendly farming, with Environmental Land Management Schemes to £2bn by 2028/29.
£120 million in funding, starting this year, to improve productivity, trial new technologies and drive innovation across the agricultural sector.
£70 million of this funding has been allocated to Farming Innovation Programme grants, supporting investment in new technologies to boost Britain’s food security.
Defra investment, with the Met Office Hadley Centre, in the Food, Farming and the Natural Environment programme strengthen the evidence base on adaptation options and identify and evaluate key adaptation measures to improve agri-food sector, resilience.
Asked by: Jessica Morden (Labour - Newport East)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what mechanisms were in place to ensure that Feed‑in Tariff registrations were correctly assigned to homeowners at commissioning; and what support is available to consumers where feed-in tariffs were not correctly assigned.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Ofgem administers the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme and maintains the Central FIT Register (CFR), which records accredited installations and their recipient, supporting correct assignment of payments. Suppliers must maintain accurate records on the CFR, which is subject to regular audit activity.
In some cases, payments may be assigned to a third party under separate contractual agreements. Such arrangements are commercial in nature and fall outside the FIT framework.
To confirm the recipient, homeowners may request information from Ofgem via an Ownership Register Query. Where appropriate, they may raise the matter with the relevant supplier, with unresolved complaints escalated to the Energy Ombudsman.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take, if any, to introduce private finance to farming and nature recovery budgets.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra published the Land Use Framework in March this year. The Framework set out the steps Government will take to increase private demand for the environmental services that farmers and land managers provide and ensure that public payments can be combined with private payments as recommended by the Corry Review.
The Landscape Recovery (LR) scheme pilot phase will help Defra understand how much private finance projects are able to secure from private nature markets and what areas of projects that funding supports. Defra will apply that learning across LR and other schemes where appropriate.
Defra will publish the Farming Roadmap later this year. It will set out the role of private finance alongside public funding in supporting farms to profitably meet environmental outcomes and increase long term productivity.
Asked by: Lord Roborough (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve monitoring of the Marine Protected Area network.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Working with statutory nature conservation bodies, this Government is processing options to improve monitoring of the English Marine Protected Area (MPA) network including through use of modern technology. Defra secured increased funding in this year’s Spending Review to support expanded ecological surveys, non‑intrusive monitoring methods, and enhanced satellite‑based compliance monitoring. This will support enforcement and evidence to inform future management measures.
Defra and its arm’s‑length bodies are also investing, in innovative approaches such as automation, remote data collection and environmental DNA. This aims to support more cost‑effective and holistic assessment of environmental change and MPA effectiveness. Defra is jointly funding a pilot collaborative survey through the Centre for Seabed Mapping to generate high‑resolution data in priority MPAs, fill evidence gaps, and test scalable models for future UK marine monitoring and innovation.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number of homicide incidents in each of the last 12 months which involved a suspect who had been a patient of an NHS mental health trust within the preceding six months.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England commissions the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicides and Homicides (NCISH) which has two functions in relation to homicides. First, it reports a count of homicides by people in the care of mental health services. Second, it does research into suicides and homicides, with the aim of helping to identify opportunities for improvements to clinical care in order to improve safety.
The ‘count’ of patient homicides by people under the care of mental health services, is not real-time, and there is a delay between the incident occurring and the incident being included in this national data. This is because an incident can only be confirmed as a mental health homicide when a judicial process has determined whether a homicide has been committed and by whom, as well as the nature of the crime.
In line with the national Patient Safety Incident Response Framework, in addition to local provider led safety reviews, any reported homicides/suspected homicides involving mental health patients are shared for review by regional NHS England teams, to establish whether an independent investigation is also required. Those requiring independent investigation are commissioned by regional teams.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the answer of 11 March 2026 to question 118315 on USA: RAF Akrotiri, what is the scope of the permissions the US have been granted to use RAF Akrotiri.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
As the Defence Secretary previously stated, the UK has agreed to a US request for permission to use RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia for specific defensive purposes to destroy Iranian missiles and launchers at source.
For operational security reasons, we do not offer comment on information relating to foreign nation’s military operations. Permissions to utilise UK military bases are considered on a case-by-case basis and the decision to grant permission is dependent on the nature and purpose of their activity.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how schools are encouraged to teach students about the long-term environmental impact of human activity.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
The Curriculum and Assessment Review recommended an enhanced focus on climate education and sustainability, with detailed engagement and earlier sequencing in subjects such as geography, science, design and technology, and citizenship. The government has accepted these recommendations and is committed to improving climate education in the national curriculum.
Curriculum content is only part of the picture, and the method of teaching also has an important role to play through the use of climate and nature related resources.
The National Education Nature Park provides free, quality‑assured, curriculum‑aligned resources, filterable by key stage. By participating in the National Education Nature Park and developing robust climate action plans, schools can help children and young people see real-world connections to their studies.
Asked by: David Taylor (Labour - Hemel Hempstead)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of poor HGV facilities on the incidence of fuel theft from commercial vehicles; and what steps she is taking to protect UK hauliers and national supply chains.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Fuel theft undermines businesses and their workers. We are equipping the police to fight the organised crime gangs which can drive this theft nationally. Our £5m investment into OPAL, (the police national intelligence unit who focus on serious organised acquisitive crime) will supercharge intelligence-led policing to expand its capability to tackle freight crime, identify offenders, and disrupt the tactics used to in addition to bringing more criminals to justice.
We recognise that fuel theft is often organised, mobile and cross-border in nature. Through police reform this Government will address these challenges, reforming the policing system to ensure crime that operates across force boundaries is met with a strong national and regional response.
Through the creation of a new National Police Service, policing will benefit from stronger national leadership, consistent standards and improved coordination to tackle serious and organised crime. This will strengthen the collective response where criminals operate across multiple police force areas.