Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is planning to take to ensure that practices around River Friendly Farming are included under the new Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
SFI includes a number of actions to support rivers, such as BFS6 (“6m to 12m habitat strip next to watercourses”).
The Government is also supporting river restoration through Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT), Landscape Recovery (LR), and ELM Capital Grants:
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including incentives for river friendly farming in the new Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
SFI includes a number of actions to support rivers, such as BFS6 (“6m to 12m habitat strip next to watercourses”).
The Government is also supporting river restoration through Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT), Landscape Recovery (LR), and ELM Capital Grants:
Asked by: Ellie Chowns (Green Party - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to increase funding for River Friendly Farming practices under the new Sustainable Funding Incentive.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
SFI includes a number of actions to support rivers, such as BFS6 (“6m to 12m habitat strip next to watercourses”).
The Government is also supporting river restoration through Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier (CSHT), Landscape Recovery (LR), and ELM Capital Grants:
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make an assessment of the additional jobs that will be required in the reuse and repair sectors as the UK moves to a more circular economy.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to transitioning towards a circular economy where resources are kept in use for longer and waste is designed out. This systemic change, with investment in green jobs and vital infrastructure, builds a path to economic growth, progress towards Net Zero, restoration of nature, and a more resilient economy.
We intend to publish a Circular Economy Growth Plan that sets out how the Government will deliver a more circular and more prosperous economy. The Plan will set out the biggest opportunities to support growth in sectors right across the economy, including: agri-food; built environment; chemicals and plastics; electrical and electronic equipment; textiles; and transport. It will consider critical enablers including skills and infrastructure.
Defra recognises that fostering green skills, including those needed for repair and reuse, is a fundamental tenet of any circular economy, and a successful transition aims to deliver on strengthening our current green workforce as well as developing the new green skills we will need for the future. We will consider the evidence for appropriate action right across the economy as we develop the Plan.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to take steps to help ensure the provision of green skills to deliver a more circular economy.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is committed to transitioning towards a circular economy where resources are kept in use for longer and waste is designed out. This systemic change, with investment in green jobs and vital infrastructure, builds a path to economic growth, progress towards Net Zero, restoration of nature, and a more resilient economy.
We intend to publish a Circular Economy Growth Plan that sets out how the Government will deliver a more circular and more prosperous economy. The Plan will set out the biggest opportunities to support growth in sectors right across the economy, including: agri-food; built environment; chemicals and plastics; electrical and electronic equipment; textiles; and transport. It will consider critical enablers including skills and infrastructure.
Defra recognises that fostering green skills is a fundamental tenet of any circular economy, and a successful transition aims to deliver on strengthening our current green workforce as well as developing the new green skills we will need for the future. We will consider the evidence for appropriate action right across the economy as we develop the Plan.
Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what work is being undertaken by her Department to identify cross-sector infrastructure interdependencies and single points of failure affecting the transport network.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Transport is one of the UK’s 13 Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sectors. Given the cross-sector infrastructure interdependencies, resilience across CNI, including transport, is critical to the UK.
My department is taking forward work to deliver the transport implications of the UK Government Resilience Action Plan, published July 2025, recognising the complex and interdependent nature of our critical transport operations. This includes carrying out a Criticalities Review; working with partners across the transport sector and government to improve our understanding of the interdependencies and single points of failure affecting the transport network. This will enable us to develop robust and informed measures to mitigate the risks and build resilience within the system.
Furthermore, as committed within the recently published Climate Adaptation Strategy for Transport, the department is developing guidance to support transport operators to identify their upstream interdependencies and the cascading failures associated with climate risks.
Asked by: Jayne Kirkham (Labour (Co-op) - Truro and Falmouth)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will introduce regular testing of approved breast implants to ensure continued compliance with safety standards.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under existing medical device regulations, UK Medical Devices Regulations 2002, all medical devices must meet the Essential Requirements, which includes the use of designated standards that specify mandatory safety and performance criteria for those devices. As breast implants are the highest class medical device, class III, they must undergo rigorous pre-market testing by the manufacturer, which is then assessed by a third party such as a United Kingdom approved body or European Union notified body, before being registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and prior to being placed on the market in the UK. Once on the market, the manufacturer must continuously review the safety of their devices. The manufacturer is subject to annual surveillance and monitoring, alongside unannounced audits to ensure claimed standards of quality and safety management are being applied in practise. The MHRA also monitors emerging signals to determine if previously unrecognised risks exist or if the nature of known risks is changing.
Following the Cumberlege recommendations in the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, the MHRA has introduced post-market surveillance regulations to require that safety issues with medical devices are identified early. Further information on the review is available at the following link:
The MHRA is also developing a future regulatory framework to strengthen pre-market requirements for medical devices. This intends to introduce requirements for unique device identifiers, implant cards, and new rules to ensure that claims are consistent with intended purpose to better reflect potential risks to patients, increase containment of safety issues, and reduce patient harm.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if he will make it his policy to amend electoral law to introduce statutory guidance for Returning Officers to protect the secrecy of the ballot in polling stations, including steps to stop practices of so-called family voting.
Answered by Samantha Dixon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Electoral Commission is responsible for providing Returning Officers with guidance on the administration of elections; they provide extensive advice, including how polling staff should respond if they suspect offences are being committed, such as family voting. The Commission’s performance standards for Returning Officers also specifically include ensuring polling stations are set up and staff are trained to support voters to vote independently and in secret.
While the vast majority of people vote lawfully, any instance of coercion into revealing the nature of somebody’s ballot is illegal, unacceptable and undermines confidence in our democratic process. We will continue to work with electoral administrators and the Electoral Commission to ensure that that our polls are run smoothly, fairly, and securely.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to ask the Department, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2026 to Question 115602 on Nature Conservation: Planning Permission, what guidance her Department issues to Natural England on assessing hydrological risks to wetland Sites of Special Scientific Interest when providing advice on major housing developments.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This is determined by various legislation and the National Planning Policy Framework.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2026 to Question 115602 on Nature Conservation: Planning Permission, what monitoring requirements are required for developments located near hydrologically sensitive wetlands.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Any monitoring requirement would depend on the nature of both the development and the wetland’s protected status.