Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate her Department has made of the average time spent by businesses with turnover below £250,000 on VAT compliance, including preparing returns and maintaining records.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC does not estimate the administrative cost to businesses with a turnover below £250,000 for processing and submitting VAT returns, as the cost can vary between businesses, regardless of their turnover. Administrative costs are largely dependent on their individual business processes and the nature and complexity of their record keeping.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential implications of the Land Use Framework for balancing infrastructure development with environmental targets.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Framework’s focus on more informed decision making, including spatial targeting, shows how we can meet our homes and infrastructure goals while supporting nature recovery.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what criteria she will use to determine national spatial priorities under the Land Use Framework.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Land Use Framework informs decision-makers at all scales of spatial planning to identify areas to be safeguarded for agriculture or prioritised for nature, and to find the right areas for development and infrastructure.
The Framework will support a more strategic approach to spatial planning, which will help to manage trade-offs at a local level to ensure land use change is coherent and fair, and takes account of local knowledge and values.
Publishing the Framework was the first step. This year we will establish a Land Use Unit to put the framework into action and share updated analysis online.
Asked by: Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to match the current funding level of £11.6 billion for climate finance in the developing world over the past five years for the next five years; and whether they intend to maintain and protect the previously ringfenced portion of that finance for nature-based solutions.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
Over the next three years, the UK will spend around £6bn of ODA as International Climate Finance (ICF). We will balance support between mitigation and adaptation and maintain a focus on nature. By using different instruments and levers, we will aim to generate an additional £6.7bn of UK backed climate and nature positive investments and to mobilise billions more in private finance.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 taking to support controlled‑environment agriculture, regenerative farming and other sustainable methods.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has allocated a record £11.8bn to sustainable farming and food production over this parliament. Defra is targeting public money where it delivers most value, supporting farmers and land managers to help restore nature and boost farm productivity. Support includes the Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for 2026, which will be more focussed, more transparent and fairer, so that as many farmers as possible can benefit from agreements. It will open in two windows, the initial window from June 2026 being for small farms and farms without existing Environmental Land Management revenue agreements.
Defra will reopen the Capital Grants offer in July. This new round will make £225 million available to farmers to buy equipment or services that help them make farming and environmental improvements across England.
Defra has also announced £120 million will be available in farming grants for 2026 to boost productivity and innovation across the agricultural sector.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
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 taking to protect domestic agriculture from climate‑related risks including flooding, heat stress and soil degradation.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is targeting public money where it delivers most value, supporting farmers and land managers to help restore nature and boost farm productivity, which in turn protects food security and builds resilience to climate change.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive offer for 2026 will be more focussed, more transparent and fairer, so as many farmers as possible can benefit from agreements.
Defra’s Capital Grants offer, opening later this year, will offer funding for a wide range of items, including natural flood management measures.
Landscape Recovery projects awarded development funding in rounds one and two continue to progress towards the delivery phase. Three projects are now in their implementation phase. This includes Evenlode Project, which will allow the river to reconnect with its floodplain, reducing flooding and improving habitats for wildlife.
Defra has increased the Internal Drainage Board (IDB) Fund to £91m, benefitting over 400,000 hectares of farmland and over 200,000 properties.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average staffing complement is for a ministerial private office within their Department; what grades those staff are appointed at; what the typical remuneration and contracted working hours are for those posts; and what the staff turnover rate is.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The size and set-up of each ministerial private office can vary significantly, as they are often determined by the specific requirements and nature of the workload involved at any given time. This flexibility ensures that each office is best equipped to meet its unique responsibilities and demands.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 11 February 2026 to Question 110396 on Strategic Migration Partnership: Finance, for what reason her Department does not currently publish funding levels to Strategic Migration Partnerships.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not publish the amounts due to the sensitive nature of the grant scheme.
Previous years funding can be found here Government Grants Data and Statistics Government grants data and statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Pippa Heylings (Liberal Democrat - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of Environmental Land Management schemes in supporting nature-friendly farming and species recovery.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Environmental Land Management schemes have seen high levels of uptake by the farming sector with 50,000 farm businesses and over half of all agricultural land involved in schemes. Detailed uptake of each action in schemes is published here Agri-environment scheme uptake data - GOV.UK.
We have a large-scale monitoring programme that is assessing the impact of schemes on a range of indicators and environmental outcomes at the appropriate timescales for these types of biological responses. This report summarises some of the latest monitoring and evaluation of government agri-environment schemes: Agri-Environment Evidence Annual Report 2024-2025: A summary of recently published project reports - NERR165.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to take steps to prevent local authorities from charging disproportionately high businesses parking permits in car parks.
Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
Local authorities are best placed to determine the nature and scope of parking policies across their area. Through the Traffic Management Act 2004, local authorities must ensure that their parking policies are proportionate, support town centre prosperity, and reconcile competing demands for space whilst ensuring traffic moves freely and quickly on their roads and the roads of nearby authorities.