Asked by: Amanda Hack (Labour - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of (a) using (i) sustainable urban drainage systems and (ii) similar mechanisms to manage rainwater on site of new developments and (b) allowing rainwater to flow into sewers on (A) storm outflows, (B) treatment processes and (C) the environment.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Comparative and impact assessments of the type requested are not currently available. This is primarily because the design of Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) for any given development site will depend on a range of factors, including topography of the site, development size, development type, and rainfall rates.
SuDS provide a range of benefits. They mimic natural water flow and are designed to reduce the impact of rainfall by using features such as soakaways, grassed areas, permeable surfaces and wetlands. This reduces the pressure on our drainage infrastructure by reducing the quantity of water that ends up in the sewers and storm overflow discharges, mitigating flood risk and preventing pollution from untreated sewage ending up in our waterways.
SuDS also improve the quality of water entering our drainage infrastructure as they offer a natural filtration process, thereby removing pollutants. SuDS provide additional benefits, such as boosting biodiversity, improving local amenities, harvesting rainwater for reuse, heat island mitigation, improve air quality and even providing food growing opportunities.
Asked by: Amanda Hack (Labour - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what comparative assessment his Department has made of the cost of (a) using sustainable urban drainage systems to manage rainwater on site of new developments and (b) allowing this rainwater to flow into sewers.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Comparative and impact assessments of the type requested are not currently available. This is primarily because the design of Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) for any given development site will depend on a range of factors, including topography of the site, development size, development type, and rainfall rates.
SuDS provide a range of benefits. They mimic natural water flow and are designed to reduce the impact of rainfall by using features such as soakaways, grassed areas, permeable surfaces and wetlands. This reduces the pressure on our drainage infrastructure by reducing the quantity of water that ends up in the sewers and storm overflow discharges, mitigating flood risk and preventing pollution from untreated sewage ending up in our waterways.
SuDS also improve the quality of water entering our drainage infrastructure as they offer a natural filtration process, thereby removing pollutants. SuDS provide additional benefits, such as boosting biodiversity, improving local amenities, harvesting rainwater for reuse, heat island mitigation, improve air quality and even providing food growing opportunities.
Asked by: Gregory Stafford (Conservative - Farnham and Bordon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will take steps to encourage Forestry England to introduce disabled parking spaces in the Bourne Woods car park, Surrey.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 11 November 2024, UIN 12353.
Asked by: Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat - Westmorland and Lonsdale)
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 26 March 2025 to Question 39816 on Nitrogen Dioxide: Pollution Control, whether his answer is consistent with the 2023 National Compliance Assessment.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The answer to Question 39816 was based on a combination of data from the 2023 national compliance assessment and additional local monitoring data that does not typically meet the requirements for formal national reporting but was included in the response for completeness. The national assessment is designed to meet the location and data quality requirements of the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010 which seek to represent general exposure to air pollution, rather than local pollution hotspots. For this reason, the answer to Question 39816 captured some additional locations where nitrogen dioxide concentrations in 2023 were above 40µg/m3.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions he has had with his Turkish counterpart on reports of social media and internet bans in that country.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government has raised recent events with the Turkish Government and the Foreign Secretary spoke with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on 29 March to express the UK's concern. As a staunch supporter of media freedom around the world, the UK expects Turkey to uphold its international commitments and the rule of law, including protecting the fundamental rights to free speech and media freedom.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 9 April 2025 to Question 43516: Maternity Services, whether he has set a deadline for (a) outcome and (b) progress measures in the three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal care.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England’s three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal care services was published on 31 March 2023 and implementation of the objectives is due to run for three years until March 2026. Progress is monitored through the plan’s technical guidance, which sets out how progress will be tracked at a national level against the four key themes of the plan.
Due to the complexity of maternity and neonatal care and the need for robust validation, some of the outcome data is significantly lagged and will not be fully available within the lifetime of the plan. Much of this data is published by external organisations beyond NHS England.
Although the delivery plan spans three years, its objectives are intended to enable services to deliver improvements in care that will lead to sustained, long-term improvements in outcomes and experiences for women, babies, and families.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the average time taken for Serco to tag (a) priority one critical offenders and (b) people classified as likely to offend.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Serco’s performance has been unacceptable, and we will not hesitate to impose further penalties if our high-performance targets are not met and performance does not improve. There are regular meetings between the Minister for Prisons and Probation and the CEO of Serco to impress upon him the need for improvement.
The contract contains strict time bound service levels within which all equipment installations for all electronic monitoring orders must take place. In addition, the small number of national security cases and those requiring more intensive monitoring plus Domestic Abuse Perpetrators on Licence and those with Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPO) are prioritised. Electronic monitoring orders are identified by order type and terms such as priority one critical offenders and people classified as likely to offend are not used.
Asked by: Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour - Clapham and Brixton Hill)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment she had made of the adequacy of Serco's performance; and if she will undertake a review of it's electronic tagging contract.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Serco’s performance has been unacceptable, and we will not hesitate to impose further penalties if our high-performance targets are not met and performance does not improve. There are regular meetings between the Minister for Prisons and Probation and the CEO of Serco to impress upon him the need for improvement.
The contract contains strict time bound service levels within which all equipment installations for all electronic monitoring orders must take place. In addition, the small number of national security cases and those requiring more intensive monitoring plus Domestic Abuse Perpetrators on Licence and those with Domestic Abuse Protection Orders (DAPO) are prioritised. Electronic monitoring orders are identified by order type and terms such as priority one critical offenders and people classified as likely to offend are not used.
Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what information her Department holds on the number of TV license payers in each of the last five years.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The BBC is responsible for collection of the TV licence via TV Licensing. TV Licensing publishes the number of licences in force in its Annual Review, which can be found here: https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/our-performance-AB6
Asked by: James Frith (Labour - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans she has to consult on reforms to press regulation.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government currently has no plans to consult on reforms to press regulation.