Written Statements

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Written Statements

Tuesday 28 April 2026

United Kingdom Trade Envoy Programme

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Trade (Chris Bryant)]

The Secretary of State for Business and Trade has today made the following appointment to the United Kingdom’s trade envoy programme.

The United Kingdom’s trade envoys are important to this Government’s growth agenda. They support Ministers to deliver trade and investment outcomes within the industrial and trade strategies and attract foreign direct investment across UK regions.

Working in close partnership with our ambassadors, high commissioners, and His Majesty’s trade commissioners, trade envoys support deeper bilateral trade relationships, lead trade missions, welcome inward delegations, and address market access challenges to ensure British firms can compete and succeed.

The role as a United Kingdom trade envoy is unpaid and voluntary with cross-party membership from both Houses.

The Secretary of State is pleased to appoint:

The hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) as the United Kingdom’s trade envoy to the Republic of Korea.

Today’s appointment means there are now 32 trade envoys focusing on 73 markets.

[HCWS1544]

State of the Estate in 2024-25

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister without Portfolio (Anna Turley)]

I have today laid before Parliament, pursuant to section 86 of the Climate Change Act 2008, the “State of the Estate in 2024-25”.

This report describes the progress made in improving the efficiency, sustainability and performance of the central Government estate.

The report confirms that the central Government estate comprised 203,400 assets in 2024-25. This included 181,100 built assets and around 22,400 land assets. The built estate had a total floor area of 159.1 million square metres, while the Government also held 640,400 hectares of land. The freehold value of the estate increased by 9.1% to £208.4 billion.

For the central Government estate within the scope of the greening Government commitments, the following changes were reported through that framework against the baseline 2017-18 financial year: by 2024-25, overall emissions had reduced by 42.1%, with energy costs reduced by an estimated £323.6 million.

Annual running costs reduced by 0.9% to £26.6 billion, despite continued inflationary pressures across utilities, maintenance and facilities management. Costs remain concentrated in a small number of operationally intensive portfolios, particularly health, defence and schools.

Efficiency savings reached £750 million, surpassing the £500 million target a year early, with the Government also raising £2 billion from property disposals ahead of time.

The “State of the Estate” report is published on an annual basis.

[HCWS1546]

Armoured Cavalry Programme

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (Luke Pollard)]

I am releasing this statement to the House today to provide Parliament with a further update on the armoured cavalry programme, commonly known as Ajax, following issues raised on exercise Titan Storm in November 2025.

Since my last update to this House, where I provided the findings of the ministerial review, the Army Safety Investigation Team (ASIT) investigation has now completed its investigation. ASIT’s findings indicate no single causal mechanism of the symptoms reported by our soldiers but rather a combination of multiple factors. Specifically on noise and vibration, levels were found to be below legal exposure limits. Instead, these symptoms were likely the result of a combination of factors, including technical issues related to platform conditions at the time of the exercise—such as incorrect track tension and loose or missing engine deck bolts—alongside environmental and human factors, including variability in training and experience, cold exposure, and air quality within the Ajax vehicle itself.

The independent expert panel review remains ongoing, with a final report due soon, and will focus on the less well understood human and environmental factors relevant across defence more broadly.

In January this year I updated this House on the ministerial review, which examined the quality of advice that Ministers, senior officials and military leadership across the MOD received. On receiving further advice from the MOD’s permanent secretary, we commissioned a further independent review to explore this issue. I can confirm that the terms of reference have been agreed and a lead reviewer has been identified and will be appointed shortly.

The safety of our people is non-negotiable. That is the standard our armed forces deserve, and it is the standard this Government will uphold.

I can confirm today that all personnel have now returned to normal duties following exercise Titan Storm. The majority of soldiers who felt ill during this exercise suffered from temporary symptoms and with the ASIT report concluding that there was no single causal factor for the symptoms experienced by the soldiers, I have now agreed to restart the acceptance of vehicles from General Dynamics. However, I accept that the experience for our soldiers using Ajax has not been good enough and that is not acceptable.

I have implemented strict new controls on the reintroduction of the Ajax vehicles that is focused on providing a significantly improved user experience.

Given that the issues presented on exercise Titan Storm, and to ensure the safety of our personnel, I can confirm that the 23 vehicles on the exercise will be treated separately and will not be put back in the hands of soldiers until we have confirmed that it is appropriate to do so.

We have been engaging extensively and directly with our soldiers throughout this process—their experiences matter and they are shaping much of what we do next. As a result, we are considering a phased approach to restarting the Ajax programme.

The first phase will include the restarting of trials using the current version of Ajax. A limited number of vehicles will be used and under very controlled circumstances and maintenance regimes.

The second phase will see the delivery of a number of improvements relating to the use of air filtration, crew compartment heating, and the electrical power generation system—key themes identified and prioritised following exercise Titan Storm.

In addition to these improvements, we will further bolster the safety approach to the Ajax programme. Taking lessons from the aviation industry, we will instigate an approach which will instil a common thread between design, maintenance and operation.

Included as part of that work, there will be named individuals within the Army chain of command who will hold the separate responsibilities for operating and maintaining the vehicle. This is to ensure there cannot be instances where desire to operate a vehicle within the chain of command compromises the necessity for the highest standards of safety. That is why any return to training will also be very controlled with a crawl-walk-run staged progression ensuring safety is paramount throughout.

Using the information gathered from our soldiers, we will continue to proceed safely, responsibly, and transparently to deliver an improved Ajax vehicle for our soldiers.

While we are proceeding cautiously with Ajax, we know we have more to do to rebuild confidence in the vehicle, and we do not underestimate the work still ahead. We aspire to deliver a vehicle into service that is effective on the battlefield and works for our soldiers.

We will continue to work with General Dynamics to proceed safely, responsibly, and transparently to deliver an improved Ajax user experience for our soldiers. The above commitments will be met within the existing programme scope and financial envelope.

As I have done, I will continue to keep the House closely updated on the progress of the programme.

[HCWS1545]

Afghan Resttlement Programme

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (Luke Pollard)]

Today I am able to provide the House with a further update on the Afghan resettlement programme, as we continue to make good progress towards our intent of concluding the programme in this Parliament. This statement provides an update to the House on: the progress that the Ministry of Defence is making with eligibility decisions; the changes to how we deliver relocations for Afghans under the programme; and resettlement in the UK.

Since closing all schemes to new applicants in July 2025, we have made good progress with the application pipeline—falling from circa 25,000 outstanding applications in July to now fewer than 17,000—and are publishing quarterly key performance indicators to hold ourselves to account and ensure maximum transparency. We aim to have made all decisions in the current caseload by spring next year.

I announced last month that we have concluded the Triples review.

We have also now initiated the closure of the review of the ex-gratia medical payments scheme. The scheme was set up in 2020 to provide support to former locally employed staff in Afghanistan who were injured during their employment with the MOD. In 2020, the MOD initiated a process for reviewing the EGMP cases relating to individuals who wish to have their cases reassessed. Further detail on this is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ex-gratia-medical-payments-reviews.

Having closed ARP schemes to new applicants last year and as we work to draw ARP to a close, we estimate there are fewer than 9,000 eligible persons still to relocate to the UK. This is in part because we are finding far fewer applicants meet the eligibility criteria than in the years after the scheme opened.

As part of the commitment to relocate and resettle those found eligible under the ARP schemes, the MOD has been using a third-party organisation to support individuals moving out of Afghanistan. This support has been aimed at ensuring eligible individuals and their families can safely and legally reach a UK visa application centre in a third country to progress through their Home Office entry clearance stages.

This year, however, more eligible Afghans have self-moved to a third country. Having seen increased evidence of successful self-moves and after assessing carefully again the risks to this cohort and other factors, including the value for money for the taxpayer, we have decided to end in-country assistance for movements out of Afghanistan. This decision will have the effect of more closely aligning the Afghan relocations and assistance policy and the Afghanistan response route with the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which is based on a self-move policy. We will keep the ARP support offer under review as the context evolves.

Eligible Afghans will need to make their own way to a third country when they are able to do so. We are contacting all those immediately impacted by this change.

I want to reassure eligible Afghans that once they reach a safe third country, we maintain provision of our current support until 2028.

As I previously reported to the House, we cannot sustain ARP support indefinitely. To enable us to deliver on our ambitions to conclude this programme well within this Parliament and for us to prepare sensibly for the transition of ARP resources to other defence priorities, we intend to:

Enforce the provision within the immigration rules that requires eligible individuals to attend a VAC appointment within 12 months—save for exceptional circumstances; and

Introduce a backstop of December 2028 for the MOD’S support in third countries, including submission of entry clearance applications to the Home Office. Save for exceptional circumstances, December 2028 will therefore mark the end of relocations to the UK.

As set out by the Defence Secretary in his statement to Parliament on 18 December 2024, it remains the Government’s aim to reduce the reliance on the defence estate as transitional accommodation.

The defence estate has played a vital role in providing transitional accommodation for Afghan families in recent years, enabling them to begin their new lives in the safety of the UK. But the use of the defence estate for the ARP was never intended to be a long-term solution. We have therefore ceased to run transitional sites on the defence estate, with the small number of Afghans remaining in transitional accommodation now supported by local authorities. We are also piloting an approach which empowers local authorities to make tailored decisions on where and how ARP households are accommodated, which will bring positive community outcomes. The MOD is committed to reducing the number of service family accommodation properties being used as settled accommodation and ending their use by the end of 2028.

The small number of hotels procured to help with transitional pressures also play a valuable role in providing safe and secure accommodation for Afghans as they begin their new lives in the UK. However, with a better sense of numbers yet to relocate and the strong progress made in moving those already here into settled accommodation, I can confirm we have started to reduce the use of hotels and will have closed two of six by this May.

I want to take the opportunity to thank our partners in local government and other supportive local organisations, who have, and continue to provide critical support to eligible Afghans in the resettlement process to date.

I want to restate the Government commitment to work with all those involved in ensuring that the ARP delivers on our commitment to resettle those eligible Afghans, many of whom who do so much in support of the UK and contribute to our communities and economy.

I remain confident in progress towards our goal of concluding central Government delivery of this programme well before the end of this Parliament and believe the measures we have taken and set out in this statement will help us deliver on that. I will continue to keep the House updated accordingly.

[HCWS1547]

Contingencies Fund Advance

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)]

I hereby give notice of the Ministry of Justice’s intention to seek an advance from the Contingencies Fund totalling £1.7 million.

This follows the introduction of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, currently going through Parliament, and which we anticipate will receive Royal Assent by autumn 2026.

Accessing the Contingencies Fund allows the Department to manage the expenditure associated with developing a digital system for the Legal Aid Agency to effectively administer the provision of legal aid under the provisions of the Bill, which will expand the scope of legal aid for inquests. This expenditure will ensure that we are able to implement the legal aid provisions of the Bill as quickly as possible following Royal Assent. The expenditure will also mean that we develop this system in a way that ensures the continuing recovery and effective operation of existing legal aid digital systems and protects work under way to deliver transformed digital systems for legal aid.

Parliamentary approval for resource of £1.7 million for this new service will be sought in a main estimate for Ministry of Justice. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £1.7 million will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund. The cash advance will then be repaid upon receiving Royal Assent of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill.

[HCWS1543]