Question

To ask The Senior Deputy Speaker what is the cashflow time series of each costed proposal for the Restoration and Renewal programme and the discount rate and inflation rate assumed for each, including the timing and budgeted costing of major investments during the outlined time series.

Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

The Restoration and Renewal (R&R) Client Board’s recent report, Delivering restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster: the costed proposals (HC Paper 1576), sets out the costs for the four delivery options in several different ways, for example total programme costs, average annual costs and net present cost (page 121). The report is available at https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/51442/documents/285576/default/.

The timing and budgeted costing of major investments on the R&R Programme is best illustrated through the estimated spend profiles for each delivery option. The table below shows the estimated proportion of total Programme costs (excluding inflation and VAT, including opportunities), as set out in page 121 of the R&R Client Board’s report, in each 10 year period for the four R&R delivery options. These proportions are based on the shortest estimated programme schedules (P50) set out in the report (P50 is a confidence that the estimate will not be exceeded 50% of the time).

Table: Estimate percentage of total R&R programme spend in 10 year tranches to programme completion (P50, excluding inflation and VAT, including opportunities)

The R&R Client Board’s costed proposals report also presents total programme costs including inflation. Inflation is calculated using the estimated spend profiles in the table above and the inflation rates used are based on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Report (November 2024):

• 2024/25: 2.25%

• 2025/26: 2.75%

• 2026/27: 2.25%

• 2027/28: 1.75%

• 2028/29 onwards: 2% (flat rate)

The R&R Client Board’s report also presents net present costs for each delivery option based on discounted cashflow analysis. To ensure comparability, the net present cost is calculated over the same time horizon - 100 years – for all the delivery options. The cashflows used to calculate the net present cost for each option include: (a) the total programme costs set out in the report (including risk and optimism bias and opportunities but excluding inflation) which are consistent with the spend profiles in the table above; and (b) the annual estimated operational and lifecycle cost savings once the R&R Programme is concluded (an average of circa £45m per annum).

The net present cost has been calculated using discount rates in real terms in line with HM Treasury’s Green Book Guidance: 3.5% for years 1 to 30; 3% for years 31 to 75; and 2.5% for years 76 to 100.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what was the success rate for applications for Personal Independence Payment following (1) initial application, (2) mandatory reconsideration, and (3) tribunal appeal, for individuals with (a) mixed anxiety and depressive disorders, (b) mood disorders, (c) anxiety disorder, (d) substance use disorder, and (e) conduct disorder, between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2026.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The requested information for new claims under normal rules in areas under DWP policy ownership are included below. This data is for initial decisions between 1 April 2024 and 31 December 2025, the most recent date for mandatory reconsiderations and appeals data.

Table 1: award rates (%) for initial decision, mandatory reconsideration (MR), and appeal by condition subgroup.

Notes:

• There were insufficient appeals for claimants with conduct disorder for an appeal overturn rate to be meaningful.
• The rate for MRs is the percentage of cleared MRs which resulted in an award being changed.
• The overturn rate for appeals is the number of appeals that were overturned at a tribunal as a percentage of appeals which were cleared or lapsed (decision changed by DWP without going to a tribunal).
• The claimants’ primary conditions at the time of initial decision were used to categorise these percentages. Many PIP claimants have additional conditions which factor into the decisions made and claimants who have the listed conditions as supplementary conditions will not be included in the table.
• Percentages have been rounded to the nearest percentage point.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the (1) remuneration per day, and (2) total remuneration since appointment, of the (a) non-ministerial co-chairs, and (b) members, of the steering group of the Timms Review of Personal Independence Payment.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Information on the day rate is already available. Members of the Timms Review steering group will be paid at a rate of £300 a day, with an expected time commitment of up to 5 days a month. The Review’s two external co-chairs, who were appointed in October 2025, are paid at a rate of £400 a day, with the same expected time commitment.

The rates per month may vary.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government how the baseline and measures for the proposed assessment of growth by every postcode in the UK will be established.

Answered by Lord Pitt-Watson - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government's ambition is to support good growth across all parts of the United Kingdom. As set out in the Prime Minister's recent Machinery of Government Statement, No10 North will be responsible for driving good growth through devolution and working in close partnership with local leaders, businesses, and communities to strengthen place-based growth

The Government is considering how best to assess progress against its growth ambitions and will provide further details as policy development progresses.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government how residents in Northern Ireland will receive the VAT cut on electricity bills announced by the Prime Minister on 21 July.

Answered by Lord Pitt-Watson - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

The Government has announced a cut in VAT on electricity bills to give millions of households breathing space on the cost of living. These changes to VAT apply and are funded for this winter (from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027).

The Windsor Framework provides the legal basis and mechanism for changes to VAT on goods in Northern Ireland, and the Government has begun discussions about with the European Union on applying this mechanism for these changes.

To ensure that households in Northern Ireland receive the same support as quickly as the rest of the UK, the Northern Ireland Executive will receive comparable funding to enable it to support households in Northern Ireland with the cost of living this winter.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish the independent review into allegations regarding risk of blackouts during heatwaves make by whistle-blowers from the National Energy System Operator in July.

Answered by Baroness Curran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government takes this matter very seriously and welcomes both the independent review into whistleblowing allegations and the separate review into grid performance during the recent period of extreme heat. Transparency will be a central principle throughout.

The Minister for Energy wrote to the Chair of NESO urging the key findings of the independent report to be published once the investigation has concluded.

Separately, NESO's post-event analysis, and Ofgem's conclusions, will be published. This will be subject to limited redactions required to protect the anonymity of individual staff members, commercially sensitive information, national security matters, or other legitimate confidentiality considerations.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government which projects from the International Climate Finance fund will now receive a loan rather than a grant; and if the loans are not in the recipient country’s own currency, whether they will absorb the currency exchange rate risk for those loans.

Answered by Baroness Curran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government is switching £400 million of grant funding set aside for future international climate finance projects into loans, which could include projects such as the Tropical Forests Forever Facility. This provides more flexible ways to meet the Government’s international climate objectives.

The terms of any loan including the currency denomination and the treatment of any associated exchange rate risk, will depend on the final design of individual investments and will be considered in line with normal value for money and Official Development Assistance requirements.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the cost of changing the minimum Personal Independence Payment award to four years.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

In the Autumn Statement 2025 the then Chancellor announced three measures which will make operational improvements to health assessments to ensure people receive the right health or disability benefit, deal with the reassessment backlog for the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and ensure the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) system is sustainable: increasing face to face assessments across health and disability benefits, increasing WCA reassessment capacity and changing the frequency of PIP award reviews (AR). Together, this package of measures were scored by the OBR at the last Budget as set to deliver around £2 billion in savings over the scorecard.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many people work full time equivalent for the Independent Case Examiner; and what is its overall budget cost.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Currently 93.88 full time equivalents work for the Independent Case Examiner’s Office.

The overall costs for the 25/26 financial year were £4.8m.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Livermore on 8 July (HL1794), what is the source of the data provided, including a direct link to where it is published; and what is the quarterly breakdown of the annualised data provided from Q1 2016 to Q1 2026.

Answered by Lord Pitt-Watson - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Real household disposable income (RHDI) is reported by the ONS as part of the UK Economic Accounts, available here: UK Economic Accounts - Office for National Statistics. Due to quarterly volatility, RHDI per capita is best suited to annual comparisons. The previous response noted that RHDI per capita was £26,159 in 2019 (Q1 2019 to Q4 2019), compared to £26,187 in the year to Q1 2026 (Q2 2025 to Q1 2026).

The quarterly data is provided in the table below:

Notes on the data: RHDI per capita is calculated by dividing real household disposable income (ONS variable NRJR) by total population (ONS variable EBAQ).

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the announcement by the Prime Minister's Office of 22 July, Cheaper travel for millions with a third off fares, whether any part of the UK's contribution to the Green Climate Fund will be provided in the form of loans rather than grants; if so, how much funding is affected; and what the terms of the loans will be.

Answered by Lord Wood of Anfield - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) uses a combination of grants and other instruments, including loans, as most appropriate to deliver the intended outcomes and provide the best value for money. No existing FCDO International Climate Finance programmes have been switched from grants to loans linked with the recent announcement of £2 bus fares.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the announcement by the Prime Minister's Office of 22 July, Cheaper travel for millions with a third off fares, whether funding allocated to the Congo Basin Pledge will be provided in the form of loans rather than grants; if so, how much funding is affected; and what the terms of the loans will be.

Answered by Lord Wood of Anfield - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) uses a combination of grants and other instruments, including loans, as most appropriate to deliver the intended outcomes and provide the best value for money. No existing FCDO International Climate Finance programmes have been switched from grants to loans linked with the recent announcement of £2 bus fares.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by the Prime Minister on 2 July (HCWS180), what safety protections are in place for the functioning independence of the Office for Nuclear Regulation after its transfer to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, recognising that as it is not a non-ministerial department, ministerial directions can be issued.

Answered by Baroness Curran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Office for Nuclear Regulation was established under the Energy Act 2013 and will remain an independent public corporation. This change does not affect their statutory basis, legal powers or regulatory decisions.

Ministers do not intervene on matters of regulatory decision making. The extent to which Ministers can direct the ONR is set out in the Act and under Section 108 of that Act, any Ministerial direction is reported to Parliament on an annual basis.

Question

To ask The Senior Deputy Speaker what advice was given to the decision-makers on the reasons for and rationale behind suspending proceedings and evacuating the House of Lords while the Chamber was sitting on 2 July.

Answered by Lord McLoughlin

The Senior Deputy Speaker has asked me, as Chair of the Services Committee, to respond on his behalf. Key stakeholders including the Clerks, both Speakers and the Chief Whips were advised that a full evacuation of the Palace of Westminster, including both Chambers while sitting, was necessary to test processes under realistic conditions and to assess the effectiveness of existing fire evacuation arrangements. The advice reflected a requirement identified by the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate following an inspection in November 2024 that a full test of the Palace’s evacuation procedures should be undertaken at a busy time and occupancy. Previous drills had taken place on a non-sitting day, when only minimal numbers of staff, members and visitors were present.

The exercise was intended to respond to the Crown Premises Fire Safety Inspectorate recommendation, familiarise Members and staff with evacuation procedures, test arrangements for disabled and other vulnerable people, evaluate the effectiveness of training and fire safety systems, and identify any lessons to strengthen future emergency preparedness.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many houses have been built on land owned by Homes England in each year since 2022.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

I refer the noble lady to the answer given on 17 July 2026 to Question HL1623 (attached).

Since 2022/23, Homes England has supported the delivery of 17,014 homes on land owned by the Agency.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many acres of land Homes England owns.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

I refer the noble lady to the answer given on 17 July 2026 to Question HL1623 (attached).

Since 2022/23, Homes England has supported the delivery of 17,014 homes on land owned by the Agency.