Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether there will be a review of the Maritime Decarbonisation Strategy before the end of the current Parliament.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Maritime Decarbonisation Strategy, published in 2025, sets out our pathway to decarbonise the maritime sector by 2050. As set out in the Strategy, we committed to refresh it following adoption of the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) mid-term measures, known as the Net-Zero Framework, and within five years of publication. We continue to press for the IMO to adopt the Net-Zero Framework later this year and intend to publish an updated Strategy after this happens. The timing of any review will therefore be determined by the progress of negotiations at the IMO and the commitments set out in the Strategy.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to reduce the number of working days lost due to sick leave in the Civil Service.

Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

The Cabinet Office routinely benchmarks the Civil Service approach to employee sickness absence and health and wellbeing to ensure it aligns to best practice.

The Civil Service provides its employees with a comprehensive range of health and wellbeing tools, policies, and measures to ensure that employees remain in work or return to work as quickly as possible following absence due to ill health.

As part of the Civil Service People Plan 2024-27, the Cabinet Office is undertaking research to better understand and address the underlying factors behind mental health-related absence of civil servants.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps the National Cyber Security Centre is taking to reduce the (a) number and (b) severity of cyber attacks on UK businesses.

Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The National Cyber Security Centre works round the clock to reduce both the number and severity of cyber attacks affecting UK businesses through a combination of protective cyber defence interventions, practical guidance, incident management and cyber resilience programmes. Further detail about the NCSC's work can be found on its website at: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of progress towards meeting the target of 10% of UK aviation fuel required to be sustainable aviation fuel by 2030.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The latest SAF Mandate 2025 provisional statistical release was published on 13 May 2026. These provisional statistics show that, in 2025, over 2% of all reported aviation fuel supply was verified and unverified SAF. Whilst these statistics are provisional, and it is too early to assess levels of supply in 2030, they show a continued increasing trend of SAF supply growing in the UK. Final statistics for 2025 will be published in November.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many convictions of (a) murder, (b) attempted murder and (c) rape were (i) increased and (ii) decreased under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme in the last five years.

Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The number of convictions for murder, attempted murder and rape for which the Court of Appeal increased a sentence under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme in the last five years is set out below. No sentences for murder, attempted murder and rape were decreased under the scheme during this period.

(a) murder

2021

Increased: 8

Decreased: 0

2022

Increased: 5

Decreased: 0

2023

Increased: 0

Decreased: 0

2024

Increased: 6

Decreased: 0

2025

Increased: 3

Decreased: 0

2026 (to date)

Increased: 1

Decreased: 0

(b) attempted murder

2021

Increased: 3

Decreased: 0

2022

Increased: 0

Decreased: 0

2023

Increased: 0

Decreased: 0

2024

Increased: 0

Decreased: 0

2025

Increased: 1

Decreased: 0

2026 (to date)

Increased: 3

Decreased: 0

(c) rape

2021

Increased: 6

Decreased: 0

2022

Increased: 7

Decreased: 0

2023

Increased: 9

Decreased: 0

2024

Increased: 15

Decreased: 0

2025

Increased: 29

Decreased: 0

2026 (to date)

Increased: 13

Decreased: 0

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether she plans to expand the Knowledge Transfer Partnership scheme in this Parliament.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)

The Government is committed to supporting innovation and economic growth through programmes that strengthen collaboration between businesses and universities, including the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme. Opportunities for KTPs are open for applications across multiple funding rounds throughout 2025 to 2026 and beyond.

Within current plans, Innovate UK is investing £140 million in KTPs across the Spending Review. However, Innovate UK is continuing to develop its delivery plan for this Spending Review as part of delivering its new strategic prospectus and UKRI’s overall planning for Growth Sectors in support of the Industrial Strategy. How further KTP investment can support the Growth Sectors is being considered within that process.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what progress has been made regarding an International contract between the GCAP International Government Organisation and Edgewing.

Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The GCAP International Government Organisation signed an international contract with Edgewing on 3 July 2026 to progress the development and delivery of a next-generation combat aircraft.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of links between loneliness and mental health issues, particularly among younger people aged between 16 - 35.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)

Loneliness can be experienced by anyone at any time, however we know that certain groups are at higher risk, including those aged 16-34. Research also highlights that the relationship between loneliness and mental health issues can be bi-directional, with loneliness leading to poor mental health and mental health issues leading to loneliness. Mental health issues among young people have risen sharply over the past decade, and it is crucial that measures are put in place to address this.

This Government is taking significant action to tackle loneliness among young people, recognising its direct impact on mental health and wellbeing. In line with our commitment to raising the healthiest generation of children, our 10 Year Health Plan sets out how we will work with schools and colleges to better identify and meet children's mental health needs by continuing to roll out mental health support teams in schools and colleges, with an accelerated target of achieving full national coverage by the end of 2029.

Raising awareness and reducing stigma is a core part of our approach to tackling loneliness and improving mental health, including through the Better Health: Every Mind Matters campaign. We have also published the Social Connection Framework to help professionals identify boys and young men who are at risk and are working to ensure half a million more young people have access to a trusted adult outside the home by 2035. Alongside this, the £2.5 billion Youth Guarantee will create up to 500,000 earn-and-learn opportunities, recognising that being out of work increases the risk of isolation and loneliness.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate the Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation has made of any changes to the valuation of Libyan frozen assets in the past eighteen months.

Answered by Rachel Blake

The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, published in its 2024-2025 Annual Review that over £12.9 billion of assets relating to the Libya sanctions regime have been reported as frozen as of September 2024. This is an aggregated total of all entities and individuals listed on the Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets.

OFSI’s next Annual Review is due to be published later in 2026.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what was the breakdown by constituency in the past two years of assistance offered to businesses by the Investment Fund for Northern Ireland.

Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The British Business Bank does not specifically collect constituency data for businesses supported by the Investment Fund for Northern Ireland. As of December 2025, the British Business Bank announced that in the two years since its launch, the £70 million Investment Fund for Northern Ireland has directly invested £30 million into local firms. In addition, these investments into smaller businesses on differing stages of their growth journey have crowded in co-investment of around £45 million, bringing the total investment level to over £75 million.

Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, when he expects to receive a final report from the Robert Hamill Inquiry.

Answered by Hilary Benn

As I stated in my written ministerial statement issued on 7 July 2026, the inquiry panel has fulfilled its terms of reference and the checking process has been undertaken to meet obligations in relation to article 2 of the ECHR and national security. Given the time needed for the panel to finalise the text and to print the report, the final report will be published shortly after the summer recess.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to announce any changes to Access to Work by the end of 2026.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)

We have already taken steps to improve the Access to Work scheme, committing to recruiting and training nearly 500 additional staff. Recruitment has already started. New case managers will receive extensive training to handle complex applications with confidence.

We have engaged in extensive discussion with a wide range of stakeholders to develop a richer understanding of the challenges disabled people face and to make sure the needs of customers are met. The feedback from this engagement will be used to shape improvements to the scheme that better reflect the current needs of customers.

The Department regularly reviews schemes such as Access to Work to ensure we provide the best service to customers. Any improvements to Access to Work will be announced in advance of their implementation.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the answer of 2 July 2026 to WPQ 13776, whether any disposal assets were recovered from those four charities.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)

Charitable funds were recovered from three of the charities and were transferred to another charity or charities with similar objects (as required by the Charities Act 2011). One charity had no remaining assets that could be transferred.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the zero emission bus order pipeline will be reviewed and updated on an annual basis throughout the ten year period.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The zero emission bus order pipeline was published to provide greater long‑term certainty to the sector by setting out anticipated demand for new buses over a ten‑year period.

Through the UK Bus Manufacturing Expert Panel, partners have committed to keeping the pipeline under regular review, including updating the data at least twice per year to reflect the latest available information on expected bus orders.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the cost of Universal Credit payments were in 2024/25 and 2025/26.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government) (Equalities)

The department regularly publishes benefit expenditure and caseload tables and the latest benefit expenditure tables for Spring 2026 include annual Universal Credit expenditure from 2019/20 to 2024/25, with forecast figures provided for 2025/26. Outturn figures for 2025/26 will be published in due course.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, What funding will he make available for the National Institute for Health and Care Research Brain Tumour Research Consortium in the next financial year.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

We are committed to furthering our investment in brain cancer research and have already taken steps to stimulate scientific progress and build scientific capacity to do research on brain cancer.

In January 2026, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) announced increased investment of over £25 million in the NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium. This includes an initial investment of £13.7 million announced in December 2025, and a further investment of a minimum of £11.7 million through funding of work packages announced in January 2026.

Future payments will be issued over the period of the award contracts which range from five to 10 years, as per the schedule of payments agreed between the NIHR and the Consortium.

Information on all awards will be made publicly available in due course. The NIHR is working to ensure that new investments can get up and running as soon as possible.

In addition, the NIHR continues to strongly encourage brain cancer research applications through its regular funding opportunities.

Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, If he will have discussions with the Government of the Irish Republic on potential entitlement of victims of violence from Northern Ireland to compensation from that State as a result of collusion between illegal paramilitary groups and the legitimate forces of the Irish Republic.

Answered by Hilary Benn

It is clear that the participation of both the UK and Irish governments in legacy processes is vital if we are to achieve better outcomes for victims and survivors.

That is why the Joint Framework agreed between the UK and Irish governments in September 2025 includes significant commitments by the Irish Government, specifically the fullest possible cooperation with the Legacy Commission, the establishment of a dedicated unit within An Garda Síochána as a single point of contact for cross-border cooperation on Troubles related cases, and a financial contribution of €25 million.

In the UK, the Troubles Permanent Disablement Scheme provides payments for permanently injured victims of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Victims and survivors have also been able to obtain financial redress through civil proceedings - something that the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 sought to prevent, and which the Troubles Bill will reinstate.

The entitlement to compensation from the Irish Government for victims and survivors of alleged state collusion by the Irish authorities is a matter for the Irish Government. The UK Government will always support the right of victims of the Troubles to seek redress, including in the event that there is evidence of collusion by the Irish authorities.

Sam Neill

Phenylketonuria awareness and treatment access in Northern Ireland

30th anniversary of Christians Against Poverty