Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support NHS staff working in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The health and wellbeing of all National Health Service staff is a top priority. Local employers across the NHS have arrangements in place for supporting staff, including occupational health provision, employee support programmes, and a focus on healthy working environments. At a national level NHS staff have access to the SHOUT helpline for crisis support alongside the Practitioner Health service for more complex mental health and wellbeing support, including trauma and addiction.
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will roll out staff treatment hubs to ensure all staff have access to high quality occupational health support, including for mental health. To further support this ambition, we will work with the Social Partnership Forum to introduce a new set of staff standards for modern employment, covering issues such as access to healthy meals, support to work healthily and flexibly, and tackling violence, racism, and sexual harassment in the workplace.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to reduce water bills for (a) households and (b) businesses in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Bill payers are understandably concerned that bills have risen. For too long, investment has not kept pace with the challenges of an ageing infrastructure system, a rapidly growing population, and climate change. Over the next four years, water companies will deliver substantial and enduring improvements for customers and the environment through a £104 billion upgrade for the water sector. This investment will accelerate improvements in infrastructure to meet these challenges, secure our water supply, and to meet new environmental requirements.
We are working to ensure that both business and household consumers can reduce their bills through decreasing their usage, including by pursuing a Mandatory Water Efficiency Label, smart meter rollout acceleration and a review of water efficiency standards in the Building Regulations.
All companies have measures in place for customers struggling to pay for water and wastewater services, and the Government expects industry to keep support schemes under review to ensure customers across the country are supported.
It is important that support is targeted at the most vulnerable. We have therefore acted decisively by consulting on reforms to WaterSure, which caps bills for low-income households in England with higher essential water use due to a medical condition or a large family. The Government also doubled compensation payments paid to consumers for service failures through the Guaranteed Standards Scheme.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department is taking to reduce energy bills for (a) households and (b) businesses in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Martin McCluskey - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The affordability crisis is the biggest issue facing this country. That is why the Autumn Budget acted to take £150 of costs off people’s energy bills. This support comes on top of the £150 off energy bills provided for around 6 million families under the Warm Home Discount this winter, cutting fuel poverty. We’re also driving forward with home upgrades, with £1.5 billion increased capital in this Budget for our Warm Homes Plan.
This Government is tackling energy costs at every avenue, to drive growth. This builds on our Modern Industrial Strategy, which is slashing industrial energy bills by up to £420million for electricity-intensive businesses and will cut costs for 7,000 more businesses in 2027.
We are repairing a broken energy system. Funding more of the investment we need from public spending is the right and progressive thing to do and takes pressure off bills.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he is taking steps to encourage public bodies to prioritise the purchase of produce from (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government has set a clear ambition for half of all food purchased across the public sector to be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards within legal constraints. The Government is undertaking work to ensure we can deliver on this ambition, including to improve our understanding of what food the public sector currently buys and where it comes from. The Government has already published a new national procurement policy statement which sets expectations for Government contracts to favour products certified to higher environmental standards. The Government believes that high-quality British producers, including those based in South Holland and the Deepings constituency and Lincolnshire, will be well-placed to meet these standards.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much OFWAT has spent on translation and interpretation services in each of the last five years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Ofwat has spent a total of £74,983 on translation and interpretation services in the last five financial years. This expenditure is for translating key documents into Welsh given Ofwat’s role as the water regulator for England and Wales.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to help improve the accessibility of pavements for (a) blind and (b) visually impaired people in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
It is the responsibility of local authorities to manage their roads, including pavements, and to ensure this is done in a way which allows them to comply with the Public Sector Equality Duty.
The Department provides good practice guidance on designing accessible pavements in Inclusive Mobility: A Guide to Best Practice on Access to Pedestrian and Transport Infrastructure.
This is available at:
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the capacity of GP services to meet demand in Lincolnshire.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practice (GP) capacity is tracked through national datasets using several key metrics, such as the number of appointments offered each month and overall workforce levels. Patient feedback is gathered regularly through annual and monthly surveys. Lincolnshire scored below the national average in the most recent annual survey, but the latest monthly results show performance broadly in line with the national average. There is variation between practices within the integrated care board (ICB), influenced by factors such as operating models, population demographics, recruitment challenges, and access to other health and care services. To address this, the ICB is supporting practices through its local support offer and the national Practice Level Support programme, helping to manage demand and optimise capacity and access. Assessing demand and capacity remains complex, but these proxy metrics suggest Lincolnshire is broadly aligned with the national picture. As part of the national GP pilot, where Lincolnshire is one of 11 sites, we are exploring ways to optimise demand and capacity further.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will publish all document titles from the Merlin database that have been declassified by the Atomic Weapons Establishment.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
All document titles from the Merlin database that have been declassified will be published. Over 4,700 records from the Merlin database are currently listed and accessible on The National Archives (TNA) website. Records are being regularly transferred from AWE to TNA who will make them available at the earliest opportunity.
Guidance on accessing these records can be found at: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/records-of-veterans-of-nuclear-testing-the-contents-of-the-merlin-database/
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the proportion of food served in state schools in England that is sourced from British (a) farms and (b) other food producers.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Schools are responsible for their school meals service and how and where they choose to buy their produce. We encourage schools to provide a wide range of foods using fresh, sustainable locally sourced, seasonal ingredients including produce from the school vegetable garden where possible.
Alongside this, we encourage schools to follow the Government Buying Standard for food and catering, which includes advice around procurement and sustainable sourcing of produce.
We aim to revise the School Food Standards and are engaging with stakeholders to ensure they support our work to create the healthiest generation of children in history and will be consulting publicly in due course. As part of this work, we will review our guidance on sourcing good quality produce.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to prevent immigration rules abuse where people on tourist visas claim asylum.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
All visitors must be able to demonstrate that they are genuine and will leave the UK at the end of their visit. The Visitor route is not intended to facilitate individuals travelling to the UK with the intention of claiming asylum. Visitor visa applications are rigorously assessed against the Immigration Rules.
We are committed to further strengthening the integrity of visa decision making by continuing to apply greater scrutiny to those where there is evidence to demonstrate a greater risk of an asylum claim once in the UK — ensuring that visas are only issued to genuine visitors.
This government has also taken decisive action to address instances of individuals using visa-free travel to reach the UK and claim asylum. As a result, we have introduced visa requirements for Jordan, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Botswana. Where we have data available (the requirement for Botswana was only introduced on 14 October 2025) this action has been extremely effective: asylum seekers from Jordan, Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago have fallen by 93% and asylum seekers at port have fallen by 99% from their peak prior to the introduction of a visa requirement compared to Q3 2025.
Where countries are not cooperating on the return of their nationals who have no right to be in the UK, including failed asylum seekers, we will not hesitate to use the visa system (particularly visit visas) to bring about better cooperation. As announced on 17 November, we have told Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia that if they do not comply with international rules and norms, we will impose visa penalties on them.
Unless other countries heed this lesson, further sanctions will follow.
Any asylum claim that is then subsequently lodged from within the UK and admitted to the UK asylum system, is given full and careful consideration. Our approach is to promptly consider asylum claims, with a rapid appeals process, so that claims from genuine asylum seekers can be accepted, and those that are not, can be rejected.
The Government’s recently published Asylum Policy Statement sets out significant reforms to the UK’s asylum and illegal migration system. The Statement outlines the current challenges, the Government’s objectives, and a comprehensive package of measures to restore order, control, fairness and public confidence in the system.