Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how he plans to (a) quantify and (b) measure the impact of new developments on biodiversity.

Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Grants of planning permission for new development, unless exempt, are now subject to biodiversity net gain, requiring developers to achieve a 10% increase in biodiversity compared to the value of the site before the development proposal. Developers must use the statutory biodiversity metric to measure and quantify how they will achieve the 10% net gain.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to speed up proceedings within the Family Court system; and what initiatives are being implemented to enhance the digitisation of documents and processes.

Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

Delays in the court process can have a significant impact on children and families. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is committed to improving timeliness of cases and reducing the outstanding caseload.

The Family Justice Board agreed system-wide national targets for reducing delay in 2024/25. These are focused on closing the longest running cases in private and public law, resulting in a reduction of the private law cases by 10% and increasing the proportion of public law cases concluded within the statutory 26-week timeframe.

The HMCTS Reform Programme has introduced several new digital services within the Family Courts, enhancing and automating the administration of family court orders. These services encompass Divorce, Financial Remedy, and Public Law Proceedings. Currently, HMCTS is piloting a new digital service for private law proceedings, aiming to replicate the administrative improvements seen in other family services. This service is scheduled to be implemented across England and Wales by the end of 2025.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he plans to take to use the increase in defence spending to boost British supply chains; and what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure strategic alignment and capitalise on economies of scale in key sectors.

Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The additional investment in defence announced by the Prime Minister on 25 February 2025 and by the Chancellor in the 2025 Spring Statement will both protect UK citizens from threats and create a secure and stable environment in which businesses can thrive, supporting the Government’s number one mission to deliver economic growth. This includes maximising jobs, growth, skills and innovation in the UK.

This Government is bringing forward a Defence Industrial Strategy that will ensure a strong Defence sector and resilient supply chains across the whole of the UK. The Statement of Intent for the Defence Industrial Strategy, published in December 2024, set out a commitment to prioritising UK businesses for investment and boosting sovereign capacity.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is working closely with other Government Departments to align strategic objectives in key sectors, for example through the wider cross-Government Industrial Strategy. The Strategic Defence Review will also determine the roles and capabilities required by UK Defence to meet the challenges and threats of the twenty-first century.

The MOD is already actively improving the capabilities of the UK’s Defence sector and supply chains through initiatives such as the Defence Supplier Capability Development Programme and the new support hub for small and medium enterprises that the Prime Minister announced on 3 March 2025.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of pursuing a new status with the European Union that would allow the United Kingdom access to the single market in exchange for providing security assurances and establishing a framework for reasonable, yet non-binding, regulatory alignment.

Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office

We are committed to strengthening our relationship with the EU to make the UK safer, more secure and more prosperous, including through negotiating a Security and Defence Partnership with the EU. We have been clear that there will be no return to the single market, the customs union, or freedom of movement.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that people in safeguarding roles are continuously educated on the evolving gang culture lexicon.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)

The relevant statutory guidance, Working Together to Safeguard Children (2023), is clear that children at risk of harm outside the home should receive a multi-agency safeguarding response. The guidance also makes clear that all practitioners working with children and families need to understand their role in identifying emerging problems and need appropriate training so that they are able to identify and recognise all forms of abuse, neglect, and exploitation and remain aware of new and emerging threats.

A robust safeguarding framework is in place that schools and colleges must have regard to in the form of the statutory guidance ‘Keeping children safe in education’ (KCSIE). The guidance is clear that every school must have a designated safeguarding lead (DSL) who should take lead responsibility for safeguarding and child protection. DSLs are required to undergo the training needed to provide them with the knowledge and skills required to carry out their role effectively within their school and community context, including how to identify, and respond to both vulnerabilities and specific harms that put children at risk, including serious violence and the risk of criminal exploitation.

In addition, the Government is committed to tackling the gangs that lure children and young people into criminality and exploitation which is why through our Crime and Policing Bill, we are introducing a new offence of child criminal exploitation. Through the County Lines Programme, we are targeting exploitative drug dealing gangs and providing specialist support for children and young people to escape county lines and child criminal exploitation. To increase awareness of county lines exploitation amongst those best placed to spot it, frontline professionals can access guidance on how to identify potential victims of county lines and appropriate referral routes: Criminal exploitation of children and vulnerable adults: county lines - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to promote membership of the Cadets programme for young people.

Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) actively supports and promotes membership of the Cadet Forces, and we are keen to attract more cadets. The MOD sponsors five Cadet Forces which offer young people fantastic opportunities to develop key skills which independent research has found can literally be life changing.

The Cadet Forces are active on social media with regular posts often generated at local level by individual units. These can be accessed on a range of popular platforms including Facebook and Instagram and further information about local units and how to join is also available on the Cadet Forces’ websites.

In addition, the Cadet Force headquarters run national or regional marketing campaigns to encourage young people to join the Cadets by showcasing the benefits for personal development, adventure, friendship and fun. A recent example of this is the ‘Be More with the Army Cadets!’ national recruitment campaign which was launched in August 2024.

Beyond national and local level recruitment and awareness campaigns and activities, the MOD publicises Cadets through specific events – for example the cadet engagement event held at Frimley Cadet Training Centre in April.

We continue to invest significantly in the Cadet Forces with independent research showing that the cost of Cadets is fully covered if the life outcomes of just 1% of cadets change each year so that they are in education, training, or employment.

We want more young people to benefit from the Cadet experience, and we are currently undertaking a review – closely aligned with the wider Strategic Defence Review – to determine how we can grow the size and the offer of the Cadet Forces.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to support workers at NHS England in Leeds with job losses; and how he plans to ensure the retention of talent and skills necessary to effectively deliver the future developments for the NHS.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

My Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, recognises the talented, dedicated public servants working across the country, and at every level, of NHS England and the Department.

The Government is committed to Leeds being the second headquarters for the Department and its role in supporting Leeds to be a leading centre in the United Kingdom for health technology and innovation.

Found: MP Health and Social Care Alan Strickland MP Education Emma Foody MP Education Katie White