Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 potential impact of the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill on the ability of UK-resident graduates of UK medical schools who studied at overseas campuses to work in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medical Training (Prioritisation) Bill was introduced to Parliament on 13 January 2026. The bill delivers the Government’s commitment in the 10-Year Health Plan for England, published in July 2025, to prioritise United Kingdom medical graduates for foundation training, and to prioritise UK medical graduates and other doctors who have worked in the National Health Service for a significant period for specialty training.
Subject to the parliamentary passage of the bill, British citizens who have graduated from medical schools outside of the UK will not be prioritised for foundation training places, and a graduate from a medical school in the UK or Ireland will not be prioritised if they spent the majority of their time studying outside the British Islands.
For specialty training places starting in 2026, NHS experience is being represented by immigration status as people with a settled immigration status are more likely to have worked in the NHS for longer. The effect of this is that British citizens and those with certain other immigration status will be prioritised. For specialty training posts starting from 2027 onwards, this provision will not apply automatically. Instead, it will be possible to make regulations to specify additional groups who will be prioritised, where they are likely to have significant experience working as a doctor either in the NHS in England, Scotland or Wales, or in health and social care in Northern Ireland, or by reference to their immigration status.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will review the three-year freeze on the salary threshold for student loan repayments announced in the 2025 Budget.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The income threshold above which repayments are required for Plan 2 loans will remain at its 2026/27 financial year level of £29,385 up to April 2030, and will increase annually with the Retail Price Index thereafter. This change will help to ensure the system remains sustainable in the long term and is able to continue benefitting future generations of students.
Borrowers remain protected as repayments are determined by income, not the amount borrowed. If a borrower’s salary remains the same, their monthly repayments will also stay the same. Lower-earning graduates will continue to be protected, with any outstanding loan and interest written off at the end of the loan term.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's document entitled A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: statement and accompanying consultation on earned settlement, updated on 28 November 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of a retrospective application of the proposed changes to settlement rules on people currently on a five-year settlement pathway, including on lower income households and groups with protected characteristics.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The earned settlement model, proposed in ‘A Fairer Pathway to Settlement’, is currently subject to a public consultation, running until 12 February 2026.
The consultation seeks views on whether there should be transitional arrangements for those already on a pathway to settlement. Transitional arrangements refer to temporary measures or rules put in place to manage the shift from one system, or policy framework, to another. Details of the earned settlement model, including any transitional arrangements for those already in the UK, will be finalised following that consultation.
The final model will also be subject to economic and equality impact assessments, which we have committed to publish in due course.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent discussions she has had with her US counterpart on the proposed UK ban of trophy hunting imports.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Baroness Hayman met with a United States Government representative in July 2025 to discuss the UK Government’s proposed ban on imports of hunting trophies.
The Government committed to a ban on the import of hunting trophies in its manifesto and will deliver on this.
The department engages constructively with a range of stakeholders, including other Governments, to understand different perspectives and ensure that we can implement a robust ban.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the (a) average and (b) longest waiting time was for a driving test in Eastleigh constituency in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The attached Excel Spreadsheet shows the (a) average and (b) longest waiting time in weeks at driving test centres (DTC) that serve the Eastleigh constituency, for the financial years 2015/16 to the financial year to date (YTD).
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of publishing national dementia outcomes for neighbourhood health services and requiring integrated care boards to demonstrate timely access to specialist, community-based dementia support.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England already collect and publish data about people with dementia at each general practice in England, to enable National Health Service general practitioners (GPs) and commissioners to make informed choices about how to plan their dementia services around patients’ needs.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities Dementia Intelligence Network has also developed a tool for local systems, which includes an assessment of population characteristics such as rurality and socio-economic deprivation. This enables systems to investigate local variation in diagnosis and take informed action to enhance their diagnosis rates. The tool is available via the NHS Futures Collaboration platform.
This Government is empowering local leaders with the autonomy they need to provide the best services to their local community, including those with dementia. That is why we have published the D100: Assessment Tool Pathway programme, which brings together multiple resources into a single, consolidated tool. This will help simplify best practice for system leaders and help create communities and services where the best possible care and support is available to those with dementia. The D100: Pathway Assessment Tool is available at the following link:
We are making progress on building a National Care Service based on higher quality of care, greater choice and control, and joined-up neighbourhood services, with around £4.6 billion of additional funding available for adult social care by 2028/29 compared to 2025/26.
We are strengthening join-up between health and social care services, so that people experience more integrated and person-centred care, by developing neighbourhood health services and reforming the Better Care Fund. This will be fortified by improved national data and digital infrastructure to ensure health and care staff can access real-time information to improve the safety and quality of care.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
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 with the Secretary of State for Education, to provide mental health and wellbeing support to young carers in Eastleigh constituency.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country, including children and young people’s mental health services.
As prioritised in our Medium-Term Planning Framework, we are taking action to reduce the longest waits for specialist mental health support, tackling regional disparities, and expanding access, thereby making services more productive so children and young people spend less time waiting for the treatment they need.
We are also accelerating the rollout of Mental Health Support Teams in schools and colleges to reach full national coverage by 2029. As part of this, we are investing an additional £13 million to pilot enhanced training for staff so that they can offer more effective support to young people with complex needs, such as trauma, neurodivergence, and disordered eating. An additional 900,000 children and young people will have access by this spring, and this means that 60% of all pupils will have access to this early support at school, up from 44% in Spring 2024.
More widely, we are, rolling out Young Futures Hubs. The Government’s first 50 Young Futures Hubs will bring together services at a local level to support children and young people, helping to ensure that young people can access early advice and wellbeing intervention. We will work to ensure there is no wrong door for young people who need support with their mental health.
Through measures in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are equipping and supporting carers by making them more visible, empowering their voices in care planning, joining up services, and streamlining their caring tasks by introducing a new ‘MyCarer’ section to the NHS App.
NHS England is supporting the identification of young carers and has recently published guidance for general practitioners. NHS England is also utilising data to help support greater join-up between health, education, and social care.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of establishing a Neighbourhood Transport Grant to provide ringfenced, long-term funding for community transport organisations, allocated through strategic or local transport authorities, to support the reopening of bus routes.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has made no assessment of establishing such a grant. However, the Government is investing in bus services long-term and has confirmed over £3 billion from 2026/27 to support local leaders and bus operators to improve bus services for millions of passengers over the remainder of the spending review period.
This includes multi-year allocations for local authorities under the Local Authority Bus Grant (LABG) totalling nearly £700 million per year, ending the short-term approach to bus funding and giving councils the certainty they need to plan ahead to improve services for local communities.
Hampshire County Council will be allocated £45 million under the LABG from 2026/27 to 2028/29, in addition to the £14.1 million they are already receiving this year. Funding allocated to local authorities to improve services can be used in whichever way they wish to deliver better services for passengers, including expanding services and improving reliability or investing in community transport schemes.
Furthermore, community transport operators are eligible to claim the Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG), the Department makes available up to £3.8 million each year through the BSOG to community transport operators. The BSOG is a grant paid to operators of eligible commercial bus services and community transport organisations to help them recover some of their operating costs.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the number of neighbourhood police officers in Eastleigh.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Every community deserves visible, pro-active and accessible neighbourhood policing with officers tackling the issues that matter to them. That is why £200 million has been made available in 2025/26 to support the first steps towards delivering 13,000 more neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of this Parliament. Of the £200 million available, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary were allocated £5,187,776 with a projected growth of 65 FTE neighbourhood police officers in 2025/26.
Published management information shows as at 30 September 2025, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary have grown by 99 FTE neighbourhood policing officers since March 2025. It is important that forces continue to boost visible policing and ensure the workforce is shaped to meet modern crime demands.
Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what his planned timetable is for implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 103549 on 14 January 2026.