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 improve treatment options for glioblastoma.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Brain tumours, including glioblastoma, remain one of the hardest to treat cancers. The Government is taking action to improve treatment options and outcomes.

Research is crucial in tackling cancer, which is why the Department invests over £1.6 billion per year in research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). In October 2025, a new nationwide trial exploring whether surgery can improve quality of life for patients when glioblastoma comes back after treatment commenced, backed by £1.98 million of NIHR funding. 

Further to this, in September 2024, the NIHR announced new research funding opportunities for brain cancer research, including glioblastoma, spanning both adult and paediatric populations. This includes a NIHR Brain Tumour Research Consortium, to ensure the most promising research opportunities are made available to adult and child patients, and a new funding call to generate high quality evidence in brain tumour care, support, and rehabilitation.

The Government supports Scott Arthur’s Private Members Bill on rare cancers which will make it easier for clinical trials into rare cancers, such as glioblastomas, to take place in England by ensuring the patient population can be easily contacted by researchers.  This will ensure that the National Health Service will remain at the forefront of medical innovation and is able to provide patients with the newest, most effective treatment options and ultimately boost survival rates.

Early next year, the Government will publish a National Cancer Plan which will set out targeted actions to reduce lives lost to cancers, including rarer cancers such as glioblastoma.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many GPs have left NHS practice since July 2024.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Overall, between July 2024 and October 2025, the number of fully qualified, full-time equivalent (FTE) general practitioners (GPs) increased by 1,687.

In the period covering September 2024 to September 2025, the latest period for which the data is available, 2,825 fully qualified, FTE GPs left general practice, a loss of 1,817. The leaver rate for fully qualified GPs in headcount terms was 7.5%, which is the fourth lowest rate observed since this data began to be collected in September 2015 to September 2016.

The figure does not capture GP migration between practices during this period. Due to data quality issues, a GP recorded as a leaver in these figures may have left one practice and joined another practice with poor data completion. In instances such as this, a GP will be incorrectly recorded as a leaver due to the identifying information no longer being present in the dataset. The figure does not contain estimates for practices that did not provide fully valid records.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department plans to require Environmental Impact Assessments to be carried out for all rural solar farm developments with a generating capacity below 50 megawatts.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Projects with a generating capacity of 100MW and less are considered under the provision of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

Under the Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2017, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is required only for certain types of development.

An EIA may be necessary where the local planning authority determines that the development is likely to give rise to significant environmental effects, having regard to matters such as scale, location, and environmental sensitivity.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether his Department plans to amend planning regulations for solar farm applications to require greater consideration of local residents’ views.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Planning regulations require local planning authorities to publish all planning applications for a minimum of 21 days to allow communities to provide their comments. Where relevant planning considerations are raised by local residents within this period these must be taken into account by the local planning authority. The weight attached to a particular consideration is a matter of judgement for the local authority as the decision-maker in the first instance. The government has no plans to amend this procedure specifically for solar farm applications.

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