Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of support available to schools who wish to decarbonise their buildings but who currently do not have the means to do so.

Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The department recognises that decarbonising the school estate is an important part of meeting the government’s net zero commitments.

The Great British Energy Solar Partnership (GBESP) programme is supporting 250 schools and colleges to decarbonise by investing £100 million on solar panels and other energy efficiency and net zero interventions including LED lighting and electric vehicle chargers.

We are providing support for all schools and colleges to start on their journey towards net zero through our Sustainability Support Programme, which includes an online platform of guidance, tools and resources to help schools plan and deliver climate action available here: https://www.sustainabilitysupportforeducation.org.uk/.

The publicly available Department for Energy Security and Net Zero commissioned schools decarbonisation guidance, along with tools and checklists developed by Energy Systems Catapult can be found here: https://es.catapult.org.uk/tools-and-labs/public-sector-decarbonisation-guidance/developing-your-strategy/schools-resource-hub/. We will be issuing guidance to school settings in spring 2026 to help schools plan future retrofit and adaptation strategies to support decarbonisation and good education outcomes using their estates effectively.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress his Department has made on implementing the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme, with up to £150 million expected to be allocated to, or aligned with it, aims to speed up the development of new treatments for dementia and neurodegenerative conditions by accelerating innovations in biomarkers, clinical trials, and implementation. This is co-chaired by Hilary Evans-Newton CBE and Professor Nadeem Sarwar.

So far, the programme has invested approximately £100 million into biomarker innovation projects, experimental medicine studies, and clinical trial infrastructure. This covers a broad range of biomarker technologies and studies to help researchers, patients, and industry partners work together to better understand how dementia begins and progresses. This amount also supports the Medical Research Council’s Dementia Trials Accelerator which aims to embed more innovation in how clinical trials are designed and delivered in order to increase the speed and quality, while driving down the cost of large-scale trials, as well as the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s UK Dementia Trials Network which seeks to speed up early-stage clinical trials.

The programme is now setting up the Neurodegeneration Initiative, which will be a globally unique, not-for-profit, industry led, public-private partnership with charitable status, that will work together across the Government, industry, academia, the National Health Service, and third sector, and will deliver the programme’s remaining objectives.

90th anniversary of the Spitfire

Cumulative disruption proposals and the right to protest

Deregistration of international non-governmental organisations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

British forces on the front line in Afghanistan

Import of illegal meat

Brain cancer

Somerset Bus Partnership and Bus Users UK Awards 2025

Iran protests

Found: Watch the meeting Members present: Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Chair); Mr Clive Betts; Rachel Gilmour

Found: Cotswolds) (Chair) Mr Clive Betts (Labour; Sheffield South East) Anna Dixon (Labour; Shipley) Rachel Gilmour