My Lords, the Diego Garcia military base is essential to the security of the UK and our allies and to keeping British people safe. As we have repeatedly made clear, the agreement we have is vital for protecting our national security, guaranteeing the long-term future of a vital base for the UK and US which had been under threat. That is why the US and President Trump welcomed this deal in the spring and all our Five Eyes allies support it: they understand the security capabilities that the base provides.

There is considerable debate and uncertainty around Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), but the possibility of their development must be taken seriously. The increasing capabilities of AI may exacerbate existing risks and present new risks, for which the UK need to be prepared.

The role of the AI Security Institute (AISI) is to build an evidence base on these risks, so the government is equipped to understand them. AISI focuses on emerging AI risks with serious security implications, including the potential for AI to help users develop chemical and biological weapons, and the potential for loss of control presented by autonomous systems.

The 2013 regulations were introduced by the Conservative-led Coalition government to ensure the Director of Public Prosecutions’ pension scheme is uprated in line with other public service pension schemes.

My Lords, I understand the noble Lord connecting the two things, but Ministers will take all material planning considerations into account when the final decision is made. Planning Ministers must take decisions following the quasi-judicial process that applies to planning, meaning that they must take decisions fairly based on evidence and planning rules. The Government are committed to the probity of the planning process at all levels to ensure robust and evidence-based decision-making, and this is a decision for the MHCLG Planning Minister, independent of the rest of government.

My Lords, it is unacceptable that the Peers’ Entrance does not operate as it should. The commission has directed urgent work to resolve this. The commission agreed an exception to release the costs of the work at Peers’ Entrance, particularly as much of the cost relates to building and infrastructure works. The total cost has been £9.6 million. The cost to remedy defects will not be borne by the House and will be met by Parliament’s contractors.

Hare coursing or poaching are not crimes which the police must record and notify to the Government. Where violence or intimidation are part of any hare coursing or poaching the most common crimes that could be recorded would be violence with injury, violence without injury or public order crimes where threats are used. However, there is no means of identifying if these are connected to hare coursing or poaching and for this reason the Government does not hold the information.

Defra holds no official statistics on the number of hares shot in England each year and therefore makes no official estimate. We are however aware of a number of estimates made by stakeholder groups which range markedly from the low tens of thousands to the low hundreds of thousands.

There has been a historic decline of brown hares in Britain, predominantly shown through the game bag records, but there is some uncertainty about whether that decline is continuing. The British Trust for Ornithology’s Breeding Bird Survey (Heywood et al, 2025), which records mammals as well as birds, shows an increasing trend of 47% in the English population of brown hare between 1996 and 2023. However, other sources, such as the game bag records and A Review of the Population and Conservation Status of British Mammals (Mathews et al, 2018), consider the population to be stable.

Mountain hares, which became extinct in England around 6,000 years ago, were translocated from Scotland to the Peak District National Park in the 1870s. They are now showing a continuing decline in population and a recent study by Bedson et al (2025) has shown a decline of 58% over seven years from 3,562 hares to 1,038 hares (2017-2024), putting them at risk of another extinction in England.

The Cabinet Office does not hold this information and complying with this request would incur a disproportionate cost to the department.

The design for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre was chosen because it is sensitive to the heritage and existing uses of Victoria Tower Gardens, and includes enhancements that will help all visitors, including better pathways and improved access to existing memorials.

In considering the planning application, the independent Inspector looked in detail at matters such as the impact on the Gardens and existing Memorials.  He concluded that any harms to heritage assets or open space were outweighed by the public benefits of the scheme.

The independent planning Inspector who considered the planning application for the proposed Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, took into account all evidence; including pre-application advice from Historic England in its capacity as statutory advisor, guidance from (International Council on Monuments and Sites - heritage advisors to UNESCO) and statements from the World Heritage Committee.

The assessment in the Inspector’s 2021 report was that: “…the proposed UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre would not result in compromise to the Outstanding Universal Value of the World Heritage Site because it does not harm it or its setting, thus conserving it.” Whilst the inspector's assessment pre-dates the Committee's decision relating to the 2021 State of Conservation Report, there was no substantive change in the Committee's position which reiterated earlier statements.

The Abingdon fence installation was competitively procured by both Houses of Parliament through parliament’s framework supply-chain and benchmarked against other fencing projects within Parliament. For security reasons, the Houses do not publish capital expenditure on security mitigating projects as providing this level of detail could enable an individual to infer the extent and nature of the works, and thus the vulnerabilities which they were intended to mitigate.

The Ministry of Defence takes the security of defence assets very seriously, and is working with other Government Departments to understand and mitigate any potential threats to national security from vehicles. Our policies and procedures take account of the potential threats from all types of vehicle, not just those manufactured in China, and we have issued appropriate internal direction to all drivers and passengers.

There are no centrally mandated policy restrictions on the movement of Chinese manufactured vehicles. We are aware that individual defence organisations may have stricter requirements relating to electric vehicles on some sites, but we do not provide specific details for security reasons.

The Director of Security for Parliament is a bicameral role, but for administrative purposes is employed by the House of Commons. The salary of the Director of Security is published alongside other Commons Executive Board members in the annual accounts of the House of Commons. In 2023-24 the salary and benefits in kind of the Director of Security were £140-145,000.

The Government takes national security extremely seriously and the Department works closely with the transport sector and other agencies such as the National Protective Security Authority and the National Cyber Security Centre to respond to any security vulnerabilities.  This includes ensuring critical infrastructure is secure and resilient, and risks are managed proportionately.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on the number of prosecutions at criminal courts in England and Wales between 2010 and June 2024 in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics Quarterly: June 2024.

However, prosecutions for vehicles illegally in cycle boxes (advanced stop lines) cannot be separately identified from the broader offence of ‘failing to comply with traffic lights, signals or signs’ in the Court Proceedings database.

National collision statistics, which can record headlamp dazzle as a contributory factor, do not show any discernible trend to suggest that advances in lighting technology are contributing negatively to road vehicle collisions.

However, noting increased public concern, Government has commissioned independent research to better understand the root causes of headlamp glare and develop potential countermeasures. The work is underway and is due to deliver in summer 2025.

The number of Government Car Service (GCS) vehicles allocated for Ministerial use on the 11th November for the specified years is:

1. 2016: 87

2. 2023: 114

3. 2024: 122

My Lords, the UK’s COP 29 delegation is smaller than that for COP 28, but our delegation is planned to ensure a productive summit that will progress UK strategic outcomes. The carbon footprint of this travel is outstripped by the benefits of delivering this agenda. As well as Ministers, diplomats, thematic experts and negotiators, overall UK attendance at COP includes businesses, arm’s-length bodies, devolved Administrations, those from Crown dependencies and overseas territories, parliamentarians and external event speakers from businesses and civil society. Because COP 29 is still ongoing, it is not possible to provide a final number of participants or a cost of attendance.

The Government is considering what action may be appropriate to help birds reliant on buildings to breed, including how to drive up rates of swift brick installation in new build properties.