The table below shows the number of members of the House of Lords who will reach the age of 80 or above in the year 2029:

This information is drawn from the House of Lords Library website (House of Lords data dashboard: Current membership of the House) and is based on composition as of 27 January 2025. These figures include members who are life peers, law lords and hereditary peers, but excludes the Lords Spiritual, who are required to retire on reaching the age of 70.

Juxtaposed Controls were introduced for short sea crossings by the “Treaty Between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the French Republic Concerning the Implementation of Frontier Controls at the Sea ports of Both Countries on the Channel and North Sea”, signed at Le Touquet on 4 February 2003.

This bilateral agreement between the UK and France provides for immigration controls to be conducted by the country of arrival in designated control zones in the country of departure at both French and UK sea ports on the Channel and North Sea, including Calais and Dunkirk in France, and Dover in the UK.

The Le Touquet Treaty is an agreement concluded between the UK and France under international law. The UK and France have an excellent relationship and work closely together to secure the UK/France border, including at sea ports on the Channel and the North Sea.

The Le Touquet Treaty has resulted in a reduced number of asylum claims and continues to be a valuable part of our border security.

Juxtaposed Controls were introduced for short sea crossings by the “Treaty Between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the French Republic Concerning the Implementation of Frontier Controls at the Sea ports of Both Countries on the Channel and North Sea”, signed at Le Touquet on 4 February 2003.

This bilateral agreement between the UK and France provides for immigration controls to be conducted by the country of arrival in designated control zones in the country of departure at both French and UK sea ports on the Channel and North Sea, including Calais and Dunkirk in France, and Dover in the UK.

The Le Touquet Treaty is an agreement concluded between the UK and France under international law. The UK and France have an excellent relationship and work closely together to secure the UK/France border, including at sea ports on the Channel and the North Sea.

The Le Touquet Treaty has resulted in a reduced number of asylum claims and continues to be a valuable part of our border security.

(1, 2, 5, 6)

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has published expenditure forecasts for tax credits and Child Benefit as part of their recently published Economic and Fiscal Outlook document. The relevant information relating to personal tax credits and child benefit is reproduced below. Expenditure forecasts are not produced for individual elements of tax credits.

(3)

The Government is providing over £1 billion of funding in 2014-15 and 2015-16 to meet the costs of universal free school meals for children in reception, year 1 and year 2. Funding for later years will be considered as part of the forthcoming Spending Review.

Schools also provide free school meals for children up to the age of 18, based on their parents’ eligibility for certain benefits. This will include children in years 1 and 2. This is funded separately from within the Dedicated Schools Grant allocated to schools. It is up to schools to decide how to use their budgets and the Government does not measure spend on free school meals for this cohort.

(4)

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has published expenditure forecasts for Universal Credit as part of their recently published Economic and Fiscal Outlook document. The relevant information is reproduced below.

Expenditure forecasts are not produced by individual Universal Credit elements and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

(7)

The information relating to housing benefit is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

(8)

Forecasts are not available for child care grants, for which the rate is set annually. £74 million of awards were made in the 2013/14 academic year. Information relating to student support grant for childcare for 2016/17 was published in a written statement by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on 21 July 2015. It confirmed that the maximum childcare grant payable in 2016-17, which covers 85 per cent of actual childcare costs, will be £155.24 per week for one child only and £266.15 per week for two or more children. Student support grants for childcare form just one component of the overall student grant budget.

(9)

The estimated annual costs for the Healthy start scheme for 2015/16 are £81.6 million, net of devolved administration receipts.

Tax-Free Childcare (TFC) will be launched in early 2017, and will give up to 1.8m families 20 per cent support towards their childcare costs, up to a maximum government contribution of £2,000 per child, per year (£4,000 per child, per year, for disabled children).

The estimated total costs of TFC in each year are:

These costs are expected to rise to around £1 billion per year in steady state.

Child Trust Funds (CTF) are long-term tax-free savings accounts for children. Since 2011, children without a CTF can open a Junior ISA instead. Existing CTF accounts can still receive contributions. The contribution limit per CTF for the 2015-16 tax year is £4,080.

The cost to the government of exempting CTF account savings from income tax is set out in HM Revenue and Customs’ “Estimated cost of minor tax allowances and reliefs” and is negligible in 2013-14 and 2014-15. The cost is also expected to be negligible in 2015‑16 to 2020–21.

Airport expansion in the South East of England has been discussed by British and Qatari officials as part of wider exchanges on investment in the UK in the normal course of business. We have not had any formal representations from the State of Qatar on this issue.

To ensure our long term connectivity needs can be met, the previous Government established the independent Airports Commission to identify and recommend to Government options for maintaining this country’s status as an international hub for aviation. Three options for expansion were shortlisted by the Commission for further examination.

I am not aware of Her Majesty’s Government receiving any representations from the government of China or Chinese state agencies about the potential expansion of Heathrow Airport.

To ensure our long term connectivity needs can be met, the previous Government established the independent Airports Commission to identify and recommend to Government options for maintaining this country’s status as an international hub for aviation. Three options for expansion were shortlisted by the Commission for further examination.

I am not aware of Her Majesty’s Government receiving any representations from the government of China or Chinese state agencies about the potential expansion of Heathrow Airport.

Allocations made to local authorities for 15 hours of free childcare per week for three- and four- year-olds totalled £2.2 billion in 2015-16. Allocations in 2015-16 for 15 hours of free childcare per week for disadvantaged two year-olds will be announced shortly.

The government is committed to raise the average hourly rate providers receive from the introduction of the new entitlement from 2017-18. The government is undertaking a review of childcare costs in order to set a new average hourly rate that is fair for providers and delivers value for money for the taxpayer.

Until this review is complete, it is not possible to estimate annual costs of providing free childcare for two year-olds, or 15 hours of free childcare per week for three-and four-year-olds after 2016.

This Government believes that MEP pensions should, as with those of British Parliamentarians and Civil Servants, be kept under review and, if necessary, reformed to ensure that they do not become a inappropriate burden on taxpayers. The Government has made it clear that we expect all the EU Institutions, including the European Parliament, to make very substantial savings on pay and pensions expenditure. The Government has also, through the Public Service Pensions Act 2013, created the scope for some British MEP pensions, where the MEP continues to receive their salary directly from the British Government, to be reformed in line with the wider changes in public service pensions. Any decision on the reform of these pensions will be made by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA).

The Department for Communities and Local Government received requests for exemption from the permitted development rights for change of use from office to residential uses from 165 local planning authorities. The identity of those local planning authorities which successfully requested an exemption have been published in the Town and County Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995, as amended by the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Amendment) (England) Order 2013. We do not routinely publish lists of local authorities who have made unsuccessful applications to ensure that they are not deterred from participating in similar exercises in the future.

The permitted development rights policy and decisions on which local authorities would be granted an exemption have been agreed across government departments in the usual way.

The department commissioned independent advisers, Arup, to provide specialist and expert assistance on commercial property markets. The total value of the work carried out was £66,790.

The Department for Communities and Local Government received requests for exemption from the permitted development rights for change of use from office to residential uses from 165 local planning authorities. The identity of those local planning authorities which successfully requested an exemption have been published in the Town and County Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995, as amended by the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Amendment) (England) Order 2013. We do not routinely publish lists of local authorities who have made unsuccessful applications to ensure that they are not deterred from participating in similar exercises in the future.

The permitted development rights policy and decisions on which local authorities would be granted an exemption have been agreed across government departments in the usual way.

The department commissioned independent advisers, Arup, to provide specialist and expert assistance on commercial property markets. The total value of the work carried out was £66,790.

The Department for Communities and Local Government received requests for exemption from the permitted development rights for change of use from office to residential uses from 165 local planning authorities. The identity of those local planning authorities which successfully requested an exemption have been published in the Town and County Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995, as amended by the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (Amendment) (England) Order 2013. We do not routinely publish lists of local authorities who have made unsuccessful applications to ensure that they are not deterred from participating in similar exercises in the future.

The permitted development rights policy and decisions on which local authorities would be granted an exemption have been agreed across government departments in the usual way.

The department commissioned independent advisers, Arup, to provide specialist and expert assistance on commercial property markets. The total value of the work carried out was £66,790.