Children and young people with cancer face unique challenges. Our National Cancer Plan is the first to contain a specific section on children and young people. Its 17 actions include better access to diagnostic services, and evidence-based support tools for GPs. Alongside this, young patients and their families will face less stress as a result of our free travel scheme.

The Government recognises the vital role that the performing arts, including grassroots and community theatre, play in the lives of people and communities across the country, which the government supports primarily through funding via Arts Council England (ACE).

Through the National Portfolio Investment Programme, between 2024/25 and 2026/27, ACE will provide almost £100 million to theatre per year. This supports the work of a number of grassroots organisations, including Unanima, a theatre company based in Mansfield that receives £232,000 per year to help provide creative opportunities for learning disabled and autistic people. Similarly, ACE invests almost £45 million each year in theatre via National Lottery Project Grants, an open-access fund supporting projects at all levels. In February 2026, Julie Bagshaw received a £35,400 project grant for development costs for a community theatre project in Mansfield.

Community and grassroots theatre organisations also benefit from government support through Theatre Tax Relief; and in January, the Secretary of State announced the £1.5 billion Arts Everywhere Fund, to support venues that provide creative and welcoming spaces for communities to come together and celebrate what makes their area special.

In 2024, DCMS research showed that active arts engagement has a positive impact on health and wellbeing. Mental health benefits of attending cultural venues, including the theatre, was shown to have saved the NHS £260 million per year for adults over 50, delivering a total benefit of over £3 billion. Engagement in the arts was similarly shown to have had significant benefits on young people’s mental health, delivering a total benefit of around £800 million for young adults (aged 18-29) each year.

The Government is deeply committed to ensuring pupils receive Holocaust education. It is the only compulsory topic in Key Stage 3 History. Primary schools learn about the Holocaust in events such as Holocaust Memorial Day.

Alongside this, the Government is investing significantly in support for schools and teachers. We fund programmes to strengthen teaching quality, including the University College London Centre for Holocaust Education’s professional development work and the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz programme.

In the Autumn Budget on 30 October 2024, we also committed a further £2 million for Holocaust remembrance and education to help ensure that every young person can access recorded survivor testimony. This sits alongside £4.8 million of wider departmental funding between 2024 and 2027, including £2.3 million for Lessons from Auschwitz, £500,000 for the Centre for Holocaust Education, and £2 million for our Supporting Holocaust Survivor Testimony in Teaching programme across 2025-26 and 2026-27.

Together, this ensures that pupils develop a meaningful and age-appropriate understanding of the Holocaust, supported by high-quality teaching and powerful survivor testimony.

The transformation of liver services programme includes a number of workstreams including patient pathways relating to metabolic associated steatotic liver disease and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH).

NHS England is actively preparing to support the potential introduction of new treatments for MASH, including fatty liver disease with fibrosis, alongside the ongoing National Institute for Health and Care Excellence appraisal process.

The Government is keen to reach agreement with the MPS Trustees on changes to the arrangements to benefit scheme members. The meeting on 30 April involved a constructive discussion of the proposals and how they might be taken forward. The government is mindful of the need to resolve this issue as swiftly as possible, and will make an announcement once agreement has been reached.

The UK benefits from a diverse and resilient fuel supply chain and remains well supplied across all fuel types. The Government regularly reviews which organisations provide essential services within the context of the National Emergency Plan for Fuel. This includes consideration of air ambulance charities, recognising the vital role they play in emergency response and patient care.

A summary of the National Emergency Plan for Fuel is published on gov.uk and sets out measures to respond to fuel supply and distribution disruption. In the unlikely event of a sustained disruption, these arrangements enable fuel to be prioritised for essential services and critical supply chains.

The Government does not assess that the current situation warrants, or is approaching, the threshold for the use of emergency powers.

We have introduced a range of measures to tackle domestic abuse, including a £53 million investment in rolling out The Drive Project across England and Wales over the next four years to target serial perpetrators of domestic abuse, embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms in five forces, and launching new Domestic Abuse Protection Orders.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

This Government have already launched five AI growth zones, creating 15,000 jobs and unlocking £40 billion of investment in industrial heartlands across the country. The east midlands AI growth zone— a high-potential bid for that is under active consideration —could bring thousands of good jobs to the region, including in Nottinghamshire, unlocking investment, creating opportunities and regenerating the area in partnership with local businesses and universities.

I refer the Hon.Member to Question UIN ⁠114606 answered on 9 March.

NHS England is investing £3.61 million of funding to expand an approach that allows more people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at rising risk of admission to be proactively identified and supported during winter 2025/26. A nationally coordinated evaluation is planned to take place, providing a consistent evidence base, sharing learning, and informing future investment in interventions to reduce COPD emergency admissions.

As part of the implementation of the 10-Year Health Plan, we are expanding neighbourhood teams and exploring how new roles such as the community health worker model can be tailored to support Core20PLUS5 populations including those with COPD.

Data on hospital admission rates for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), of which metabolic dysfunction–associated steatohepatitis is a stage in some cases, is available at the Department’s Fingertips website, and can be used by regional commissioners to monitor the incidence of the disease. This data is available at county, but not constituency level. Further information is available at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/liver-disease/data#page/1/gid/8000063/pat/15/par/E92000001/ati/502/are/E10000024/iid/90931/age/1/sex/4/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/3/cid/4/tbm/1/page-options/car-do-0

Recognising the increasing burden that liver disease has on the population, NHS England has initiated a liver transformation programme. This focusses on awareness, prevention, diagnosis, detection and treatment of all forms of liver disease. The liver transformation programme has developed a data pack for regional commissioners using the Fingertips data mentioned above, to raise awareness of incidence of liver disease. It is for commissioners in integrated care boards to determine how best to use this information as part of local commissioning decisions.

The Government is taking decisive action to tackle ill health and shift the focus on diseases such as MASLD from treatment to prevention. As part of our 10-Year Health Plan, we are improving diets, reducing physical inactivity, and creating healthier environments so that fewer people reach the point of needing treatment. This includes updating the standards behind the advertising and promotions restrictions on ‘less healthy’ food and drink and requiring all large food businesses to report against standardised metrics on the healthiness of food sales. We will also get millions moving more through our national movement campaign and We are committed to taking crucial steps to help people make healthier choices about alcohol, including making it a legal requirement for alcohol labels to display health warnings and consistent nutritional information.

In December 2025 Report Fraud replaced Action Fraud, introducing improved reporting tools, stronger analytical capability, and enhanced victim support to ensure reports are acted on and victims receive clearer guidance and follow‑up. Performance oversight has also been strengthened through better management information and a new performance dashboard, enabling the City of London Police and the Home Office to monitor outcomes and identify emerging fraud threats.

To support the investigation of fraud, around 400 specialist investigators have been recruited to the new National Fraud Squad, which takes a proactive, intelligence‑led approach to identifying and disrupting serious fraudsters. Report Fraud also provides improved intelligence to police forces to assist with case investigations.

Report Fraud Victim Services (RFVS) provides a focused and targeted service to victims of fraud and cyber‑crime, delivering a consistent, high‑quality national standard of care across England and Wales. RFVS now supports all 43 police forces at Level 1 (non‑vulnerable victim care) and at the enhanced Level 2 service for vulnerable victims. Since 2018, RFVS has supported over 1,018,000 victims of fraud (as of October 2025), prevented nearly £14 million from being lost to fraud, and helped victims recover over £6.1 million since January 2021.

Newly licensed medicines are appraised by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which is the independent body responsible for developing evidence-based guidance for the National Health Service on whether new medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of resources. NICE aims wherever possible to issue draft guidance on new medicines close to the time of licensing. The NHS in England is legally required to fund drugs recommended by NICE, usually within three months of final guidance.

NICE is currently evaluating potential new treatments for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) in anticipation of the medicines being granted a marketing authorisation by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) with guidance expected later this year. NHS England is actively preparing to support the potential introduction of new treatments for MASH, including fatty liver disease with fibrosis, alongside the ongoing NICE appraisal process.

The Department and NHS England will continue to work to ensure that, once approved, effective new treatments for fatty liver disease are introduced in a way that is fair, affordable and protects the wider NHS, while ensuring that patients with the greatest clinical need are able to benefit as quickly as possible.

The Government is committed to improving our water environment through tackling harmful pollutants in wastewater.

Following the publication of the White Paper, ‘A new vision for water’ , the Government is currently exploring a range of reforms, including to the Urban Wastewater Treatment Regulations 1994. The aim is to deliver a more systematic approach to drainage and wastewater management, including enabling pre-pipe solutions, to drive the best outcomes for customers and the environment.

Additionally, over the next five years, over £10 billion is being spent on storm overflows investment in England, improving over 2,500 storm overflows to reduce spills. In addition, nearly £5 billion is being invested in upgrades at wastewater treatment works to remove phosphorus – a key cause of nutrient pollution in the environment.

The Government has also changed the law so regulators can recover costs of enforcement, meaning polluters pay, not the public. As a result, Environment Agency funding will rise by 64%, enabling more enforcement officers, better equipment, and the latest technology.

I know how hard students around the country work for their exams, and how important it is to ensure consistency and fairness. Ofqual, the qualifications regulator, secures the safe, fair and resilient delivery of qualifications by regulating awarding organisations. As Ministers, we work closely with Ofqual, when needed, to support its work.

The Department is committed to ensuring the unique needs of young people with cancer are carefully considered as part of the National Cancer Plan, due for publication in the coming weeks. Since its launch on 4 February 2025, the Children and Young People (CYP) Cancer Taskforce has been working to identify tangible ways to improve outcomes and experiences for children and young people with cancer. The taskforce will explore opportunities for improvement across detection and diagnosis, genomic testing and treatment, research and innovation, and patient experience.

The Government is committed to including the voices of young cancer patients in the work of the taskforce and the National Cancer Plan. That’s why the Government assembled a Patient Experience Panel, made up of young people with lived experience of cancer and their families, which will feed directly into the work of the taskforce.

The Government is also aware of the unique challenges that teenagers with cancer face, often falling in between paediatric and adult care. The CYP Cancer Taskforce has a dedicated charity sub-group which has engaged with the Teenage Cancer Trust, alongside other charitable groups, to ensure these challenges are addressed in the National Cancer Plan. I would like to thank the Teenage Cancer Trust, other charities, and the CYP Cancer Taskforce for their valuable input into the plan.