Written questions by Hayes.

How many days the Union Flag was flown on her Department's main sites in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

At our main London headquarters building the Union Flag is flown every day. The only other main site where there is a flag pole is Spring Place in Southampton. The Red Ensign, and the Coastguard Flag, which have the Union Flag incorporated within it, are flown Monday to Friday every week at this site.

Communities and Local Government, on how many days the Union Flag was flown on his Department's main buildings in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

MHCLG’s headquarters is 2 Marsham Street, London and the Union Flag has been flown every day throughout 2024 and 2025. In addition, our 2nd headquarters in i9,Wolverhampton also has a flag pole, although we do not maintain records of what flags have been flown when. The Union Flag is flown for the majority of the year and alternative flags are only flown according to official guidance issued by DCMS.

How many days the Union Flag was flown on his Department's main sites in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

The Department is a customer of the Government Property Agency in its office locations, and the Agency is responsible for the flying of flags, including when the Union Flag is flown. The Department does not therefore keep a record of this.

What estimate she has made of the number of people who have entered the UK illegally using forged (a) passports and (b) visas in the last five years.

We do not hold or commission estimates of the number of individuals who may have entered the UK illegally using forged passports or visas over the last five years.However, the Home Office does publish statistics on irregular migration, which include data on Inadequately Documented Arrivals (IDAs). IDAs refer to passengers arriving in the UK by air who are either undocumented, travelling with fraudulent documents, or without the correct documentation required for travel or entry.This data can be found here: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK.

Innovation and Technology, how many days the Union Flag was flown on her Department's main buildings in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

The Department is a customer of the Government Property Agency in its office locations, and the Agency is responsible for the flying of flags, including when the Union Flag is flown. The Department does not therefore keep a record of this.

On how many days the Union Flag was flown on her Department's main buildings in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

The Government Property Agency (GPA) manages the flying of flags above 1 Horse Guards Road (1HGR), Feethams House and other HM Treasury buildings. Under instructions from Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS), the Union Flag is always flown unless instructed otherwise by DCMS.

On how many days the Union Flag was flown on his Department's main buildings in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

The Union Flag was flown on every available day throughout 2024 and 2025 at 102 Petty France, subject to other designated flag flying days where the Union Flag was not flown. On days where there were excess wind speeds no flags were flown and we did not record the number of occasions this happened.

Food and Rural Affairs, how much and what proportion of the funding provided to the National Rural Crime Unit and National Wildlife Crime Unit in March 2025 will be allocated to local partnerships in Lincolnshire.

Defra does not provide financial allocations to local partnerships for tackling wildlife crime but instead provides funding directly at the national level, to the National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU), and in 2025/26 is providing £424,000. Home Office, similarly, does not provide financial allocations to local partnerships. Home Office provides funding directly at the national level. In 2025/26 the Home Office has provided the NWCU with £450,000 and the National Rural Crime Unit with £365,000.

Food and Rural Affairs, how many days the Union Flag was flown on his Department's main sites in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

Defra follows Government guidance which sees a Union Flag flying daily at the main sites which have the facility to do so.

On how many days the Union Flag was flown on his Department's main buildings in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

The Union Flag was flown 360 days on the Department’s main building in 2024 and, as of 10 September 2025, has been flown 242 days in 2025.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure that meat imported illegally into the UK is seized at the border.

This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only. Defra is working closely with the Home Office and the Food Standards Agency to tackle meat smuggling, with the support of Border Force, port health authorities and local authorities. Defra has committed £3.1 million for Dover Port Health Authority to work in partnership with Border Force in seizing meat smuggled via the Port of Dover in 2025/26, additional to over £9m of funding provided to date. Defra is considering the recommendations in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s report on meat smuggling.

How many potholes have been repaired in South Holland and the Deepings constituency since July 2024.

Local highway authorities must publish transparency reports about their maintenance activities to unlock their full share of the Government’s £500m uplift for local highways maintenance this year. While data is not required to be provided at a constituency level, Lincolnshire County Council the highway authority responsible for the local road network in this constituency, have estimated that they have filled 72,421 potholes during the financial year of 2024-25. Reports are available on local highway authorities’ websites.

How much funding her Department has provided to Lincolnshire County Council to support (a) cycling and (b) walking in the last five years.

Since 2021/22 the Department has provided almost £5 million of funding to Lincolnshire County Council to support cycling and walking. This has been provided through the Active Travel Fund, Capability Fund and from 2025/26 the Consolidated Active Travel Fund.

How many people in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) the East Midlands sold their homes to pay for care costs in the most recent year for which data is available.

The Department does not hold this data.

What steps she plans to take to improve bus (a) reliability and (b) frequency in rural parts of Lincolnshire.

The government is committed to delivering the better, more reliable bus services that passengers deserve throughout the country, including in rural areas. We introduced the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill on 17 December as part of our ambitious plan for bus reform. The Bill will put passenger needs, reliable services and local accountability at the heart of the industry by putting the power over local bus services back in the hands of local leaders right across England, including in rural areas. The Bill includes a measure on socially necessary services so that local authorities and bus operators have to have regard for alternatives to changing or cancelling services. In addition, the government has confirmed £955 million for the 2025 to 2026 financial year to support and improve bus services in England outside London. This includes £243 million for bus operators and £712 million allocated to local authorities across the country, of which Lincolnshire County Council was allocated £11.9 million. Local authorities can use this funding to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes for local communities. The government reaffirmed its commitment to investing in bus services long-term in this Spending Review. On 11 June, the government confirmed additional funding per year from 2026/27 to maintain and improve bus services, including taking forward franchising pilots and extending the £3 bus fare cap until March 2027.

What recent estimate he has made of the levels of (a) fraud and (b) error in the welfare system in Lincolnshire.

Estimates of the levels of fraud and error in the benefit system for the financial year 2024-25 can be found at: Fraud and error in the benefit system: financial year 2024 to 2025 estimates - GOV.UKWe do not provide sub-national estimates of fraud and error as we are unable to break the statistics down to this level.

Media and Sport, what plans her Department has to support the (a) maintenance and (b) operation of swimming facilities in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.

The ongoing responsibility of providing access to public leisure facilities lies at local authority level, with funding levels set as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement. The Government encourages local authorities to make investments which offer the right opportunities and facilities for the communities they serve, investing in sport and physical activity with a place-based approach, to meet the needs of individual communities.In June, we committed another £400 million to transform sports facilities across the whole of the UK over the next four years, supporting the Government's Plan for Change. We will ensure that this funding promotes health, wellbeing and community cohesion and helps to remove the barriers to physical activity for under-represented groups. We are working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated across the UK.I met with Sir John Hayes and Deepings Leisure Centre Community Group in July this year to discuss grassroots sport and facilities provision in his constituency.

How many schools are taking part in the Early Language Support for Every Child programme in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.

The Early Language Support for Every Child (ELSEC) pathfinder programme, co-led by the department and NHS England, is a test and learn programme trialling new approaches to support earlier identification, intervention and targeted support for children with speech, language and communication needs, helping them thrive in mainstream settings and ensuring every child has the best possible start in life.Nationally, therapy support teams have reached over 20,000 children and over 3,000 staff members have been upskilled to deliver interventions since the programme began.The programme is being delivered through nine regional ELSEC pathfinder sites, each comprising a mix of early years and primary school settings. In the East Midlands, Leicestershire, Leicester City and Rutland are the designated pathfinder local areas and therefore there are no schools within South Holland and The Deepings involved in ELSEC.

What steps she is taking to increase the number of frontline police officers in Lincolnshire.

The Government is clear that visible policing is essential to restoring public confidence in the police. As a result, our expectation is that officer numbers must be protected. We have put in place funding arrangements for 2025/26 to support the achievement of this aim.For 2025/26, the Home Office is providing a total of up to £19.6 billion for police forces, which is an increase of up to £1.2 billion compared to the 2024/25 police funding settlement. This includes a total of up to £376.8 million specifically to support officer maintenance at the expected headcount levels in 2025/26, as well as an additional £200 million to support the first steps of delivering 13,000 more neighbourhood policing personnel by the end of the Parliament.Lincolnshire Constabulary will receive up to £174.5 million in funding in 2025/26, an increase of up to £10.3 million when compared to the 2024/25 funding settlement, which represents a 6.2% cash increase and 3.8% real terms increase in funding. This includes a total allocation of £2,911,073 to support the maintenance of 1,186 police officers, as well as a total allocation of £1,663,470 to support neighbourhood policing roles.The latest official statistics show that at 31 March 2025, Lincolnshire had 1,173 FTE (1,188 in headcount terms) police officers, 93.2% of which were frontline officers (1,028 FTE).While we expect that police officers will be used in tackling crime and protecting the public, it is for Chief Constables and directly elected PCCs, and Mayors with PCC functions to make operational decisions based on their local knowledge and experience, including how best to allocate all the resources at their disposal.

How many children have been hospitalised needing treatment for dental decay in Lincolnshire in each of the last three years.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) publishes annual official statistics on tooth extractions in children aged between zero and 19 years old that take place in a National Health Service hospital setting in England. The following table shows the number of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) for tooth extraction with dental caries, also known as tooth decay, as the primary diagnosis code between 2021/22 and 2023/24, for children aged between zero and 19 years old in the Lincolnshire upper tier local authority:Financial yearLincolnshire2023/24702022/23702021/2275Source: OHID’s annual statistics on tooth extractions zero to 19 year olds that take place in an NHS hospital setting in England, available at the following link:   https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hospital-based-tooth-extractions-in-0-to-19-year-oldsNotes:Lincolnshire refers to the Lincolnshire upper tier local authority, the Lincolnshire County Council.All sub-national FCE counts are rounded to the nearest five as per NHS Digital’s disclosure controls.Figures show the number of FCEs, not the number of individual children who received these treatments, and therefore one child may have had more than one FCE.A quality note on the data is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/analysis-of-tooth-extractions-in-hospital-methods-and-data-quality/data-quality-and-disclosure-control-for-hospital-based-tooth-extraction-data