Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on improving public transport provision.
Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
I meet regularly with Executive Ministers to discuss a range of issues, including how this Government can support public service transformation. While public transport is a devolved matter, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland recently met with the Infrastructure Minister to discuss the critical role of infrastructure in connecting communities and facilitating economic growth in Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Sarah Edwards (Labour - Tamworth)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025 on Northern Ireland.
Answered by Matthew Patrick - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Northern Ireland Office)
The defence of the United Kingdom is always the first duty of any Government.
As part of our defence industrial strategy, we will invest £250m across five regions for Defence Growth Deals - including one in Northern Ireland which already boasts a booming defence sector - and it looks like it will only get stronger in 2026.
Asked by: Luke Charters (Labour - York Outer)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025 on Northern Ireland.
Answered by Matthew Patrick - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Northern Ireland Office)
The defence of the United Kingdom is always the first duty of any Government.
As part of our defence industrial strategy, we will invest £250m across five regions for Defence Growth Deals - including one in Northern Ireland which already boasts a booming defence sector - and it looks like it will only get stronger in 2026.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what recent discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on the National Health Service in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and I engage regularly with the Executive on public services, including health. While health is a devolved matter, this Government is committed to being an active partner in supporting the Executive to deliver high-quality, accessible and sustainable public services, and in assisting through the Public Sector Transformation Board.
We all recognise the pressures facing the health service and that transformation requires prioritisation and difficult decisions. I welcome the progress made by the Health Minister to date.
Asked by: Adam Jogee (Labour - Newcastle-under-Lyme)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to increase trade and business co-operation between Northern Ireland and a) Newcastle-under-Lyme and b) Staffordshire.
Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Government is committed to strengthening trade and business cooperation across the whole of the United Kingdom.
Last year, I established Intertrade UK which aims to promote and boost trade in goods and services across the United Kingdom and ensure that the benefits of the UK Internal Market are fully realised by businesses.
At the Autumn Budget, the Chancellor allocated £2.25 million over the next three fiscal years to support Intertrade UK to implement its work programme to improve trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Intertrade UK is now considering how best to deploy this new funding and I look forward to seeing the results of its future work.
Through our Industrial Strategy, we are also supporting growth in eight identified sectors, fostering opportunities for collaboration where Northern Ireland shares industrial strengths with regions such as Staffordshire.
Asked by: Robin Swann (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what discussions he has had with the Irish Government on the €14million Shared Island Media initiative.
Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
I regularly engage with the Irish Government on a number of issues of interest to both Governments, but to date, no discussions have taken place on the Irish Government’s Shared Island Media Fund.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how many full-time equivalent staff in his Department have been employed for the purpose of making social media content in each of the past three years.
Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Due to the difficulty of disaggregating the number of staff who are employed to produce social media content from staff who are employed to work on broader digital communications, it is not possible to report exact figures in response to this question.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how many and what proportion of civil servants in his Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.
Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following:
Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at the following web address:
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what assessment has he made of the potential implications for his policies of the conclusions of the report by the Windsor Framework Independent Monitoring Panel, published on 5 December 2025, on Business friendly guidance on gov.uk.
Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Government considered the issues raised in the Independent Monitoring Panel’s report as part of its response to the Independent Review of the Windsor Framework. This includes a commitment to delivering an enhanced ‘one stop shop’ advice service for small businesses, beyond what is available on GOV.UK, and this is set out at Paragraph 50 of the Government’s response and thereafter. The Government’s response to the Review, and relevant issues raised in the Panel’s report, is available at:
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what progress has been made in discussions with the United States administration regarding the initiative outlined in the Windsor Framework and Safeguarding the Union document to establish a US Customs and Border Protection pre-clearance facility at Belfast International Airport; and what the anticipated timeline for such negotiations would be.
Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
As part of commitments within the Windsor Framework and the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper, the then-Government committed to “enter into exploratory talks with the United States Administration on the options for introducing pre-clearance checks on customs and immigration for passengers travelling on direct flights from Belfast International Airport and destinations in the USA.”
I can confirm that this was raised with the US Administration, but the decision ultimately rests them.