Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, how much funding the Welsh government requested from her Department for coal tip safety and remediation work as part of the Spending Review 2025.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

At the Spending Review, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that HM Treasury would provide the Welsh Government with the funding it requested to continue its vital coal tip safety work. Ensuring coal tips across Wales remain safe is of the upmost importance and this is why the UK Government is committing £118 million over the three years of the Spending Review period (over financial years 2026/27-2028/29). This is in addition to the £25m provided at Autumn Budget last year, bringing the total UK Government investment in coal tip safety to over £140m. This is another example of how two governments working in partnership are delivering for the people of Wales.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, how many staff network events took place in her Department in May 2025; and what the names of those events were.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

No staff network events took place in my Department in May 2025.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what recent discussions she has had with the Welsh Government on plans for cross-border healthcare.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

I meet with the First Minister of Wales regularly to discuss a range of issues, including health. We are working in a spirit of genuine collaboration to do everything possible to cut waiting lists and build an NHS fit for the future.

A good example of our two Governments working together on health is the Interministerial Group (IMG) for Health and Social Care, which met on 30 April, chaired by the Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care. The IMG brought together Ministers from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Devolved Governments to discuss shared priorities across health in the UK.

I welcome the news that waiting lists, including long waits, have fallen in recent months. These improvements come after we provided the Welsh Government with an additional £1.7 billion to invest in public services like the NHS at the Autumn Budget. An extra £600 million in funding has now been announced by the Welsh Government for health and social care in their Budget for 2025/26. Furthermore at the Spending Review last week, we announced a record £22.4 billion per year on average for the Welsh Government between 2026-27 and 2028-29, to invest in public services and drive down waiting lists. This is the largest budget settlement in the history of devolution.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, whether her Department has updated guidance on the use of single-sex facilities in response to the Supreme Court judgement in the case of For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers of 16 April 2025.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

We will review and update policy wherever necessary to ensure it complies with the latest legal requirements. We aim to ensure appropriate facilities are available for all staff.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, how many permanent civil servants in her Department are staff without assigned posts; and how many are placed in an equivalent (a) people action team, (b) priority movers list, (c) redeployment register, (d) talent pool and (e) skills match hub in the most recent period for which data is available.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

There are no permanent Civil Servants in my Department without assigned posts and no permanent Civil Servants are placed in a people action team, priority movers list, redeployment register, talent pool, or skills match hub in the most recent period for which data is available.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to improve transport links between Wales and the rest of the UK.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

We are investing an historic £445 million into Welsh rail to right years’ of underfunding by previous governments and unleash Wales’ economic potential.

This new investment will improve transport links, including for Padeswood on the Borderlands Line through Wrexham, and between Cardiff and Bristol.

This will mean new stations, enable more and faster trains on the key lines across North and South Wales, connecting people with the new, well-paid jobs we’re creating across Wales.

This announcement also includes providing £48 million over four years to the Welsh Government to continue to upgrade the Core Valleys Lines.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 on family farms in Wales.

Answered by Nia Griffith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Wales Office)

The Government is steadfastly committed to family farms in Wales. That is why we protected the farm budget at its current level and allocated £337 million to the Welsh Government at the Autumn Budget.

Furthermore, at the UK-EU Summit on the 19^th of May, the Prime Minister announced that the UK would deliver a new agri-food deal with the European Union. This will make agrifood trade with our biggest market cheaper and easier, cut costs and red tape for Welsh producers and retailers, and help keep prices down and increase choice in the shops.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support the steel industry in Wales.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

Welsh steel has a bright future under this government. Our improved deal with Tata Steel UK has delivered £1.3 billion investment and protected over 5,000 jobs.

We have committed a further £2.5 billion for steel over the course of this Parliament with our Steel Strategy due to be announced soon.

Steel communities are the heart of Wales. I have allocated over £70 million Transition Board funding to help people, businesses and communities with retraining, business support and growth, and regeneration.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what recent discussions she has had with the Welsh Government on improving rail connectivity in Wales.

Answered by Nia Griffith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Wales Office)

We are working with Welsh government on a range of shared priorities, which includes rail connectivity.

We are investing an historic £445 million into Welsh rail to right years’ of underfunding by previous governments and unleash Wales’ economic potential.

This will mean new stations, enable more and faster trains on the key lines across North and South Wales, connecting people with the new, well-paid jobs we’re creating across Wales.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, whether she has had discussions with the Welsh Government on the potential economic impact of the proposed visitor levy on the economy in Wales.

Answered by Nia Griffith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Wales Office)

The Welsh tourism sector is thriving; last year British residents took over 7 million overnight trips in Wales, spending more than £2billion.

Visitor levies are widely used abroad, and, if a visitor levy were introduced by all Welsh local authorities, it could raise up to £33million.

This money can be invested in local services and infrastructure to support tourism, helping to improve facilities like toilets, footpaths and beaches, which will benefit both visitors and local residents.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what recent discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on increasing economic growth in Wales.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

Growth is the number one mission of this government. We are creating tens of thousands of jobs in every corner of Wales through our Freeports, Investment Zones, support for steelworkers, inward investments and our thriving green industries.

I have also established the Welsh Economic Growth Advisory Group, which brings together business, industry, university and trade union leaders to plan how we unleash Wales’s economic potential.

Question to the Wales Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, how many permanent civil servants in his Department had their contract of employment terminated as a result of poor performance in the (a) 2022-23, (b) 2023-24 and (c) 2024-25 financial years.

Answered by Jo Stevens - Secretary of State for Wales

No permanent Civil Servants in my Department had their contract of employment terminated as a result of poor performance in the 2022-23, 2023-24, or 2024-25 financial years.

Found: and children or stepchildren of UK armed forces veterans: health and unpaid care, England and Wales - Office

Found: 102.949 166.773 3.000 From the Wales Office

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential impacts of the declining marriage rate and birth rate in the United Kingdom.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 11th June is attached.

Dear Lord Jackson,

As Acting National Statistician, I am responding to your Parliamentary Questions asking what steps are being taken to expedite the timely publication of marriage and divorce statistics by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (HL8355), and what assessment has been made of the potential impacts of the declining marriage rate and birth rate in the United Kingdom (HL8356).

The latest published statistics on marriages[1] and divorces[2] in England and Wales are for 2022. Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales, 2023[3] will be published on 2 July 2025. Marriages in England and Wales, 2023[4] is provisionally scheduled for publication in November 2025, alongside Civil partnerships in England and Wales, 2023[5].

The Marriages, Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Act 2019 (which came into force on 4 May 2021) has resulted in a new electronic registration system replacing the paper marriage register. This has improved the timeliness of the submission of religious marriage entries to the General Register Office (GRO) who in turn supply these to the ONS. Following this change to the way marriages are recorded, the ONS have been working to improve the timeliness of publication of marriage statistics and to consolidate the release of marriage and civil partnership statistics to improve accessibility for users and to bring the reference periods in line.

Marriage, civil partnership and divorce statistics incorporate rates as part of the publication; these rates use population estimates by marital status[6] as denominators so these estimates need to be available prior to calculation. The ONS aims to balance the need for timely legal partnership statistics with the timing of publication, and revisions to, population estimates by marital status in order to provide the most accurate rates possible. Estimates for 2023 and 2024 are provisionally scheduled to be published in November 2025.

The ONS does not assess the potential impacts of the declining marriage rate and birth rate in the United Kingdom.

However, in our National Population Projections[7] we analyse past trends in fertility rates to produce a projection of future fertility for the UK. These projections are widely used to support policy making. The numbers of people in each life stage are important when considering dependency ratios, which inform government financial planning. A common measure is the old-age-dependency ratio (OADR), which is the number of people of pensionable age for every 1,000 people of working age. It is projected that OADR for the UK will increase from 278 in mid-2022 to 289 in mid-2032, reaching 302 by mid-2047.

The ONS has published a UK population projection explorer tool[8] which allows users to vary the assumptions for future fertility, net migration and life expectancy to see the impact on the size and age structure of the UK population over the next 50 years.

The ONS publishes marriage and divorce statistics for England and Wales only. National Records for Scotland (NRS)[9] and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA[10]) are responsible for the publication of marriage and divorce statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Rourke

[1] Marriages in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

[2] Divorces in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

[3] Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023 - Office for National Statistics

[4] Marriages in England and Wales: 2023 - Office for National Statistics

[5] Civil partnerships in England and Wales: 2023 - Office for National Statistics

[6] Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

[7] National population projections - Office for National Statistics

[8] UK population projection explorer - Office for National Statistics

[9] National Records of Scotland (NRS)

[10] Home | Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to expedite the timely publication of marriage and divorce statistics by the Office for National Statistics.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 11th June is attached.

Dear Lord Jackson,

As Acting National Statistician, I am responding to your Parliamentary Questions asking what steps are being taken to expedite the timely publication of marriage and divorce statistics by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (HL8355), and what assessment has been made of the potential impacts of the declining marriage rate and birth rate in the United Kingdom (HL8356).

The latest published statistics on marriages[1] and divorces[2] in England and Wales are for 2022. Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales, 2023[3] will be published on 2 July 2025. Marriages in England and Wales, 2023[4] is provisionally scheduled for publication in November 2025, alongside Civil partnerships in England and Wales, 2023[5].

The Marriages, Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registration Etc.) Act 2019 (which came into force on 4 May 2021) has resulted in a new electronic registration system replacing the paper marriage register. This has improved the timeliness of the submission of religious marriage entries to the General Register Office (GRO) who in turn supply these to the ONS. Following this change to the way marriages are recorded, the ONS have been working to improve the timeliness of publication of marriage statistics and to consolidate the release of marriage and civil partnership statistics to improve accessibility for users and to bring the reference periods in line.

Marriage, civil partnership and divorce statistics incorporate rates as part of the publication; these rates use population estimates by marital status[6] as denominators so these estimates need to be available prior to calculation. The ONS aims to balance the need for timely legal partnership statistics with the timing of publication, and revisions to, population estimates by marital status in order to provide the most accurate rates possible. Estimates for 2023 and 2024 are provisionally scheduled to be published in November 2025.

The ONS does not assess the potential impacts of the declining marriage rate and birth rate in the United Kingdom.

However, in our National Population Projections[7] we analyse past trends in fertility rates to produce a projection of future fertility for the UK. These projections are widely used to support policy making. The numbers of people in each life stage are important when considering dependency ratios, which inform government financial planning. A common measure is the old-age-dependency ratio (OADR), which is the number of people of pensionable age for every 1,000 people of working age. It is projected that OADR for the UK will increase from 278 in mid-2022 to 289 in mid-2032, reaching 302 by mid-2047.

The ONS has published a UK population projection explorer tool[8] which allows users to vary the assumptions for future fertility, net migration and life expectancy to see the impact on the size and age structure of the UK population over the next 50 years.

The ONS publishes marriage and divorce statistics for England and Wales only. National Records for Scotland (NRS)[9] and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA[10]) are responsible for the publication of marriage and divorce statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Rourke

[1] Marriages in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

[2] Divorces in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

[3] Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023 - Office for National Statistics

[4] Marriages in England and Wales: 2023 - Office for National Statistics

[5] Civil partnerships in England and Wales: 2023 - Office for National Statistics

[6] Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

[7] National population projections - Office for National Statistics

[8] UK population projection explorer - Office for National Statistics

[9] National Records of Scotland (NRS)

[10] Home | Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

Found: growth of Scottish industry under sections 7, 8 and 11 of the Industrial Development Act 1982.Wales Office

Found: their underlying illness. 48 ONS (2023), Unpaid care by age, sex and deprivation, England and Wales - Office

Found: growth of Scottish industry under sections 7, 8 and 11 of the Industrial Development Act 1982.64 Wales Office

Found: Child sexual abuse in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)https://www.ons.gov.uk

Found: of stalking and the powers available to them to protect and support 7 Crime in England and Wales - Office

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Found: large (such as the Cabinet Office), or pertain to the devolved administrations (such as the Wales Office

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Wednesday 11th June 2025

Found: Domestic Abuse, 14th May 2019 The PUSS, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office

Homelessness APPG
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Found: London: St Mungo’s. 7 MHCLG, Live Tables 773 and 774 8 ONS (2018) Crime Survey for England and Wales, Office

Found: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Q1 2025 Wales Office

Found: Northern Ireland Office 62 62 0 0 1 Scotland Office 65 65 0 0 0 UK Export Finance 46 44 0 2 10 Wales Office

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Found: Source: Estimates of the population for England and Wales - Office for National Statistics.

Found: Source: Estimates of the population for England and Wales - Office for National Statistics.Note C-8Please

Found: Source: Housing affordability in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (1) Number of residential

Found: The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Wales Office will work with local partners

Found: 28 2028-29 Scotland Office 16 0.7% 1.3% 2.0% Northern Ireland Office 63 4.6% 4.7% 4.7% Wales Office

Found: Scotland Office 13.4 13.6 15.5 15.8 16.4 16.9 Northern Ireland Office 31.3 53.0 62.6 70.2 66.7 62.0 Wales Office

Found: Scotland Office 13.4 13.6 15.5 15.8 16.4 16.9 Northern Ireland Office 31.3 53.0 62.6 70.2 66.7 62.0 Wales Office

Found: Wales Office of Research and Development for Health and Social Care This effect is marginal however

Found: Available at: Population and household estimates, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

Found: advanced fee fraud) • computer misuse 5 Nature of fraud and computer misuse in England and Wales - Office

Found: Funded Bodies Total Managed Expenditure 22,525,531 3,488,021 1,370,085 1,353,983 28,737,620 - Wales Office