Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many times the Defending Democracy Taskforce has met in the past 12 months.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Defending Democracy Taskforce has met six times in the last 12 months.

The Taskforce comprises of Ministers and senior officials from multiple government departments, alongside representatives from law enforcement, the Parliamentary authorities, the Electoral Commission, and the UK Intelligence Community.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether the remit of the Defending Democracy Taskforce will be extended to consider what action may be required to protect democratic integrity in the UK from sectarianism.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Defending Democracy Taskforce (DDTF) has a mandate from the Prime Minister to coordinate and drive forward a whole of government response to the full range of threats to our democracy, including protecting democratic integrity.

The Taskforce monitors evolving threats as they arise and remains flexible to respond effectively and promptly where necessary.

For example, the Joint Election Security and Preparedness (JESP) Unit, which sits jointly between Cabinet Office and the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is standing up an election cell ahead of upcoming local elections in England and devolved elections in Scotland and Wales.

This brings together government departments, the police, the intelligence agencies, the Devolved Governments, and external partners to monitor and respond to any emerging issues across physical, cyber and information security.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of midwifery staffing levels on the delivery of continuity of care in England.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The latest published Maternity Services Monthly Statistics show that, in December 2025, 18.9% of women in England were placed on a continuity of carer pathway by 28 weeks of pregnancy. This national figure is calculated using data from trusts that meet minimum data quality standards, and for December 2025, this included 96 out of 119 submitting trusts.

We recognise the clear benefits that continuity of midwifery care can bring, including improved experiences and reduced inequalities for women and babies. However, the delivery of continuity of care requires maternity services to have sufficient midwifery staffing and the right skill mix in place to maintain safe services across all settings.

In September 2022, NHS England wrote to all trusts setting out that implementation of continuity of care models should be paused where staffing shortfalls made them unsafe to deliver. Since then, NHS England has supported services to strengthen their workforce position and asked them to prioritise the rollout of enhanced continuity of care teams that focus on women with the greatest clinical or social vulnerability, where evidence shows continuity of care can have the greatest impact. From 2025/26, £10 million per year in recurrent funding is being provided to support these enhanced teams, which incorporate additional staffing to offer more holistic care and help reduce health inequalities in the most deprived area.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of (1) maternity patients receive continuity of care in England, and (2) NHS trusts in England offer continuity of care to maternity patients.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The latest published Maternity Services Monthly Statistics show that, in December 2025, 18.9% of women in England were placed on a continuity of carer pathway by 28 weeks of pregnancy. This national figure is calculated using data from trusts that meet minimum data quality standards, and for December 2025, this included 96 out of 119 submitting trusts.

We recognise the clear benefits that continuity of midwifery care can bring, including improved experiences and reduced inequalities for women and babies. However, the delivery of continuity of care requires maternity services to have sufficient midwifery staffing and the right skill mix in place to maintain safe services across all settings.

In September 2022, NHS England wrote to all trusts setting out that implementation of continuity of care models should be paused where staffing shortfalls made them unsafe to deliver. Since then, NHS England has supported services to strengthen their workforce position and asked them to prioritise the rollout of enhanced continuity of care teams that focus on women with the greatest clinical or social vulnerability, where evidence shows continuity of care can have the greatest impact. From 2025/26, £10 million per year in recurrent funding is being provided to support these enhanced teams, which incorporate additional staffing to offer more holistic care and help reduce health inequalities in the most deprived area.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to (1) improve postpartum mental health support, and (2) reduce the maternal suicide rate.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We recognise how important it is for women with perinatal mental health problems to get the right care and support they need. Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Services, including mother and baby units, specialist perinatal community teams, and Maternal Mental Health Services, are available for women with or at risk of mental health conditions for up to two years after giving birth. This care includes increased access to evidence-based psychological therapies.

We have committed to tackling suicide as one the biggest killers in this country, and delivering the Suicide Prevention Strategy for England, which aims to reduce suicide rates and address the risk factors contributing to suicide, as well as improving support for those who have self-harmed or are bereaved by suicide. The strategy highlights the need to provide tailored, targeted support to priority groups, including those at higher risk. At a national level, this includes pregnant women and new mothers. This is supported by new Staying Safe from Suicide Guidance, published in April 2025, which means all mental health practitioners must align their practice to the latest evidence in understanding and managing suicide. An accompanying e-learning package is now available to all National Health Service and non-NHS staff.

In addition, the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Health and Wellbeing Alliance, managed by the Department, NHS England, and UK Health Security Agency, has sponsored a project being led by the Tommy’s and Sands Maternity Consortium, which explores experiences of perinatal suicide, self-harm, and their risk factors.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce (1) maternal deaths, and (2) stillborn and neonatal mortality rates.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

While the vast majority of births in England are safe, we know there is more to be done to reduce maternal deaths, stillborn, and neonatal mortality rates.

That is why my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, asked Baroness Amos to lead an independent investigation into National Health Service maternity and neonatal care to help us understand the systemic issues behind why so many women, babies, and families experience unacceptable care. The investigation will publish its final report and recommendations in June 2026.

The Government has also set up a National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce, chaired by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. The taskforce will address the recommendations of the investigation by developing a new national action plan to drive improvements across maternity and neonatal care.

We are not waiting to take action. We are rolling out guidance to tackle the leading causes of maternal death, introduced a new system that will monitor the rates of term stillbirth, neonatal death, and brain injury, and the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle is being implemented by trusts.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of funding for training in NHS maternity units in England.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to ensuring that all maternity staff have access to high‑quality, evidence‑based training. The updated Core Competency Framework sets clear, standardised expectations for training across all maternity and neonatal services in England, supported by a Training Needs Analysis. An independent evaluation of the framework, commissioned through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, is currently under way and will report later this year.

Responsibility for determining and funding the level of training required rests with local National Health Service trusts in response to local workforce and population needs.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how measures in the National Cancer Plan for England, published on 4 February, will help to develop a standard of care for recurrent glioblastoma.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department recognises that survival rates are too low for rarer cancers, such as brain cancers, and that there are currently limited treatment options available for people who have been diagnosed with brain tumours.

The National Cancer Plan (NCP) has set comprehensive measures to drive up cancer survival rates and improve outcomes for all cancer patients, including those with rarer and less common cancers such as glioblastoma. These measures include speeding up diagnosis and treatment to meet the cancer standards, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology though innovative projects, expanding access to genomic testing to diagnose and support more personalised treatment approaches, and reducing variation in access to cancer care so patients receive timely diagnosis and treatment from wherever they live.

Patients with rare cancers will also benefit from a move to specialist multi-disciplinary teams, that cover multiple providers. This will allow them to benefit from the input of specialist centres and so access to the best evidence-based care.

To meet its obligations for rare cancers, including brain tumours, the Government will appoint a new national clinical lead for rare cancers. This national clinical lead will have a clear mandate to speak up for rare cancers, and to provide clinical advice and support for the delivery of the actions in the plan.

The NCP further included a commitment to reduce the number of rare cancers, including brain tumours, being diagnosed in emergency settings. Brain cancers cannot be staged like other cancers and are subsequently not included in current early diagnosis measures. The National Health Service in England will improve on this system by regularly publishing early diagnosis data for brain tumours, incentivising systems to focus on these cancers.

The successful implementation of this plan will mean that three in every four people diagnosed in 2035 will be cancer-free or living well with cancer after five years. That translates to 320,000 more lives saved over the course of this plan, and the fastest rate of improvement this century.

Finally, the Government also backed the launch of RECURRENT‑GB, a new nationwide trial exploring whether surgery can improve the quality of life for patients when glioblastoma comes back after treatment commenced and is backed by £1.98 million of National Institute of Health and Research funding.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how the measures in the National Cancer Plan for England, published on 4 February, will improve the survival of patients with glioblastoma.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department recognises that survival rates are too low for rarer cancers, such as brain cancers, and that there are currently limited treatment options available for people who have been diagnosed with brain tumours.

The National Cancer Plan (NCP) has set comprehensive measures to drive up cancer survival rates and improve outcomes for all cancer patients, including those with rarer and less common cancers such as glioblastoma. These measures include speeding up diagnosis and treatment to meet the cancer standards, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology though innovative projects, expanding access to genomic testing to diagnose and support more personalised treatment approaches, and reducing variation in access to cancer care so patients receive timely diagnosis and treatment from wherever they live.

Patients with rare cancers will also benefit from a move to specialist multi-disciplinary teams, that cover multiple providers. This will allow them to benefit from the input of specialist centres and so access to the best evidence-based care.

To meet its obligations for rare cancers, including brain tumours, the Government will appoint a new national clinical lead for rare cancers. This national clinical lead will have a clear mandate to speak up for rare cancers, and to provide clinical advice and support for the delivery of the actions in the plan.

The NCP further included a commitment to reduce the number of rare cancers, including brain tumours, being diagnosed in emergency settings. Brain cancers cannot be staged like other cancers and are subsequently not included in current early diagnosis measures. The National Health Service in England will improve on this system by regularly publishing early diagnosis data for brain tumours, incentivising systems to focus on these cancers.

The successful implementation of this plan will mean that three in every four people diagnosed in 2035 will be cancer-free or living well with cancer after five years. That translates to 320,000 more lives saved over the course of this plan, and the fastest rate of improvement this century.

Finally, the Government also backed the launch of RECURRENT‑GB, a new nationwide trial exploring whether surgery can improve the quality of life for patients when glioblastoma comes back after treatment commenced and is backed by £1.98 million of National Institute of Health and Research funding.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the publication of the National Cancer Plan for England on 4 February, what steps they will take to make at-home prostate-specific antigen testing available to all men in high-risk groups.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The National Cancer Plan is a key part of our work to build a National Health Service fit for the future, and it sets out how we will make England a world leader in cancer outcomes. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, and the Government is taking this issue seriously.

However, there are currently no clinically validated and reliable at-home prostate specific antigen (PSA) tests that are suitable for use in the NHS by asymptomatic men in any risk category.

In addition, the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), which advises ministers on all screening matters, recently closed a 12-week public consultation on a draft recommendation to offer targeted screening for prostate cancer in men with variants of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, every two years from the age of 45 to 61 years old, but advising against screening for other high risk groups due to either an absence of evidence, or evidence that shows that doing so would do more harm than good.

We expect the UK NSC to make a final recommendation soon. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will then consider the advice, make a decision, and determine the next steps. This includes access to PSA testing.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings in the report by Magic Breakfast, Root causes of child morning hunger, published on 9 March.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The department appreciates the publication of the report and looks forward to giving it our full consideration. This government is committed to tackling child poverty and delivering meaningful action to support children and families. The removal of the two- child limit on Universal Credit will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, rising to around 550,000 alongside other measures set out in our Child Poverty Strategy, such as the expansion of free school meals. These interventions will lead to the largest expected reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since comparable records began.

We recognise the importance of a healthy breakfast at the start of the day for pupils and the impact this can have on attendance and readiness to learn. This is why we are rolling out free breakfast clubs in every state-funded school with primary-aged pupils in England, so that all children can have the best start in life. Since April 2025, the programme has delivered 7 million meals to almost 180,000 pupils across the country. We are investing a further £80 million to fund approximately 2,000 additional schools between April 2026 and March 2027.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the change in prevalence of child morning hunger in (1) early years, (2) primary school, and (3) secondary school, settings in England in the past 12 months.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The department appreciates the publication of the report and looks forward to giving it our full consideration. This government is committed to tackling child poverty and delivering meaningful action to support children and families. The removal of the two- child limit on Universal Credit will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, rising to around 550,000 alongside other measures set out in our Child Poverty Strategy, such as the expansion of free school meals. These interventions will lead to the largest expected reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since comparable records began.

We recognise the importance of a healthy breakfast at the start of the day for pupils and the impact this can have on attendance and readiness to learn. This is why we are rolling out free breakfast clubs in every state-funded school with primary-aged pupils in England, so that all children can have the best start in life. Since April 2025, the programme has delivered 7 million meals to almost 180,000 pupils across the country. We are investing a further £80 million to fund approximately 2,000 additional schools between April 2026 and March 2027.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of free school breakfasts on school attendance in (1) early years, (2) primary school, and (3) secondary school, settings in England in the past 12 months.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Free breakfast clubs are for schools with primary-aged pupils, so that we make sure we give the youngest pupils the best start in life whilst helping parents with costs of childcare. Free breakfast clubs remove barriers to opportunity by offering primary school children, no matter their circumstance, a supportive start to the school day. School leaders report that free breakfast clubs are improving punctuality, attendance, behaviour and concentration. We have an ongoing free breakfast club programme evaluation which aims to build evidence and insights into impact on attendance for primary-age pupils.

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