Question to the Attorney General:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 24 March (HL15443), what steps the Attorney General Office's has taken in the last year to meet its legal duty to keep under review the question of when uncommenced legislation that falls within its area of responsibility should be brought into force.

Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General

Whilst the Law Officers sit on the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee, the Attorney General’s Office does not, itself, have legislation that falls within its areas of policy responsibility. Questions as to the commencement of legislation should be directed to the Government departments with policy responsibility.

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 24 March (HL15443), what steps the Office of the Advocate General for Scotland has taken in the last year to meet its legal duty to keep under review the question of when uncommenced legislation that falls within its area of responsibility should be brought into force.

Answered by Lord Hermer - Attorney General

The Office of the Advocate General, along with supporting the Advocate General as a Law Officer, is the Scottish legal team for other UK Government departments.  Decisions about the implementation of uncommenced legislation are made by the UK Government department with responsibility for the legislation in question

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many people who do not work for NHS England have been granted access rights to identifiable patient data on or via the Federated Data Platform, broken down by the firm or organisation that employs them.

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

The National Data Integration Tenant is NHS England’s secure platform for collecting and managing national health and care data. It replaces multiple legacy systems with one unified, secure process, reducing burden for National Health Service teams while ensuring the right data is available at the right time to support faster decisions and safer care. Data is pseudonymised using Privacy Enhancing Technologies and then routed to the National NHS Federated Data Platform where it is used for analysis, insights, and decision-making.

There are three Palantir contractors with administrative permissions under the instruction of NHS England as the data controller.

In addition, data engineering activities are carried out by twenty-two non-NHS England contractors, nineteen employed by Palantir or the supplier consortium, one employed by Mastek, and two by NHS trusts. They have limited project-based access under the instruction of NHS England. Individual access is strictly role‑based depending on the project and is time limited.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government when the performance of a firm under other government and public sector contracts can or cannot be taken into account when deciding to which firm to award a new contract to.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

The Procurement Act 2023 expands the grounds for excluding suppliers for poor performance on any contract involving a public authority. In addition to the previous applicable exclusion grounds, which required contract breach or termination, authorities can now also exclude suppliers who failed to rectify poor performance under a contract with a public authority despite an opportunity to do so, provided the issue is continuing or likely to recur. To inform these decisions, performance data is shared via public notices for contracts awarded under the Procurement Act, and a new centralised debarment list records certain suppliers who may or must be excluded. Contracting authorities must assess suppliers individually for exclusion prior to contract award.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in implementing their findings from their consultation on remote attendance and proxy voting in local authority council meetings.

Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

The Government has published its response to the consultation and remains committed to legislating for remote attendance and proxy voting when Parliamentary time allows.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many NHS staff have declined to work on the Federated Data Platform due to concerns about the role of Palantir in the project.

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

The NHS Federated Data Platform (NHS FDP) safely connects information across the National Health Service into a single secure environment to allow staff to better co-ordinate care, through managing theatre time better, or improving the speed of a cancer diagnosis, or allowing the quicker discharge of a patient from hospital.

To date, 24 integrated care board clusters and 168 NHS trusts have signed up to the NHS FDP.

Information on how many NHS staff have declined to work on the NHS FDP is not collected centrally.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government why the social media platform X has been selected for promotion in the standard signatures on many official Whitehall emails; why other social networks are not mentioned; and what plans they have to review the preference given to X.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

There is no single, mandatory, cross-government email signature standard, as each department has localised branding and IT systems.

The Government continually reviews the selection of communication channels to ensure we reach audiences where they are.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the response given by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 28 April (HL Deb col 1112), how many key performance indicators for Capita have been set in total across its government and public sector contracts; what the performance rankings are within those KPIs; and what proportion of KPIs fall into each of those performance rankings.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

Performance data for 15 of the government's most important contracts with Capita is published quarterly.

In Q3 of Financial Year 2025/26, a total of 30 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were reported against. The performance rankings and the proportion of KPIs falling into each ranking are as follows:

• 'Good': 26 KPIs (86.67%)

• 'Inadequate': 4 KPIs (13.33%)

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 9 June (HL581), (1) which companies are currently on the debarment list, and (2) whether each such company is listed as a company that either "must" or "may" be excluded from future contracts.

Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

Under the Procurement Act 2023, suppliers may only be added to the debarment list by Ministerial decision, following an investigation conducted by the Debarment Review Service. This is a new power that came into force on 24 February 2025.

No suppliers are currently on the debarment list.