Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the average waiting time for patients with anxiety and depression to gain access to cognitive behavioural therapy.

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

This information is not held in the format requested. NHS England publishes data on the average waiting time for patients to start treatment with NHS Talking Therapies services, but the condition with which a person may be presenting is not recorded.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the current vacancy rate for clinical psychologists.

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

The Department does not hold the information requested. NHS England publishes quarterly National Health Service hospital trust vacancy and job advert data. The publication sets out vacancy rates for total NHS trust staff and, separately, for registered nurses and doctors at a national and regional level. The latest data for December 2024 shows that the vacancy rate for total NHS trust staff was 7.2%. The data is not detailed enough to identify vacancy rates for clinical psychologists.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what information they have on the number of prevented terrorist attacks purportedly by Iran in the UK in the past 10 years.

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

The Government's top priority is our national security, and we will continue to use all appropriate tools at our disposal to protect the UK, and its people, from any Iran-linked threats. As is our longstanding position, the Home Office does not comment in detail on specific operational matters.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what are the current vacancy rates for care workers in care homes in England and Wales; and whether these rates have changed in the last five years.

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

The policy for health and adult social care is devolved across the United Kingdom. The Department is responsible for adult social care in England, and therefore only captures information on vacancy rates for England. The following table shows estimates of the vacancy rates for the adult social care workforce, including the independent and local authority sectors, from 2019/20 to 2023/24:

Source: Skills for Care using the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set.

It is important to note that vacancies include roles advertised by independent providers and therefore reflect market conditions. Vacancies include both posts that are vacant in the short term, due to recent or anticipated staff turnover, and posts created by employers who want to expand and grow their businesses, rather than only roles needed to meet statutory entitlements. Therefore, vacancy rates are likely not the best measure of capacity, or lack of capacity.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the proportion of overseas workers in the care workforce.

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

According to Skills for Care’s The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England 2024 publication, three quarters of the adult social care workforce had a British nationality in 2023/24, and the remaining quarter, 394,000 filled posts, had a non-British nationality.