Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the resilience of computing infrastructure supporting critical national infrastructure in the UK against (1) remote disablement, or (2) restriction, by an entity based outside the UK.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Government keeps the resilience of critical national infrastructure under continual review, including risks arising from reliance on technology, services, and suppliers based outside the UK.
The government does not generally comment on national security or commercial matters related to CNI, including the use of individual suppliers.
Through the National Cyber Security Centre, sector regulators, and wider resilience frameworks, the Government works with operators to identify and mitigate risks to critical systems.
The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will further strengthen the UK's cyber resilience framework. It will bring data centres who meet the threshold in scope, provide a framework to manage supply chain risks to essential and digital services and provide the Government with the flexibility to respond to new threats in the cyber landscape.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of the computing and cloud services used by government departments are provided by suppliers that are (1) headquartered outside the UK, or (2) subject to the jurisdiction of a government outside the UK.
Answered by Baroness Twycross - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
This information is not held centrally. Individual government departments are responsible for managing their own commercial arrangements for computing and cloud services and would need to confirm the proportion of services provided by suppliers headquartered outside the UK.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in regard to the Freedom from violence and abuse volume 2: action plan, published on 18 December 2025, which minister has responsibility for the cross-departmental team on pornography policy.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Captain of the King's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Baroness Bertin’s independent report made 32 recommendations, including on governance and oversight of pornography policy. The ‘Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls’, published on 18 December 2025 commits to creating a joint team to address the issues detailed in the report.
The team is formed by the Home Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Ministry of Justice and Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It will examine the evidence to inform the government’s approach to pornography policy, including the question of departmental responsibility.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what conditions his Department has set which would trigger the implementation of Operation Black Swan.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Cabinet Office is not aware of the existence of an Operation Black Swan.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the estimated cost incurred will be in the event that the Government implements Operation Black Swan.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Cabinet Office is not aware of the existence of an Operation Black Swan.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many people with autism have died by suicide in each year since 2010.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many people with autism have died by suicide since 2010.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion of his Department's staff have had days off sick because of mental illness or stress in each of the last three years; and how many days off that amounted to in each of those years.
Answered by Oliver Dowden
The table below sets out information about working days lost in my Department due to sickness absence related to mental illness or stress in each of the last three calendar years.
Calendar Year | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 |
No. of Staff | 37 | 43 | 82 |
% of Staff | 1.3% | 1.2% | 1.4% |
Working Days Lost | 1443 | 1192 | 2225 |
In the year to 31st December 2017, an average of 2.15 working days were lost through sickness absence in the Cabinet Office. Levels of sickness absence in my Department remain amongst the lowest of all Government Departments.
The Cabinet Office is committed to reducing work related absence due to mental illness and has a number of services in place to support members of staff suffering from such conditions. Our Workwell community is staffed by volunteers who aim to make Cabinet Office a happy and healthy workplace through a number of interventions including a listening service for staff. We offer a 24 hour counselling support helpline through our Employee Assistance Programme provider and advocate early referral to our occupational health service where appropriate, for advice on a number of conditions including mental health. The Cabinet Office also has a pool of trained Mental Health First Aiders who provide face to face support and signposting to professional services.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the (a) number and (b) proportion of people in (i) Liverpool, Wavertree constituency, (ii) the Liverpool City Region and (ii) England who are paid less than the Living Wage Foundation's living wage.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
Asked by: Baroness Berger (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many drug-related deaths there have been by age group in each of the last twelve months.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.