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.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of evidence linking chemical flame retardants to developmental and neurological impacts in children.

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

The Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) has considered the available evidence for phosphate-based flame retardants (PFRs) and the potential for neurodevelopmental effects in children and the developing foetus. PFRs were introduced in the United Kingdom as an alternative to brominated flame retardants as some of these were banned from use or restricted.

The COT reviewed the potential for PFRs to act via similar mechanisms to organophosphate (OP) compounds, such as OP pesticides, as they have some structural similarities.

Overall, the COT concluded that the available evidence indicates that PFRs do not pose a risk of developmental toxicity at anticipated exposure levels and that PFRs were very unlikely to share the neurodevelopmental effects of other OP compounds. However, the COT could not exclude the possibility that PFRs could produce neurodevelopmental toxicity by some other mechanism. Further information is available in the COT’s Statement on phosphate-based flame retardants and the potential for neurodevelopmental toxicity, a copy of which is attached.

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.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that women accessing perinatal mental health services are routinely offered information and counselling on contraception and pregnancy spacing where clinically appropriate.

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

NHS England is working to ensure perinatal mental health services work collaboratively with maternity, primary care, and reproductive health services so that women can access appropriate information and advice on contraception and pregnancy spacing, tailored to their individual needs and preferences.

The Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce is also currently considering a wide range of proposals to inform the development of the maternity and neonatal action plan, and we will ensure that submissions relating to the information and counselling offered through perinatal mental health services are carefully considered as part of those deliberations.

Found: life care Select committee, October to November 2025 At the end of the second reading debate, Baroness Berger