Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he plans to take to support (a) veterans and (b) bereaved service families in Northern Ireland, in the context of the closure of the Veterans' Support Office.

Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)

The Government is committed to ensuring that veterans and the bereaved community, wherever they live in the UK, are able to access timely and appropriate support should they require it. The Government also recognises the unique commitment that Service families make to our country, and in particular the sacrifices of those who are bereaved. That is why we are working to coordinate and cohere the range of support available, including in Northern Ireland, more effectively.

Defence takes a holistic, multi agency approach to supporting our bereaved community, with UK wide support in place through the Single Services and the Defence Bereaved Families Group. Local support is additionally provided via the Veterans Welfare Service Northern Ireland (VWS NI), which is a specialist statutory welfare provider that supports veterans and their families via its field teams across Northern Ireland. The service provides information and practical support, including physiotherapy and psychological therapies for eligible veterans. In addition, the £500,000 Defence Medical Welfare Service pilot, which supports veterans’ health and wellbeing in Northern Ireland, is providing valuable insight to improve our understanding of veterans’ health needs locally and works closely with VWS NI. These initiatives build on the work of the 11 Veterans’ Champions in councils across Northern Ireland.

The Office for Veterans Affairs’ has recently established a presence in Northern Ireland, to support strategic coordination of organisations, programmes and initiatives for veterans’ wellbeing. The Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust, a charity and Non Departmental Public Body of the Ministry of Defence, supports the Thrive Together programme, which is led by the charity Brooke House and aims to establish sustainable and resilient networks to ensure veterans and their families receive prompt, effective and tailored support in Northern Ireland.

The Government is additionally working to ensure the bereaved community are clearly recognised and referenced as a cohort in their own right, distinctly separate to veterans, both internally and externally in communications and language used. This will improve clear signposting to support and resources available, and to ensure recognition of bereaved as a specific cohort no matter where they are living.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of standing down the Guard Force in Northern Ireland on the security of Army Reserve Centres; and what plans he has to support affected full-time reserve personnel.

Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)

The guarding of Army Reserve Centres in Northern Ireland is being reviewed. The Government will share further details with the House in due course.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions she has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on funding for public sector pay awards in Northern Ireland; and whether she has allocated funding to ensure parity in pay offers for public sector workers in Northern Ireland.

Answered by Darren Jones - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

As a result of decisions taken at Autumn Budget 2024 and Phase 1 of Spending Review 2025, the Northern Ireland Executive is receiving £15.6 billion block grant funding in 2024-25 and £18.2 billion in 2025-26. Funding in 2025-26 represents the largest real-terms settlement since devolution, and the Northern Ireland Executive (NIE) is being funded above its independently assessed relative need level of 124% in 2024-25 and 2025-26, including the 2024 restoration financial package.

The NIE is responsible for deciding how to allocate its funding across its devolved responsibilities, including the provision of pay awards for public sector workers.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to (a) recognise domestic abuse as a form of violence against women and girls, (b) prioritise funding for specialist services, (c) implement reforms to family courts recommended in the Ministry of Justice’s Harm Panel review and (d) take other steps to tackle such violence.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Domestic Abuse is a form of Violence Against Women and Girls and this Government is committed to tackling VAWG in all its forms.

Our new VAWG strategy will be published next year and will set out our continued recognition of the fundamental importance of specialist services. We will use every tool available to target perpetrators and address the root causes of abuse and violence.

On 20th September, we announced a package of measures to tackle VAWG. This included launching the Domestic Abuse Protection Orders in selected police forces and courts on 27th November to further strengthen protections for victims and introducing domestic abuse specialists into 999 control rooms from early 2025 as part of ‘Raneem’s Law’. On 3^rd December, we also announced new measures to tackle stalking.

We are committed to responding to the Harm Panel’s recommendations and the Pathfinder pilot is central to reforming the family justice system. This entirely reformed court model is currently operating in Dorset, North Wales, Birmingham and South-East Wales and seeks to improve the experiences of children and families and reduce re-traumatisation through a more investigative and less adversarial approach.

Following the spending review announcements in October, the Home Office and other departments across Government are deciding how their departmental budgets are allocated to deliver the Government’s priorities in 2025/26. Phase 2 of the Spending Review will be mission-led, ensuring Departments work together to develop a shared strategy for delivering the Government’s priority areas for reform.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) improve support, (b) ensure equitable access to specialist services and (c) promote workplace adjustments for people living with migraine; and what plans he has to work with local health boards to (i) review the level of need for migraine-specific services and (ii) ensure appropriate provision.

Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

As health is a devolved matter, no plans have been made to work with local health boards to review the level of need for migraine-specific services and ensure appropriate provision. In England, NHS England is responsible for allocating funding to integrated care boards (ICBs), which are, in turn, responsible for commissioning specialist migraine services that meet the needs of their populations, subject to local prioritisation and funding.

The process of commissioning services should take into account best practice guidance, such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guidance on the diagnosis and management of headaches in over 12-year-olds, which was updated in December 2021. The NICE guideline provides recommendations on principles of care for people with migraines, which may include a multidisciplinary approach to care, based on clinical need, and involving access to a range of health professionals, including specialist neurology nurses, neurologists, and pain management specialists. Whilst NICE guidelines are not mandatory, the Government expects the healthcare system to take them fully into account when designing services.

Occupational health as advisory support has a broad remit. It plays an important role in supporting employers to maintain and promote employee health and wellbeing through assessments of fitness for work, advice about reasonable adjustments, work ability or return to work plans, and signposting to treatment for specific conditions such as migraines.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that planned reforms to the disability benefit system provide adequate (a) security and (b) support for (i) seriously ill and (ii) disabled people while enabling those who are able to work to access appropriate opportunities.

Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

This government believes there is a strong case to change the system of health and disability benefits across Great Britain so that it better enables people to enter and remain in work, and to respond to the complex and fluctuating nature of the health conditions many people live with. The system must also work to reduce poverty for disabled people and those with health conditions and support disabled people to live independently.

We want to engage with disabled people, and others with expertise and experience on these issues, to consider how to address these challenges and build a better system. We will be working to develop proposals for reform in the months ahead and will set them out for consultation and engagement in a Green Paper in spring 2025. This government is committed to putting the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of all that we do, so we will consult on these proposals with disabled people and representative organisations.

Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, if he will published the legal advice he received on the European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill.

Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

The Government set out its position on the Bill during its Second Reading on 6 December 2024. Legal advice provided to the Government is privileged.

Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the EU General Product Safety Regulations on (a) businesses and (b) consumers in (i) Northern Ireland and (ii) Great Britain; and what steps he is taking to mitigate that potential impact.

Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

The updated General Product Safety Regulations largely formalises how businesses are already operating in the UK and the measures are therefore likely to have in practice a limited impact overall. Where businesses need to make changes, many will be adapting anyway to be compliant with the new Regulation to continue trading with the EU.

In addition to the guidance published on 3 December, the Government is continuing to engage with businesses to ensure the smooth flow of goods across the internal market.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions he has had with his international counterparts on the security of Buddhists in Tibet in (a) November and (b) December 2024.

Answered by Catherine West - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

This Government stands firm on human rights, including China's repression of the people of Tibet. We will champion freedom of religion or belief for all abroad, and work to uphold the right to freedom of religion or belief through the UN, G7 and other multilateral fora, and through bilateral engagement.

We continue to coordinate efforts with our international partners to hold China to account for human rights violations, for example, joining a statement led by Australia on Xinjiang and Tibet at the UN General Assembly on 22 October. The Foreign Secretary has raised human rights in every meeting with his Chinese counterpart Foreign Minister Wang Yi, including during his recent visit to China on 18 October.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps he is taking to ensure that the deployment of offshore renewables does not impact on blue carbon stores.

Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The UK Government is committed to reaching clean power by 2030 and restoring nature. We need to ensure that our marine ecosystems are healthy, and capturing and storing carbon too. This means that new energy infrastructure needs to be planned and developed in a way that protects the natural environment and supports nature recovery.

Assessment and mitigation of environmental impacts are a core part of our planning processes, and future spatial plans will support rebuilding our natural infrastructure at the same time as building the new energy infrastructure we need for the twenty first century.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he is taking steps to increase the use of nature-based solutions to tackle climate change.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra has a vital role to play to ensure nature-based solutions are a core part of tackling climate change and averting its impacts. Nature-based solutions deliver multiple benefits for climate, biodiversity and people, and can therefore play a critical role in helping deliver the Government's priorities, such as ensuring nature recovery. Defra’s Secretary of State has made nature recovery one of the five top priorities for the Department.

This Government is committed to achieving its tree planting targets and is committed to the legal target to plant 16.5% tree cover by 2050.  We will also restore hundreds of thousands of hectares of peatland and we are developing delivery mechanisms for peatland restoration.

Defra has secured a farm support budget of £2.4 billion for the next financial year. This means we can maintain the momentum of our Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes, which will rise to the highest funding levels ever by 2025/26. Through this investment, we are helping to secure a healthy and resilient future for English farming and restore our natural landscapes for generations to come whilst continuing to support farmers and landowners in their low-carbon, nature friendly practices.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment the Department has made of the adequacy of public toilet provision; and if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of appointing a public toilet commissioner to ensure (a) consistent standards and (b) accessibility for all communities.

Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Local authorities are best placed to understand local priorities, including on the important issue of provision of public toilets whether they are operated by local councils directly or through community schemes.

As set out in the Local government finance policy statement 2025 to 2026 published on 28 November, we are taking action to address the significant challenges councils face, including through the first multi-year funding settlement for local government in 10 years and reducing the number of funding pots so that councils have more certainty and flexibility to judge local priorities, to meet the needs of local people, and to decide how best to deliver on our national priorities.

Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whether he received legal advice on the European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill.

Answered by Hilary Benn - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

I refer the Honourable Member to the reply I provided to the question he previously tabled on this subject and published on 17 December 2024 (UIN 18801).

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to help improve road safety for cyclists; and what financial support she has provided for programmes delivered by The Bikeability Trust since July 2024.

Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

In 2022, Active Travel England was established as an executive agency to the Department for Transport, with the strategic aim of enabling people to walk, wheel and cycle and protecting them when they do by reducing road danger through the creation of safe infrastructure. The agency has been supporting the development of designs and the assessment of design quality through the use of recently published active travel design assistance and scheme review tools. Officials use these tools for ongoing design assurance and to identify critical safety issues that are associated with an increased risk of collisions for people walking, wheeling, or cycling, and work with local authorities to remove or mitigate them.

To further improve road safety for cyclists, we are investing up to £30 million this year to scale up Bikeability training to over 500,000 more children, and will announce further funding for Bikeability training in the coming months.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to review the regulations surrounding the sale of potent medications such as (a) finasteride, (b) dutasteride, and (c) selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors via telehealth companies, in the context of the correlation between these medications and long-term health conditions.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are no current plans to review the legal avenues of online prescribing and the dispensing of prescription-only medications.

Decisions about what medicines to prescribe are made by the doctor or healthcare professional responsible for that part of the patient’s care, and prescribers are accountable for their prescribing decisions, irrespective of the forum in which these decisions are made.

Clinicians are expected to work with patients to make decisions about their care and treatment as part of shared decision making, including discussing risks, benefits, and possible consequences of different options, in line with professional guidelines laid down by the General Medical Council, which are available at the following link:

https://www.gmc-uk.org/professional-standards/the-professional-standards/good-practice-in-prescribing-and-managing-medicines-and-devices

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the two-child limit on recent trends in the level of child poverty; and whether the Government has made an assessment of the potential merits of ending the policy via the child poverty strategy.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We published the framework ‘Tackling Child Poverty: Developing Our Strategy’ on 23 October and will explore all available levers to deliver an enduring reduction in child poverty in this parliament, as part of a 10-year strategy for lasting change.

The Child Poverty Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, which includes considering social security reforms, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience, and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.

The Child Poverty Taskforce continues its urgent work to publish the Strategy in Spring 2025.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to ensure greater oversight of UK-based multinational corporations.

Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

As set out in the King’s Speech, the Government will publish a draft Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill to strengthen audit and corporate governance oversight of corporations including UK-based multinationals. The draft Bill will uphold standards and independent scrutiny of companies’ reporting and governance, supporting investment and economic security.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will hold discussions with Ofcom on the adequacy of (a) the competitiveness of pricing, (b) customer retention practices and (c) service standards in the (i) mobile and (ii) television service sector.

Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

I have held regular meetings with Ofcom, both on their own and with others, when these and many other issues have been discussed.

100th birthday of Elizabeth Lily Tucker

John Watt fundraising for Northern Ireland Children to Lapland Trust

Posthumous Victoria Cross for Blair Paddy Mayne

UN Special Rapporteur's report on atrocity crimes in Iran