Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make date of birth a mandatory field when reporting a suspected adverse reaction to the Yellow Card scheme run by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

For medicines and vaccines, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) aligns with internationally recognised pharmacovigilance standards including the International Council for Harmonisation E2B (R3) standard for the collection and transmission of adverse reaction data. While reporters are encouraged to provide as much relevant information as possible, including date of birth where known, a valid individual case safety report is only required to contain sufficient information to identify a patient, such as age group, sex, initials, or a patient medical record number. In general, the MHRA seeks to collect sufficient information to support effective safety monitoring, whilst maintaining a proportionate and accessible system to encourage reporting from healthcare professionals, patients and carers. Requiring information that may not always be immediately available could create an unnecessary barrier to potential reporting rates.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many of the suspected adverse reaction reports of unknown age for the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna monovalent were followed up by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to try and recover the missing information.

Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The requested information is not held centrally by the Department and could only be collated and verified at disproportionate cost.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the implications for her Department's policies of the report from the Anti-Slavery Commissioner entitled Anticipating Exploitation: Forced Surrogacy; and what assessment she has made of the potential risk of reproductive exploitation.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No such assessment has been made.

Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, whether funding for the e-MERLIN programme is being withdrawn.

Answered by Chris McDonald - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) funding for the e‑MERLIN radio telescope network remains in place until 31 March 2028. STFC does not intend to continue operational funding for e‑MERLIN beyond that date. This decision follows an evidence-based prioritisation exercise undertaken by STFC and forms part of a wider package of measures designed to return STFC to a sustainable financial position while protecting core scientific capability, major facilities and international partnerships.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what meetings her department has had since July 2024 with the British Liver Trust, and what the dates of those meetings were.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

External meetings held by ministers and senior civil servants are reported on a quarterly basis in the Department’s transparency publications. Other officials hold regular meetings with a range of external stakeholders, but under successive administrations, it has never been the practice for details of those meetings to be routinely published.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer of 20 July 2026 to Question 16871, how many further such cases involving assaults against emergency workers have been heard and dealt with since 29 June 2026; what the outcome was in each of those cases; and what the outcome was in each of the 64 cases referred to in the Answer as having previously been dealt with.

Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

Between 29 June and 11 September 2026, 118 trial cases involving offences under the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 were listed for hearing and 68 have been dealt with.

Of these 67 cases, the outcomes were as follows:

• 17 cases - defendants pleaded guilty

• 15 cases - prosecution offered no evidence

• 8 cases – defendants acquitted after trial

• 13 cases - defendants convicted after trial

• 15 cases - defendants given bind overs.

In this period, 40 cases were also sentenced of which 24 were effective.

The outcome of the 64 cases between 6 April and 29 June 2026 were as follows.

• 19 cases - defendants pleaded guilty

• 15 cases - prosecution offered no evidence

• 17 cases - defendants acquitted after trial

• 6 cases - defendants convicted after trial

• 7 cases - defendants given bind overs.

Those where prosecution offered no evidence or defendants were acquitted after trial did not proceed to another hearing.

It should be noted that the decision to list a case is taken by the independent judiciary. This data has been manually collated from locally held operational records and is unpublished management information. It is not subject to the same level of quality assurance as official published statistics. Figures are subject to change as case records are updated or amended.

Found: enterpriseCommittedNorth West EnglandVamos TheatreWorcesterWR1 3EDArts and mediaCommittedWest MidlandsThe office of Esther McVey

Found: West England Vamos Theatre Worcester WR1 3ED Arts and media Committed West Midlands The office of Esther McVey

Found: Esther McVey MP 7,920 Alex Burghart MP 5,593 Johnny Mercer MP 7,920 The Rt Hon.

Found: Esther McVey MP 7,920 Alex Burghart MP 5,593 Johnny Mercer MP 7,920 The Rt Hon.

Found: Esther McVey MP 7,920 Alex Burghart MP 5,593 Johnny Mercer MP 7,920 The Rt Hon.