Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many staff network events took place in her Department in May 2025; and what the names of those events were.

Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Staff networks are collaborative volunteer networks, organised by staff themselves rather than the department. As a result, events are organised by staff themselves, not the department. We are aware of the following events that these networks organised in May 2025.

In May 2025, four staff network events were held in the department as part of Dementia Week. The events were:

1. Supporting Jewish People with Dementia.
2. Self-Advocacy and Dementia.
3. Reframing Dementia, Enabling Others.
4. Faith, Love, and Dementia.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many staff network events took place in his Department in May 2025; and what the names of those events were.

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

Staff networks are collaborative volunteer networks, organised by staff themselves rather than the Department.

The Department had a total of seven staff network events that took place in May 2025. This number represents events led by the networks and does not include any scheduled meetings that are normally restricted to their members. The names of the events are listed as follows:

- Mental Health Awareness week: lived experiences panel event (Women’s Network);

- Tom Riordan in Conversation with the Men’s Health Network (Men’s Health Network);

- Women’s healthcare: ‘Ask the historians’ session (History Network);

- Reflections from clinician and social worker network members on working as mental health professionals (Social Worker Network and Clinicians Network);

- ADHD at work: How it affects us and what helps us (ADHD Staff Network);

- Mental Health Awareness Week – Higher Executive Officer-Senior Executive Officer Network Event (Higher Executive Officer-Senior Executive Officer Network); and

- From Higher Executive Officer to Senior Executive Officer: How to progress across grades (Higher Executive Officer-Senior Executive Officer Network).

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has updated guidance on the use of single-sex facilities in response to the Supreme Court judgement in the case of For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers of 16 April 2025.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

We will review and update policy wherever necessary to ensure it complies with the latest legal requirements. We aim to ensure appropriate facilities are available for all staff.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who his Department consulted at Cheshire East Council before approving the decision to move the Information Commissioner's Office from Wilmslow to Manchester.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)

Cabinet Office approval for this property transaction comes under National Property Controls in the Office of Government Property. The value threshold meant that approval was taken at official level.

The decision to move was made by the Information Commissioner’s Office, itself, on analysis based upon HM Treasury’s Green Book principles. The move will lead to a reduction of office space and the overall rent payable. National Property Controls were satisfied by the property rationale for the move to the proposed building. It would be a matter for ICO to decide on what wider consultation on the relocation was appropriate.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to publish the report on packaging changes to Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, as discussed at the Commission on Human Medicines Antidepressant Risk Minimisation Expert Working Group on 1 May.

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

A public assessment report will be published by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) after the completion of the review. The advice of the Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) will be sought after the next meeting of the Antidepressant Risk Minimisation Expert Working Group (EWG) in July 2025.

The public assessment report will contain the minutes of all EWG meetings and the CHM’s advice on any regulatory action required. It is anticipated that the public assessment report will be published by the MHRA in Autumn 2025.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Game changer for the nation, published on 19 June 2025, whether the investment in grassroots sports facilities will fund the development of covered tennis courts in (a) Tatton constituency and (b) in areas which lack indoor facilities across the UK.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

The Government is determined to ensure that everyone has access to quality sport and physical activity opportunities. That is why we have committed another £400 million to transform facilities across the whole of the nation following the Spending Review.

We will now work closely with sporting bodies - including the Lawn Tennis Association - and local leaders to establish what each community needs and then set out further plans.

The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport through Sport England - which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding. Sport England provides long term investment to the LTA, which receives up to £10.2 million for 5 years from 2022 to invest in tennis and padel initiatives that will benefit as many people as possible.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Game changer for the nation, published on 19 June 2025, how much of the £900 million investment in major sporting events and grassroots sport will be spent on tennis.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

The Government is determined to ensure that everyone has access to quality sport and physical activity opportunities. That is why we have committed another £400 million to transform facilities across the whole of the nation following the Spending Review.

We will now work closely with sporting bodies - including the Lawn Tennis Association - and local leaders to establish what each community needs and then set out further plans.

The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport through Sport England - which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding. Sport England provides long term investment to the LTA, which receives up to £10.2 million for 5 years from 2022 to invest in tennis and padel initiatives that will benefit as many people as possible.

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what funding her Department plans to provide for tennis during the Spending Review period.

Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)

The Government is determined to ensure that everyone has access to quality sport and physical activity opportunities. That is why we have committed another £400 million to transform facilities across the whole of the nation following the Spending Review.

We will now work closely with sporting bodies - including the Lawn Tennis Association - and local leaders to establish what each community needs and then set out further plans.

The Government provides the majority of support for grassroots sport through Sport England - which annually invests over £250 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding. Sport England provides long term investment to the LTA, which receives up to £10.2 million for 5 years from 2022 to invest in tennis and padel initiatives that will benefit as many people as possible.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 18 June 2025 to Question 58584 on Undocumented Migrants: Biometrics, what the limited exceptions are where biometric data may not be collected at the time of encounter from immigrants arriving in the UK illegally.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)

This would include for example, children under five, who are only required to provide facial photographs, or people who are physically unable to provide biometric information at the time of their arrival because of medical emergencies. In such cases, the requirement to provide biometric information is deferred until the individual is able to comply.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the UK Health Security Agency news announcement of 21 May 2025, how much he has spent on testing mosquitoes through the Vector-Borne Real-time Arbovirus Detection and Response programme; and what the Ct value was for the PCR tests which located fragments of the West Nile virus in two mosquitoes.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Vector-Borne RADAR (Real-time Arbovirus Detection and Response) programme is a three-year funded collaborative grant worth £1.15 million which is 80% funded by Defra / UK Research & Innovation, and 20% by each of the collaborative organisations, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the British Trust for Ornithology, the Institute of Zoology and the UK Health Security Agency.

Approximately 50,000 mosquitoes across 6,000 pools in 2023 and 2024 combined have been screened from across southern and eastern England.

The programme retrospectively screened 2,000 Aedes vexans mosquitoes that were trapped in Gamston, Nottinghamshire in July 2023. These were split into 200 pools of 10 mosquitoes and screened using three separate rt-PCRs. Two pools were positive for West Nile virus (WNV) RNA (Ct values 30.7 -33.4 across all three PCRs).

More significantly, the positive RNA extracts were also submitted for GridION sequencing (an Oxford Nanopore based system). One pool amplified a 402bp region of the WNV genome, with a read depth of c500 reads which generated a consensus sequence showing a conserved section of the WNV genome and clusters with WNV lineage 1a sequences from Europe, the Middle East and North America.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department collects the DNA of people who arrive illegally in the UK.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office currently collects biometric data of small boat arrivals in the form of facial images and fingerprints, but keeps the nature of such checks under regular review.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many staff network events took place in his Department in May 2025; and what the names of those events were.

Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra can confirm that during May, no staff network events were recorded centrally by HR.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 19 June 2025 to Question 58982 on Information Commissioner's Office: Wilmslow, what steps his Department took to find alternative office space for the Information Commissioner's Office in Wilmslow.

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

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) decision to relocate was approved by the Cabinet Office with no formal role for my department. The ICO conducted an extensive search and reviewed a range of locations, including remaining within Wilmslow.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 19 June 2025 to Question 58982 on Information Commissioner's Office: Wilmslow, if he will publish the Information Commissioner’s Office's commercial analysis of the locations it considered.

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

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) decision to relocate was approved by the Cabinet Office with no formal role for DSIT. Any request for further information about this project, including any plans to publish their commercial analysis, should be addressed directly to the ICO.