Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Food Safety Act 1990, what is the legal basis for the adding of folic acid to non-wholewheat flour as a public health measure.

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

The Bread and Flour (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2024 made provisions for the mandatory fortification of non-wholemeal wheat flour with folic acid, following a final decision to proceed with this long-standing proposal taken by the previous government in January 2024, when the Rt Hon Member was the Minister for Common Sense.

These provisions were made using powers in sections 6(4), 16(1)(a) and (e), 18(1)(c), 26(1)(a) and (3) and 48(1) of the Food Safety Act 1990. In particular, section 16(1)(a) includes provisions for “requiring, prohibiting or regulating the presence in food or food sources of any specified substance, or any substance of any specified class, and generally for regulating the composition of food.”

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will ask the Office for National Statistics to publish a daily dashboard of deaths by date.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with HM Treasury)

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

A response to the Parliamentary Question of 16th July is attached.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what number of trains per week from a) London to Manchester and b) Manchester to London were on the timetable in i) 2024, ii) 2025 iii) January to June 2026 iv) July to December 2026 and v) are planned for 2027.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Please see below Manchester services per timetable over this period.

SX = Weekdays

SO = Saturdays

SU = Sundays

Please note, that from Monday 20th July to Friday 28th August Avanti operated a Customer Led Timetable, designed to better match the timetable with reduced summer demand. As a result, 10 Manchester services every weekday were removed, reducing the weekly total to 582.

The Customer Led Timetable has now ended, so the full timetable is in operation to Manchester.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will reverse her approval from July for a reduction in the timetable of trains between Manchester and London.

Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Please see below Manchester services per timetable over this period.

SX = Weekdays

SO = Saturdays

SU = Sundays

Please note, that from Monday 20th July to Friday 28th August Avanti operated a Customer Led Timetable, designed to better match the timetable with reduced summer demand. As a result, 10 Manchester services every weekday were removed, reducing the weekly total to 582.

The Customer Led Timetable has now ended, so the full timetable is in operation to Manchester.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of a) men and b) women were released from prison after serving less than i) 50% ii) 33% and iii) 25% of their prison sentence in jail in each of the last 3 years.

Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)

This Government inherited prisons days from collapse. We had no choice but to take decisive action to stop our prisons overflowing and keep the public safe. Without the changes this Government made, courts would have had to halt trials and the police cancel arrests, undermining public safety and leading to a disastrous impact on public confidence in the Criminal Justice System.

As is set out in existing legislation, most offenders, unless the court judges them to be dangerous, will receive a standard determinate sentence. This means they must be released automatically at a fixed release point, with the remainder of the sentence to be served on licence in the community. Prisoners can, however, serve a complex mix of concurrent and consecutive sentences, and data is not readily available on the proportion of each of their individual sentences that a prisoner has served across their time in custody. However, we regularly publish data on releases from prison in the quarterly Offender Management Statistics, which includes data on average time served for determinate sentences. We have also published data on releases under SDS40 and, before that up until September 2024, End of Custody Supervised Licence.

Offender management statistics quarterly - GOV.UK

Standard Determinate Sentence (SDS40) release data - GOV.UK

End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) detailed data - GOV.UK