Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
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.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
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.”
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the reduction in the Referral to Treatment waiting list between August 2024 and March 2026 was attributable to (a) increased completed treatments and (b) non-treatment removals, including validation exercises.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Rt Hon Member to the answer provided in the House of Lords on 30 June in response to Question HL381.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether NHS England plans to publish monthly data showing the number of Referral to Treatment pathways removed from waiting lists by reason for removal.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Rt Hon Member to the answer provided in the House of Lords on 30 June in response to Question HL381.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 10 July 2026 to Question 15320 on Folic Acid, with reference to the Food Standard Agency's information page entitled Guidance: Folic Acid, updated on 10 July 2026, where the nine pieces of evidence can be found as the links are not working.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson
The Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) website moved over to the GOV.UK platform on 25 June 2026. The FSA’s information page on the fortification of flour with folic acid is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/folic-acid/folic-acid
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether the Government has analysed companies incorporated during the pandemic against recipients of Bounce Back Loans and other Covid support schemes.
Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
HM Government has analysed the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) portfolio for indicators that borrowers received loans which were ineligible under Scheme rules. This included analysing whether businesses were established on or before 1st March 2020 in accordance with BBLS eligibility criteria.
HMG has not analysed companies incorporated before 1st March 2020 across other Covid Loan Schemes.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2026 to Question 15321 on Innovation and Technology: Obesity, whether the evaluation activity will be independent of Eli Lilly and Company; whether it will include control groups, randomisation or other comparative evaluation methods; and whether the results will be published.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)
The Obesity Pathway Innovation Programme evaluation has been commissioned independently through the National Institute for Health and Care Research and is entirely independent of Eli Lilly and Company. The evaluation team is currently working with funded projects to understand service delivery models and planned data collection, with the final evaluation framework being developed by Autumn 2026. The findings of this independent evaluation will inform national decision-making, including future evidence requirements, and the outputs of the independent evaluation will be disseminated and made publicly available as appropriate.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Department's press release entitled Deputy Prime Minister sets out vision for the justice system, 24 February 2026, what information his Department holds on the number of cases involving assault of an emergency worker have been dealt with since the commencement of Blitz courts in London in April 2026.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We inherited a criminal courts system in crisis. There are over 80,000 criminal cases currently waiting to be heard in the Crown Court, which means that some victims – and those seeking to clear their name – are waiting years for justice. Only by pulling every lever we have – investment, efficiency and structural reform – can we turn the tide on the backlog and begin to deliver swifter justice for all.
The Deputy Prime Minister has announced several measures we are taking forward to drive efficiency, including enabling the Crown Court judiciary - through the allocation of unlimited sitting days - to undertake targeted approaches to listing to enable cases can be resolved more quickly and efficiently.
Judges based at the Old Bailey, but hearing cases from across London, are using targeted listing to help reduce further court delays that have left some emergency workers waiting years for justice after being attacked while protecting the public.
Between 6 April and 29 June 2026, 107 cases involving offences under the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 were listed for hearing. Of these, 64 have been dealt with already.
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 may be subject to change as case records are updated or amended.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the article in The Lancet by Dr Czeizel entitled Can terathanasia explain the protective effect of folic-acid supplementation on birth defects, published on 16 August 1997, particularly the comment that fetal deaths could readily account for not just part of the effect of folic acid on prevention of defect in births, but for the entire effect.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson
In the United Kingdom, folic acid fortification was first considered by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food and Nutrition Policy (COMA) in 2000.
In its report on Folic Acid and the Prevention of Disease, COMA considered the 1997 paper by Hook and Czeizelb, Can terathanasia explain the protective effect of folic-acid supplementation on birth defects?.
COMA noted that “It has been suggested that some agents that reduce the incidence of birth defects might do so by increasing the rate of death or abortion of affected fetuses ("terathanasia") and that the effect of folic acid on [neural tube defects] NTDs could be mediated by this means. For this reason, there has been some concern over an increased rate of spontaneous abortions among women taking folic acid supplements.”
COMA further noted that it “is most likely due, however, to an increase in fertility and multiple pregnancies among women taking supplements and to an effect of folate in allowing the survival of non-viable conceptuses to a stage where their loss is recognised as abortions. The generally accepted view is that folic acid supplements prevent NTDs simply by allowing the normal development of the fetal neural tube.”
Folic acid fortification was recommended by COMA in 2000 and by its successor the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) in 2006, after an extensive review of the evidence on folate and health. The SACN has further considered the evidence in its 2009 report to the Chief Medical Officer on folic acid and colorectal cancer risk and its 2017 update on folic acid and did not identify any further concerns on the issue.
Asked by: Esther McVey (Conservative - Tatton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the government announcement of 27 June 2026 on Pioneering projects to transform obesity care, for what reason the relevant competing interests of the quoted experts were not disclosed.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
The Government announcement on 27 June 2026, titled Pioneering projects to transform obesity care, backed by £85 million from government and industry, was a press notice announcing the 12 successful projects funded through the Obesity Pathway Innovation Programme. The quoted individuals were identified by their names, organisation, and roles.
Press notices are intended to communicate Government announcements and are not scientific or academic publications. The affiliations of those quoted were set out in the announcement, enabling readers to understand the capacity in which comments were provided.