Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps HMRC is taking to improve the responsiveness and consistency of its telephone customer service.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

Improving day-to-day performance is a key priority for HMRC.

HMRC are investing in new technology to improve their telephony services. Last year, they launched procurement for a new Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform which will significantly enhance the customer experience.

They are also expanding their digital services. HMRC online services and the HMRC app are convenient to access and receive high customer satisfaction ratings.

As more people use HMRC digital services, HMRC’s customer service advisers are freed up to support those who are digitally excluded, have complex tax affairs, or find themselves in vulnerable circumstances.

HMRC’s Transformation Roadmap sets out further steps to improve the customer experience for taxpayers, agents, and businesses. The Roadmap can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-transformation-roadmap

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has had with the Scottish Government regarding the availability and UK-wide supply of flu and RSV vaccines this winter; and what steps are being taken at a UK level to support devolved administrations in managing winter pressures related to respiratory illness.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) works closely with flu vaccine manufacturers and suppliers to maintain high level oversight of the overall United Kingdom supply of flu vaccine for adults. This enables early identification and mitigation of potential risks to programme delivery, such as constraints in dose availability or delays to deliveries.

The UKHSA procures the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine and the live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV), which is the primary vaccine used in the children’s flu programme, on a UK wide basis. As such, the UKHSA liaises regularly with all devolved nations, including the Scottish administration, on procurement activities and supply arrangements for these vaccines.

Both the RSV vaccine and LAIV are available for Scottish Health Boards to order via the UKHSA’s online ordering platform, ImmForm, ensuring consistent access across the UK.

Ensuring timely and reliable access to flu and RSV vaccines is a key part of reducing the burden of respiratory illness over the winter period, helping to limit avoidable hospital admissions and support health systems, including those in devolved administrations, in managing winter pressures.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the Defence Industrial Strategy on employment and skills in Scotland; and what steps are being taken to ensure defence procurement supports jobs and economic growth across all parts of the United Kingdom.

Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The Defence Industrial Strategy is already having a significant impact on employment and skills in Scotland. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) spent more than £2.1 billion with industry in Scotland in the last financial year alone, backing almost 12,000 skilled jobs and highlighting Scotland as a backbone for defence of the UK - from the home to our nuclear deterrent, to boasting a long-term pipeline of major international military shipbuilding.

This is illustrated by the deal to supply Norway with Type 26 frigates, the biggest ever warship export deal by value, that will support 4,000 jobs across the UK supply chain, including more than 2,000 at BAE Systems’ Glasgow shipyards. The Scotland Defence Growth Deal and the defence industry skills package that was also announced in the Defence Industrial Strategy will support even more employment and skills opportunities in Scotland.

The Defence Industrial Strategy sets out our commitment to revamp our procurement framework, delivering a comprehensive review of defence contracting to incentivise productivity and improve delivery. This includes our new segmented approach to procurement that is enabling the MOD to tailor its acquisition processes to the type of capability, supplier and risk involved, as well as measures aimed at making it easier for SMEs to do business with the MOD. All of these initiatives will have benefits for jobs and economic growth across the UK, including in Scotland.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on the development of the new Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy; and how her Department is working with devolved governments, including the Scottish Government, to ensure effective coordination on prevention, perpetrator interventions and data sharing.

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

“Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls”, was published on 18 December 2025. It sets out the strategic direction and concrete actions to prevent violence and abuse, pursue perpetrators, and support victims, and to deliver our unprecedented commitment to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade.

We have engaged with the Welsh Government, Scottish Government, and Northern Ireland Executive in the development of the Strategy.

Each Devolved Government has its own strategy, and ours has been informed by best practices drawn from the approaches of all three jurisdictions, including Equally Safe, Scotland’s strategy to prevent and eradicate VAWG, the Northern Ireland Ending VAWG Strategic Framework, and Wales’s Strategy for Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence. We are committed to sharing learning and best practice to make our work complementary, and this includes sharing data. VAWG is a national and international emergency, and we will continue working with all devolved governments to ensure a coordinated UK-wide response.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of UK Government measures to reduce child poverty on children in Scotland; and how he is working with the Scottish Government to complement devolved policies and support progress towards Scotland’s statutory child poverty targets.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We estimate that removing the two-child limit alongside other measures in the Child Poverty Strategy, published on 5 December, will lift 550,000 children out of poverty across the whole of the UK, leading to the largest expected reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since comparable records began.

Removing the two-child limit from April 2026 will alone reduce child poverty across the UK by 450,000 in the final year of parliament and could benefit 95,000 children living in households in Scotland impacted by the policy.

We have published the UK wide impacts for the Child Poverty Strategy here: Child Poverty Strategy: Impact on low income poverty levels and children gaining in the UK: December 2025.

We are committed to continued collaboration with the Devolved Governments to tackle child poverty across the UK. As set out in our Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, published alongside the Child Poverty Strategy, we will continue to work closely with them to consider how best to feed into their own findings to track progress at both the local and national level.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what percentage of asylum seekers received initial decisions in quarter 4 of 2025 (October to December) compared to quarter 2 2024 (April to June).

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on initial decisions of asylum claims is published in table Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum claims and initial decisions datasets’. The latest data relates to the year ending September 2025.

Data for the year ending December 2025, which will include Quarter 4 of 2025, will be published on 26 February 2026.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate she has made of the average compliance cost to sole traders of the transition to digital income tax in the 2026-27 financial year.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

HMRC’s latest published assessment of the potential impact of MTD for Income Tax across different taxpayer groups is available at:

Extension of Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self Assessment to sole traders and landlords - GOV.UK

The government has worked with stakeholders to understand costs and benefits impacts, and with the software industry to ensure a wide range of low cost and free software is available for those with the simplest affairs.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate she has made of the potential increased revenue due to recent changes to the tax classification of double cap pickups in 2026-27 financial year.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

The estimated amount of tax in 2026/27 that will be raised from double cab pick-up vehicles being treated as cars, comprised of increased Company Car Tax revenue and reduced Capital Allowances, has been estimated as follows:

This figure is based on Autumn Budget 2024 basis and is subject to uncertainty typically around the behavioural response.

Question to the Scotland Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, if he will publish the dates on which the joint UK Government and Scottish Government taskforce met to discuss the consultation on Alexander Dennis closing their Falkirk and Larbert sites.

Answered by Kirsty McNeill - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Scotland Office)

The Scotland Office has priorisited securing the future of Alexander Dennis in Falkirk and Larbert from the moment we were made aware that those sites were at risk.

The previous Secretary of State for Scotland, the Rt Hon Ian Murray MP, had discussions with the Deputy First Minister on 5 June and 21 July 2025, and my officials participated in numerous cross-government meetings throughout summer 2025. The Secretary of State for Scotland has continued this dialogue - most recently on 11 November with the Deputy First Minister - and we will continue to engage closely with the Scottish Government to safeguard these skilled jobs.

Falkirk Foodbank SCIO

Denny High School pupils represent Falkirk at Franco-British Youth Ocean Conference

Carmuirs Primary School awarded SportScotland Gold Award

Recognition of Helix Park gardener at Green Flag Awards

Roots in Falkirk

Falkirk Braes Grange Centre

Billy Bremner Raploch statue

Civil service pension scheme

68 Is Too Late report by the Prison Officers' Association

Palestine Action hunger strike

International sport and alleged United States violations of international law

Climate Finance Fund (Fossil Fuels and Pollution) Bill

Found: for British Buses (PRO0007) Prepared by Beyond2050 The APPG for British Buses, co-chaired by Euan Stainbank

Found: Before: The Chairman of Ways and Means (Ms Nusrat Ghani) (Chair) Susan Murray MP Euan Stainbank MP Peter

Found: threatens 400 jobs and impacts 3,250 supply chain roles in the area.The Labour MP for Falkirk, Euan Stainbank