Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many cybersecurity vulnerabilities affecting medical devices have been reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in each of the last three years.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring medicines, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion meet applicable standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The MHRA rigorously assesses available data, including from the Yellow Card scheme, and seeks advice from their independent advisory committee, the Commission on Human Medicines, where appropriate to inform regulatory decisions.

The presence of a report on the adverse incident database does not necessarily demonstrate a causal relationship between the device and the event reported. The reported event may be attributable to patient, user, or other factors. As such, the data should not be regarded as a summary of confirmed adverse reactions to the device and should be interpreted with caution.

Adverse incidents are classified using the terminology developed by the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF), with further information available at the following link:

https://www.imdrf.org/

This provides a standardised approach to coding information, including medical device malfunctions and patient or user outcomes. Annex A of the IMDRF coding system contains the codes used to describe medical device problems and malfunctions reported in adverse incident reports, with further information available at the following link:

https://www.imdrf.org/working-groups/adverse-event-terminology/annex-medical-device-problem

The following table shows the number of Yellow Card reports reporting IMDRF Annex A code A1105 – Computer System Security Problem in 2024, 2025, and 2026 until 14 July:

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps the Department is taking to raise awareness among small businesses of the expanded role and powers of the Small Business Commissioner.

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)

The Government is committed to ensuring that small businesses are aware of the Small Business Commissioner’s expanded role and powers. The Commissioner already provides advice, guidance and support through its website, outreach activity and communications channels, and these will be strengthened as new powers are introduced. The Department will work closely with the Commissioner to deliver a comprehensive communications and engagement programme, helping small businesses understand their rights, access support, and benefit from the stronger protections and enforcement measures provided by the Commercial Payments Bill.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps the Department is taking to ensure that the design of the UK’s electronic invoicing regime minimises costs and administrative burdens for small businesses.

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)

Electronic invoicing, or e-invoicing, will become mandatory for VAT transactions from April 2029. E-invoicing will help business productivity and efficiency, reduce late payments and streamline tax administration.

DBT and HMRC ran a consultation between February and May 2025 to gather views on e-invoicing from a wide range of stakeholders, including small businesses and business representative organisations.

We are now working collaboratively to co-design e-invoicing policy, including with business representative organisations and accountancy and bookkeeping networks who champion small business interests.

The government will publish an Implementation Roadmap at Budget 2026 to update on progress and set out key milestones ahead of the mandate.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps the Department is taking with the Cabinet Office to help innovative scale-up businesses navigate public procurement processes and secure opportunities to supply the public sector.

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)

The Department for Business and Trade is working closely with the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (including the Commercial Innovation Hub) to improve public procurement of innovation.

Through the Industrial Strategy and measures announced at Autumn Budget 2025 the government is going further to support innovative UK scale-ups to access public procurement – including through the establishment of an Innovation Marketplace, expanded use of Advance Market Commitments and appointment of Innovation Champions in all departments.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to help improve the recruitment and retention of cybersecurity specialists.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)

To improve the recruitment and retention of cyber security professionals across Government, DSIT launched the Government Cyber Profession in February 2026. The profession will introduce a competitive total employee offer, establish a dedicated Cyber Recruitment Hub to streamline recruitment, and create a clear career framework aligned with UK Cyber Security Council professional standards. This will directly address our cyber skills gaps, increase access to and help retain talent, establish cross-government standards, and provide learning and development programmes.

At the national level, the £200 million TechFirst programme is building the UK's domestic cyber talent pipeline, complemented by the UK Cyber Security Council's professional standards which support recruitment and retention across industry.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential operational and national-security risks arising from government departments deploying a small number of cloud-service providers.

Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Technology)

The State of Digital Government Review, published in January 2025, highlighted that concentrating workloads on a limited number of suppliers creates systemic concentration risks. The National Risk Register 2026, published on 14 July, further identifies disruption to third-party suppliers and digital infrastructure as a significant resilience risk.

Existing Government cyber policy and technology frameworks already support a range of resilience measures to tackle this, by requiring departments to assess security, resilience and business continuity risks when procuring and operating cloud.

The Government's Cloud First policy encourages organisations to consider all suitable suppliers and supports competition in cloud procurement, while the Multi‑Region Cloud Policy promotes deployment across multiple regions to improve resilience. Public procurement seeks to maintain a diverse supplier base, while the Competition and Markets Authority is independently examining competition in the UK cloud market.

Alongside this, Government is tackling these risks through the implementation of the Government Cyber Action Plan, which sets out our approach to enhancing cyber security and resilience across the public sector, including through enhanced cyber assurance and oversight.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Department is taking with food retailers and charities to improve the use of real-time data to increase the redistribution of edible surplus food.

Answered by Mary Creagh

In May, the Prime Minister committed to a national programme to redistribute surplus food to support those in need. Defra is working with food retailers, redistribution organisations, and charities to increase the redistribution of edible surplus food and reduce waste. In 2024, redistribution organisations received around 210,000 tonnes of surplus food, equivalent to 500 million meals worth approximately £870 million. We know that improving the use of real-time data and strengthening links between businesses and redistribution networks means that surplus food can be identified and redirected more quickly, ensuring more edible food reaches those who need it rather than going to waste. We are looking at opportunities for the sector to maximise the use of data.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps the Department is taking with the Home Office and Crown Prosecution Service to improve the secure transfer of digital evidence between police, prosecutors and courts and reduce avoidable delays.

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

Under the Criminal Procedure Rules, parties are required to assist the court in the active management of cases, and prosecutors are responsible for serving prosecution evidence on the court and other parties where the rules require it. This includes ensuring that evidence is provided in a format that can be used effectively by the court. The Department is supporting this through work with criminal justice partners on digital case progression, including through the Police Digital Case File programme, and associated improvements to the presentation of digital evidence in court. These reforms are intended to improve the quality and accessibility of case material, reduce reliance on manual processes and help avoid delays caused by missing, incomplete or unusable evidence.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps the Department is taking to ensure that UK-funded humanitarian programmes collect age-disaggregated data and include older people in needs assessments and programme design.

Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

We recognise that people with existing vulnerabilities, including older people, can be disproportionately affected by humanitarian crises. All organisations which receive Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office funding are therefore required to demonstrate commitment to equality and inclusion in the planning, delivery and monitoring of their work, to ensure our assistance reaches those in greatest need.

I also refer the Hon Member to the Inclusive Data Charter Action Plan, where age is included in principle 2, as one of the dimensions for which we aim to collect disaggregated data. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/leaving-no-one-behind-our-promise/inclusive-data-charter-action-plan#principle-2-all-data-should-wherever-possible-be-disaggregated-to-accurately-describe-all-populations

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many central government websites and mobile applications do not currently meet the required public-sector accessibility standards; and what steps are being taken to remedy that.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)

The accessibility monitoring team in the Government Digital Service (GDS) has found that for central government websites that operate independently of GOV.UK - including those run by the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish governments - 61% met accessibility requirements at time of assessment. The GOV.UK website is regularly tested for accessibility and central government organisations are expected to use GOV.UK for their publishing.

In May 2026, GDS issued a survey to 10 central government departments to better understand barriers to compliance with government’s accessibility requirements. The survey has since closed and GDS is currently considering the responses.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Government is taking to involve voluntary, community and faith organisations in local and national emergency preparedness exercises.

Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security) (Jointly with the Cabinet Office)

The Cabinet Office recognises the valuable role that the voluntary, community and faith sector (VCFS) can play in all aspects of resilience. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 requires local Category 1 responders ‘to have regard’ to the activities of voluntary organisations while carrying out their duties. This is reinforced in guidance and standards, which provide further detail on the benefits of including the VCFS within local exercising.

The Cabinet Office is committed to conducting one major ‘Tier 1’ ministerial-led exercise annually under the National Exercising Programme. On 15th July and as part of the national resilience annual statement, the government announced that the next Tier 1 exercise (Exercise ALBISTON SHADOW) will focus on homeland defence.

Under a Tier 1 exercise, Government departments, agencies, non-governmental organisations and local responders are all involved to deliver the objectives and requirements of each year's exercise. In support of this, work is also underway to ensure that guidance, best practice, frameworks and other tools are made available to all parts of the system so that high-quality exercising can happen at all levels, not just during Tier 1 exercises.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps the Department is taking to expand the use of synthetic training environments to enable joint training between the Armed Forces and NATO allies.

Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)

The UK has provided the primary hub for NATO Distributed Synthetic Training since 2025, supporting secure and operationally relevant joint training for NATO personnel across the maritime, land and air domains.

Following the direction of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review, the Ministry of Defence is developing a single virtual training environment and embedding synthetic training requirements within future procurement programmes.

This will enable personnel to train together more effectively, improve the re-use of existing capabilities, and increase interoperability with NATO Allies and partners.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what steps the Department is taking to ensure that small businesses in each area can access practical support to adopt artificial intelligence safely and productively.

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

The government is committed to helping small businesses across the UK adopt AI safely and productively.

The industry-led SME Digital Adoption Taskforce set an ambition for the UK’s small and medium-sized businesses to be the most digitally capable and AI confident in the G7 by 2035. We are working to deliver their recommendations, including pilots with small businesses in the West of England and West Yorkshire, collaboration with industry on support, and new offers through the Business Growth Service. An update was published in June 2026.

The AI Skills Boost programme is also helping workers with AI skills, including cyber security.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Department is taking with the devolved administrations and local authorities to support consistent safety and accessibility standards for electric-vehicle charging stations.

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

The Government engages regularly with devolved governments and local authorities (LAs) on electric vehicle charging.

The Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund supports local authorities to scale up EV charging provision across England. Through LEVI, LAs are expected to consider charge point accessibility. Support for LAs is available through one-to-one guidance, masterclasses and an online knowledge repository.

OZEV engaged the devolved administrations throughout the development and the review of charge point accessibility standard (PAS 1899). They will also be closely involved in the ongoing revision of PAS 1899.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Department is taking to help increase access to flexible and modular training for people seeking to move into occupations experiencing skills shortages.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Education and skills are devolved matters, the response outlines the information for England only.

We are transforming the Apprenticeships Levy into a new Growth and Skills Levy in England, giving employers greater flexibility, creating more opportunities for young people, and directly supporting the Industrial Strategy.

In April 2026 we launched the first apprenticeship units focussing on priority sectors including artificial intelligence (AI), digital, construction and engineering. Apprenticeship units are short courses built from the knowledge and skills within existing employer-led occupational apprenticeship standards, ensuring high-quality, targeted training. They target immediate shortages in areas that will drive productivity and growth and will help employers upskill existing employees quickly and flexibly.

We have also reduced the apprenticeship minimum duration to 8 months, where this is appropriate for the role or the apprentice, as we know the previous 12-month minimum duration meant some employers and learners were prevented from accessing apprenticeships.

Additionally, we are also supporting more entry-level opportunities for young people, by introducing new foundation apprenticeships to give young people a route into careers in critical sectors, such as construction and health and social care.

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of eligible rail journeys currently result in passengers receiving automatic compensation for delays; and what steps she is taking to increase that proportion.

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

Ten of the fourteen Department for Transport operators now offer delay repay schemes that provide automated, one-click delay repay, and we are also developing plans to make it even easier and more convenient to claim Delay Repay. Earlier this year, we announced that the compensation claim systems for delayed trains will be merged into one easy-to-use service under Great British Railways. This will also enable passenger to claim Delay Repay directly from third-party retailers for the first time. The Department does not hold data on the proportion of services that receive automatic delay repay.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the proportion of schools and colleges that meet the Department’s cyber security core standard; and what steps she is taking to ensure that all education settings meet that standard by 2030.

Answered by Paul Waugh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department’s Technology in Schools Survey collects information about whether schools meet the core technology standards, but does not provide a separate estimate for the cyber security core standard alone.

The department expects all schools and colleges to work towards meeting the six core standards, including cyber security, by 2030. To support this, the department has published guidance and expanded the Plan Technology for Your School service to include cyber security. We also continue to provide practical support to help settings assess risks and strengthen their resilience, for example, the Cyber Security Hub and cyber security services for colleges provided by Jisc.

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many cybersecurity incidents affecting government departments in each of the last three years originated in or involved a third-party supplier; and what steps are being taken to strengthen cybersecurity requirements throughout government supply chains.

Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport)

The Government is aware of the risk created by supply chain cyber security incidents and is taking a range of steps to strengthen cyber resilience across government’s supply chains. These include embedding cyber security considerations into commercial and procurement activity, promoting the adoption of recognised cyber security standards, and working across government to identify and manage supply chain cyber risks.

In addition, the Government is engaging directly with its Strategic Suppliers through the Government Cyber Charter. As part of this work, all 39 Strategic Suppliers have been invited to sign the Government Cyber Resilience Pledge, which was launched last week as a public commitment to strengthening organisational cyber resilience. More than 20 Strategic Suppliers have already joined the first cohort of signatories, including major suppliers to government such as Microsoft, Accenture, Deloitte, Vodafone and Capgemini. Through the Charter, Government is working with Strategic Suppliers to strengthen cyber governance, increase the adoption of the National Cyber Security Centre’s Cyber Essentials scheme throughout supply chains, and improve secure software development and AI practices.

The Government Cyber Action Plan, published in January 2026, sets out how Government will improve incident reporting over the next 3 years.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Department is taking to ensure that small businesses, charities and social enterprises are able to participate in the Youth Jobs Grant.

Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Youth Jobs Grant scheme is open to eligible businesses of all sizes and sectors including small businesses, charities and social enterprises.

The application process has been designed to minimise the administrative burden for employers. Employers can apply here: www.gov.uk/applyyouthjobsgrant. The form takes around 20 minutes to complete, and employers will be asked to accept a short set of terms and conditions as part of the application.

The Department is also actively engaging employers, trade bodies and partner organisations to support delivery of the Youth Jobs Grant through direct discussions, employer networks and webinars that promote the opportunities available through the Youth Guarantee and explain how employers can participate.

These activities are designed to ensure organisations of all sizes, including small businesses, charities and social enterprises, can access practical information on eligibility, the application process and recruitment support available through Jobcentre Plus. Employer webinars for example, provide an opportunity to hear directly from policy and operational leads, ask questions, understand available support and learn how DWP can help recruit and retain young people.