Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much funding he has allocated to compensate those infected and affected by contaminated blood.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds
In the 2024 Autumn Budget, the Government committed £11.8bn in compensation to people who were infected and affected as a result of the Infected Blood scandal. We estimate that the specific changes announced following the public consultation on the infected blood compensation scheme will cost in the region of £1bn in compensation payments.
These figures are a broad estimate, which reflects the inherent uncertainty in predicting the exact number of eligible claimants who will come forward. This estimate is neither a target nor a limit, and every eligible person will get the compensation they are due.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what lessons his Department has learned about the impact of recent global conflicts and pandemics on UK strategic autonomy.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security) (Jointly with the Cabinet Office)
The UK National Security Strategy is clear that we need to increase our preparations for potential threats, from future pandemics to energy and supply chain disruption.
The UK's alliances and partnerships are critical to our safety and our collective security is a source of significant strength. But it must be delivered in the right way, mitigating against areas of over-dependence and moving instead towards interdependence.
We are embedding lessons from COVID-19, including those of the COVID-19 Inquiry. The largest ever national pandemic response exercise was conducted last year, testing coordination efforts across all regions and nations of the UK and we published the new Pandemic Preparedness Strategy in March 2026, alongside £1 billion of investment in health protection.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to publish an updated National Resilience Strategy covering food, energy, health, critical minerals and supply chain vulnerabilities.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security) (Jointly with the Cabinet Office)
The Government published the Resilience Action Plan on 8 July 2025 to set out its resilience strategy. It set out three core objectives to improve the UK’s resilience to the full range of risks we face: (1) continually assess how resilient the UK is in order to target interventions and resources; (2) enable the whole of society to take action to improve their resilience; and (3) strengthen the core public resilience system. These objectives inform a series of activities to deliver greater resilience across the whole of society.
Designated Lead Government Departments are responsible for leading work to identify risks within their sectors and ensuring that planning, response and recovery arrangements are in place.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to update national resilience standards for (a) transport, (b) water, (c) energy and (d) digital infrastructure.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security) (Jointly with the Cabinet Office)
Responsibility for updating standards for individual infrastructure sectors sits with the Lead Government Departments for those sectors.
In the 2025 Resilience Action Plan, the Cabinet Office committed to mapping the standards that apply to Critical National Infrastructure sectors, which includes transport, water, energy and some aspects of digital infrastructure. This work is ongoing. Cabinet Office will work with relevant departments as they identify and address any gaps in resilience standards that emerge from that mapping.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the adequacy of UK's protection against simultaneous events such as extreme weather, cyber‑attack and global supply chain disruption.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security) (Jointly with the Cabinet Office)
The Government assesses the UK’s resilience through the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA). Both the NSRA and the publicly available version, the National Risk Register (NRR), are kept under continual review to reflect the changing risk landscape. During every update, policy makers are encouraged to identify both linked risks and compounding risks to ensure preparedness for simultaneous challenges. Risk owners must also evidence how chronic risks — as set out in the Chronic Risks Analysis, including risks such as climate change and reliance on global supply chains — interact with and exacerbate acute events.
This approach ensures resilience planning moves beyond risks in isolation, allowing the Government to develop flexible, generic capabilities that manage the common consequences of multiple, concurrent events.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the life expectancy is for (a) women and (b) men in each local area in the UK.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 25th February is attached.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reason his Department allowed Vesa Equity to increase its stake in Royal Mail group.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
The Secretary of State takes decisions under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 in a quasi-judicial capacity. The Investment Security Unit coordinates expertise from across Government so that the Secretary of State may make decisions based on the evidence. It would not be appropriate to comment on the detail of national security assessments.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions he has had with representatives of the Infected Blood Inquiry on (a) ongoing funding for the support scheme payments and (b) financial settlements recommended in Sir Robert Francis' report.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Government has committed to providing support for those infected and affected. Ex-gratia support has been provided to those affected by this issue since 1988. No policy discussions have taken place with the statutory Inquiry, that is independent.
As the responsible Minister for the Infected Blood Inquiry, I announced earlier this week the publication of the study by Sir Robert Francis QC into a framework of compensation for people directly affected by infected blood. Sir Robert will give evidence about his work to the Infected Blood Inquiry on 11th and 12th July. The government is considering Sir Robert’s recommendations.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many civil servants have been working from home more than 50 per cent of their working hours by constituency as of 24 May 2022.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
This is not information that is centrally held.
Civil servants played a vital role in supporting the Government’s response to the pandemic, alongside delivering essential public services.
Following the removal of all pandemic restrictions, I have written to departments to underline the importance of workplace attendance. Civil servants, who had necessarily been working from home during the pandemic, are increasingly returning to regular working in the office
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many civil servants were working from home by constituency on average during 2020.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
This is not information that is centrally held.
Civil servants played a vital role in supporting the Government’s response to the pandemic, alongside delivering essential public services.
Following the removal of all pandemic restrictions, I have written to departments to underline the importance of workplace attendance. Civil servants, who had necessarily been working from home during the pandemic, are increasingly returning to regular working in the office