Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing charities lotteries to operate UK-wide.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Large-scale society lotteries in Great Britain are legislated through the Gambling Act 2005, which does not extend to Northern Ireland.
Gambling is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, and therefore the operation of large-scale society lotteries is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many people have been disqualified or suspended from driving due to not holding a valid insurance policy over the last 12 months.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The courts are responsible for convicting and sentencing individuals for road traffic offences and notify the DVLA of any driving endorsement ordered following a conviction and sentence.
The offence of using a motor vehicle while uninsured is represented by DVLA offence code IN10. Should an individual be convicted of offence IN10 they could face a fine, 6 to 8 penalty points or a period of disqualification. There were 2,564 drivers between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2025 where a disqualification was recorded against offence code IN10 on the driver record.
There is a possibility that there could be some records where someone has been disqualified for multiple offences where an IN10 was one of those offences, but the disqualification may not be recorded against IN10 in the statistics.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether she has made representations to her international counterparts on respect for freedom of religion or belief among political leaders.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK champions Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) around the world. On 8 July 2025, the UK's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, David Smith MP, set out the Government's new strategy on FoRB, providing a framework for engagement with other countries, and describing the links between the protection of FoRB and other goals including the prevention of conflict. As part of this strategy, the UK continues to support FoRB on the international stage, through our position in the United Nations, G7 and Article 18 Alliance.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been arrested for drink driving in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold the specific information requested.
While the Home Office routinely collects and publishes information on arrests for notifiable offences by age group and HOCR offence group in the Stop and search, arrests, and mental health detentions, March 2025 - GOV.UK. statistics, detailed age breakdowns and offence types are not available.
Drink driving offences are not notifiable offences and therefore this information is not available in the arrests statistics.
Therefore, figures for the number of people who have arrested for drink driving in the last 12 months is not available.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many under 21s have been arrested for possession of drugs in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold the specific information requested.
The Home Office collects and publishes information on arrests for notifiable offences on an annual basis in the Stop and search, arrests, and mental health detentions, March 2025 - GOV.UK statistical series.However, data is collected at the high-level offence group only, so arrests for “possession of drugs” fall within the wider “drug offences” category, and cannot be separately identified.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps are being taken to decrease underage alcohol consumption rates.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In general, alcohol consumption among under 18 year olds has been declining over the last 20 years. The Chief Medical Officer for England’s guidance for healthcare professionals on alcohol consumption in children and young people is clear that an alcohol-free childhood is the healthiest option. The Department promotes this guidance through the alcohol and drug information and advice service ‘Talk to FRANK’ which can be accessed at the following link:
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
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 trends in the level of attacks on healthcare workers in the last 12 months.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Everyone working in the National Health Service has a fundamental right to be safe at work. Trends in violence towards NHS staff have generally stayed at the same levels in recent years.
Individual employers are responsible for the health and safety of their staff, and they put in place measures, including security, training, and emotional support, for staff affected by violence. My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has been clear that there is zero tolerance of violence and harassment against NHS staff, and in April 2025 accepted all the Social Partnership Forum’s recommendations on tackling and reducing violence, part of the 2023 Agenda for Change pay deal. These measures will be strengthened by the introduction of a new set of staff standards, as detailed in the 10-Year Health Plan. These are likely to focus on areas such as improving staff health and wellbeing and dealing with violence, racism, and sexual harassment in the NHS workplace.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many calls were made to police to report incidents of domestic abuse over the Christmas period in December 2024 and 2025.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Home Office collects information from the police on the number of domestic abuse-related incidents from police forces in England and Wales on a quarterly basis. However, these data cannot be further broken down by specific time periods, such as weeks or months.
The latest published data, for the year ending March 2025, are available here: Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics - Office for National Statistics
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps are being taken to improve the time taken for red flag referrals for breast cancer to be seen.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including breast cancer, as early and quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes for all patients across England.
The Department is responsible for healthcare in England and therefore has not made a formal assessment on the timescales for red flag referrals for breast cancer across the whole of the United Kingdom.
As the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and treatment in England, NHS England has delivered an extra 100,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week since the start of this administration. This is supported by an increase in capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment in new magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners.
The Department recognises that there is more to be done to ensure that patients have timely access to diagnosis, and remains committed to diagnosing all cancer types earlier, including breast cancer. To tackle late diagnoses, the NHS is implementing non-specific symptom pathways for patients who present with symptoms such as weight loss and fatigue, which do not clearly align to a tumour type.
Reducing variation in cancer care in England, including the movement of patients through breast cancer care pathways, is a priority for the Government. To address this, NHS England funded audits into primary and metastatic breast cancer. Using routine data collected on patients diagnosed with breast cancer in an NHS setting, the audits bring together information to look at what is being done well, where it is being done well, and what needs to be done better. On 11 September 2025, the second State of the Nation report for primary and metastatic breast cancer was published by the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre, and officials in the Department and NHS England are acting on the findings where appropriate.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps are being taken to improve safety in night clubs especially around spiking.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Spiking is an appalling crime that undermines the public’s right to feel safe when out and about.
We are implementing a robust set of actions to improve safety in the night time economy:
In line with our manifesto commitment, the Government has introduced new legislation on spiking, as part of the Crime and Policing Bill, to strengthen the response to these incidents.