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 UK children are currently missing with active investigations to locate their whereabouts.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not hold this data centrally.
Information about current missing persons incidents is held by individual police forces. The National Crime Agency’s UK Missing Persons Unit holds the national database for all missing incidents that are unresolved after 72hours, allowing the police to have access to missing persons information across force boundaries.
In addition, annual missing persons statistics, broken down to police force level,are published by the National Crime Agency’s Missing Person’s Unit in its annual data report which can be found here: Downloads - National Crime Agency
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, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential implications for her policies of the humanitarian situation in Sudan.
Answered by Chris Elmore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
I refer the Hon Member to the statement made to the House by the Foreign Secretary on 18 November 2025, and to the most recent Urgent Question debate on 15 December 2025.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions she has had with major airports on tackling noise pollution.
Answered by Keir Mather - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Ministers and officials engage regularly with airports on a range of issues including noise pollution.
Major airports are required to produce noise action plans every five years. Current plans cover the period 2024-2028 and have been published on airports’ websites.
The government also sets noise controls at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports. At other airports, appropriate noise controls should be set locally through the planning system.
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 she is taking to improve early detection of human trafficking.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is committed to tackling modern slavery and human trafficking in all its forms and to giving survivors the support they need to recover. The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) is the UK’s framework for identifying and supporting potential victims of modern slavery.
In July 2025, the Home Office launched a public Call for Evidence on how the Government can improve the process of identifying victims of modern slavery, human trafficking and exploitation. The Home Office is now analysing the responses received and will be engaging with survivors to explore the emerging themes further.
The Home Office has also made a number of improvements to the NRM referral form following consultation with a range of experts. These changes aim to improve the quality of referrals, support more informed decision-making, and ensure the form better reflects the experiences of potential victims in a trauma-informed way.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the provision of agricultural education in schools.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.
My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education meets with Cabinet colleagues, including my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on the actions she is taking to secure high quality education for all pupils, but has not met to discuss agricultural education as a discrete issue.
The national curriculum is a framework designed to give teachers the flexibility to cover particular topics in greater depth if they wish. For example, giving them the freedom to teach about agriculture within the geography and science curricula.
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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 of hospital admissions of those with stroke symptoms in the last 5 years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the trend in stroke admissions for the last five years:
Year | Stroke admissions incidence | Stroke admissions rate per 100,000 population |
2020/21 | 89,739 | 166.3 |
2021/22 | 93,710 | 171.4 |
2022/23 | 93,753 | 168.4 |
2023/24 | 97,843 | 173.1 |
2024/25 | 99,494 | 172.7 |
Source: Fingertips, avaiable at the following link:
https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/search/stroke%20admissions#page/4/gid/1/pat/159/par/K02000001/ati/15/are/E92000001/iid/90986/age/1/sex/4/cat/-1/ctp/-1/yrr/1/cid/4/tbm/1
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, whether he has has discussions with his counterparts in Northern Ireland on pressures on accident and emergency services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As a Government department, we work collaboratively with the devolved administrations to drive forward our objective of supporting people to lead more independent, healthier lives for longer.
While health is primarily devolved and each health system operates in its own context, there are strong benefits from sharing experiences and learning between the devolved administrations. While ministers have not recently discussed pressures on accident and emergency services in recent months, Department and NHS England officials periodically speak informally with counterparts on urgent and emergency care issues.
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, how many people in the UK have been diagnosed with bladder cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not hold data on cancer incidence for the United Kingdom. The latest data on bladder cancer incidence available, in England, can be found 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 steps are being taken to ensure hospitals are routinely up to date with fire safety guidance.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has published guidance through Health Technical Memorandum 05:03 – Firecode, which provides guidance on operational provisions for fire safety for health sector buildings and premises. This guidance is avaiable at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/fire-safety-in-the-nhs-health-technical-memorandum-05-03/
This HTM is updated when necessary. For example, the ‘Training’ section of the guidance was last updated in 2024.
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, how many admissions to hospital there were for flu in December 2025.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
In December 2025, an average of 2,888 hospital beds were occupied by patients with flu across all acute settings, including both General and Acute and Critical Care beds.
These figures are published in the NHS England Winter Situation Reports, which are available at the following link: