Lord Pack

Policy teams within the department are responsible for ensuring effective legislative practice within their area, including uncommenced legislation and considering when to bring forward commencement orders. Where needed, they draw on advice of legal professionals and our central legislative functions to support their delivery.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology keeps the commencement and implementation of its legislation under review alongside operational readiness and delivery of wider priorities. This work is undertaken alongside established post‑legislative scrutiny processes.

Relevant policy teams keep the commencement and implementation of Acts of Parliament under review in light of operational readiness and wider priorities.

This is conducted alongside established post legislative scrutiny processes where appropriate.

In the past year, we have committed in Parliament to undertake the required post-legislative scrutiny of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This will include considering the coming into force of measures, where not yet commenced.

The department will, as part of its usual process, continue to periodically review legislation within its area of responsibility as part of policy development.

The department is reviewing our Early Years Register fees policy. As set out in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Childcare (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, which came into force on 9 June 2025, the department has extended the existing alternative annual fee arrangements until 1 September 2027 as a temporary measure to maintain the status quo while the fees policy is being reviewed and considered as a whole.

The Department keeps the status of uncommenced legislation falling within its areas of policy responsibility under review and decisions on commencement are taken in the normal course of policy making.

As set out by the Prime Minister, we will publish our Animal Welfare Strategy this year which will set out our priorities for animal welfare.

MMO and DfT are currently progressing a draft consultation and associated documents to consult with the sector in the summer 2026. In parallel stakeholder engagement will be undertaken and work will be completed to draft the appropriate regulation with a view to implementing a new structure during 2027.

When a vehicle is due to be taxed, the DVLA sends the registered keeper a reminder that includes information on payment options, including the amount due if the customer chooses to pay by direct debit. The DVLA’s online vehicle licensing service also includes a link to a table of vehicle excise duty rates which individuals can view before deciding on which payment option to use.

The table below shows the number of new and automatically renewed direct debit mandates for vehicle excise duty payments in 2025/26.

The DVLA keeps all services under review to ensure compliance with all relevant rules and regulations.

When a vehicle is due to be taxed, the DVLA sends the registered keeper a reminder that includes information on payment options, including the amount due if the customer chooses to pay by direct debit. The DVLA’s online vehicle licensing service also includes a link to a table of vehicle excise duty rates which individuals can view before deciding on which payment option to use.

The table below shows the number of new and automatically renewed direct debit mandates for vehicle excise duty payments in 2025/26.

The DVLA keeps all services under review to ensure compliance with all relevant rules and regulations.

Policy teams within the department are responsible for ensuring effective delivery within their area, including the review of uncommenced legislation and considering when to bring forward commencement orders.

Where needed, they draw on the advice of government lawyers to support delivery. This is conducted alongside established post legislative scrutiny processes where appropriate.

UK airspace and airlines are amongst the safest in the world. The UK remains steadfast in our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of aviation safety. We are confident that the powers gap issue will not impact the UK’s exemplary aviation safety record.

The Department is actively looking at solutions to close or mitigate these gaps at the earliest opportunity to maintain a functioning statute book and provide certainty to the transport sector. We will review whether existing powers on the statute book may be appropriate and look at introducing primary legislation, where needed, when Parliamentary time allows.

Policy teams within the Department for Work and Pensions are responsible for ensuring effective legislative practice within their area, including the management of uncommenced legislation, and considering when to bring forward commencement orders. Where needed, they work closely with lawyers and our central legislative strategy team. This work is undertaken alongside established postlegislative scrutiny processes.

Around 50,000 people in England and Wales have opted out of receiving an automatic Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2025/26, although work is still underway to conclude the final position.

The above data is derived from unpublished management information which is collected for internal departmental use only and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics Publication standards.

The NHS Federated Data Platform (NHS FDP) safely connects information across the National Health Service into a single secure environment to allow staff to better co-ordinate care, through managing theatre time better, or improving the speed of a cancer diagnosis, or allowing the quicker discharge of a patient from hospital.

To date, 24 integrated care board clusters and 168 NHS trusts have signed up to the NHS FDP.

Information on how many NHS staff have declined to work on the NHS FDP is not collected centrally.

The National Data Integration Tenant is NHS England’s secure platform for collecting and managing national health and care data. It replaces multiple legacy systems with one unified, secure process, reducing burden for National Health Service teams while ensuring the right data is available at the right time to support faster decisions and safer care. Data is pseudonymised using Privacy Enhancing Technologies and then routed to the National NHS Federated Data Platform where it is used for analysis, insights, and decision-making.

There are three Palantir contractors with administrative permissions under the instruction of NHS England as the data controller.

In addition, data engineering activities are carried out by twenty-two non-NHS England contractors, nineteen employed by Palantir or the supplier consortium, one employed by Mastek, and two by NHS trusts. They have limited project-based access under the instruction of NHS England. Individual access is strictly role‑based depending on the project and is time limited.

Policy teams within the Department of Health and Social Care keep the commencement and implementation of legislation under review. In line with established processes, we are in contact with the Health and Social Care Committee in the House of Commons to undertake required post-legislative scrutiny of relevant legislation, which includes a review of the operation of the legislation, and highlighting any measures not commenced and plans to commence them.

The Government holds contracts with polling companies to conduct research on public opinion. Savanta is a member of the British Polling Council and as such is required to abide by its rules. The results of polling by Savanta of resident doctors are published online and can be found on their website.

The Government holds contracts with polling companies to conduct research on public opinion. Savanta is a member of the British Polling Council and as such is required to abide by its rules. The results of polling by Savanta of resident doctors are published online and can be found on their website.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office keeps under review the status of any legislative provisions falling within its areas of policy responsibility which have not yet been commenced. Decisions on commencement are taken in the normal course of policy making.