Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
e-Petitions are administered by Parliament and allow members of the public to express support for a particular issue.
If an e-petition reaches 10,000 signatures the Government will issue a written response.
If an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures the petition becomes eligible for a Parliamentary debate (usually Monday 4.30pm in Westminster Hall).
'Owen's Law' - Change the law around allergy labelling in UK restaurants
Gov Responded - 14 Jul 2021 Debated on - 15 May 2023 View Neil O'Brien's petition debate contributions1.Restaurants to put all information about allergens in their food on the face of the main menu so customers have full visibility on what they're ordering.
2.Servers must initiate a discussion with customers about allergies on all occasions.
3.National register for anaphylaxis deaths
Appoint an Allergy Tsar as a champion for people living with allergies
Gov Responded - 25 Aug 2021 Debated on - 15 May 2023 View Neil O'Brien's petition debate contributionsThe Government should appoint an Allergy Tsar to act as a champion for people with allergies to ensure they receive appropriate support and joined up health care to prevent avoidable deaths and ill health.
Protect free NHS prescriptions for over 60s
Gov Responded - 28 Jan 2022 Debated on - 6 Mar 2023 View Neil O'Brien's petition debate contributionsContinue to give free NHS prescriptions to over 60s. The Government is consulting on aligning the upper age exemption for NHS prescription charges with the State Pension age (SPA), which would render many people in their 60s ineligible.
These initiatives were driven by Neil O'Brien, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
MPs who are act as Ministers or Shadow Ministers are generally restricted from performing Commons initiatives other than Urgent Questions.
Neil O'Brien has not been granted any Urgent Questions
Neil O'Brien has not been granted any Adjournment Debates
Neil O'Brien has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
Neil O'Brien has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
The National Church Institutions first started collecting attendance data centrally in the autumn of 2000; as a result, it is not possible to publish data for the period 1994-1999. A methodological change also took place between 2000 and 2003 which means statistics for those years are not directly comparable with the data now collected. The data displayed below shows the longest period of comparable figures available, from 2003-2022.
| Adult average weekly attendance | Child average weekly attendance | All age average weekly attendance | Adult average Sunday attendance | Child average Sunday attendance | All age average Sunday attendance | Adult average school service attendance | Child average school service attendance | All age average school service attendance |
2003 | 905,000 | 218,000 | 1,126,000 | 802,000 | 154,000 | 959,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2004 | 896,000 | 220,000 | 1,119,000 | 789,000 | 151,000 | 942,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2005 | 898,000 | 218,000 | 1,119,000 | 791,000 | 147,000 | 941,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2006 | 894,000 | 217,000 | 1,115,000 | 786,000 | 145,000 | 935,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2007 | 888,000 | 205,000 | 1,097,000 | 779,000 | 137,000 | 919,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2008 | 877,000 | 215,000 | 1,094,000 | 768,000 | 139,000 | 910,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2009 | 867,000 | 211,000 | 1,082,000 | 758,000 | 134,000 | 895,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2010 | 851,000 | 208,000 | 1,062,000 | 741,000 | 130,000 | 874,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2011 | 840,000 | 207,000 | 1,050,000 | 728,000 | 127,000 | 858,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2012 | 843,000 | 202,000 | 1,049,000 | 733,000 | 128,000 | 864,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2013 | 836,000 | 157,000 | 994,000 | 721,000 | 124,000 | 845,000 | 23,000 | 103,000 | 126,000 |
2014 | 831,000 | 144,000 | 975,000 | 711,000 | 119,000 | 830,000 | 35,000 | 113,000 | 148,000 |
2015 | 819,000 | 140,000 | 959,000 | 698,000 | 115,000 | 813,000 | 40,000 | 131,000 | 171,000 |
2016 | 791,000 | 132,000 | 922,000 | 671,000 | 108,000 | 780,000 | 42,000 | 139,000 | 182,000 |
2017 | 767,000 | 127,000 | 895,000 | 653,000 | 104,000 | 757,000 | 46,000 | 152,000 | 198,000 |
2018 | 752,000 | 120,000 | 872,000 | 635,000 | 96,000 | 730,000 | 40,000 | 137,000 | 177,000 |
2019 | 734,000 | 120,000 | 854,000 | 613,000 | 94,000 | 707,000 | 41,000 | 141,000 | 182,000 |
2020 | 317,000 | 28,000 | 345,000 | 273,000 | 24,000 | 298,000 | n/a | n/a | n/a |
2021 | 531,000 | 75,000 | 605,000 | 447,000 | 62,000 | 509,000 | 18,000 | 71,000 | 89,000 |
2022 | 567,000 | 87,000 | 654,000 | 477,000 | 70,000 | 547,000 | 36,000 | 128,000 | 164,000 |
Attendance figures are collected from churches for the first 4 Sundays of October and in the following Monday-Saturday midweek periods - this exercise is referred to as the "October count”. Figures include attendance at baptisms, as these usually take place in service, but not attendance at weddings and funerals. Attendance at services for schools is NOT included in the average weekly and average Sunday attendance figures but is reported separately.
In 2013, the question was changed to specifically ask about attendance at school services. Prior to 2013, it was apparent that some churches included such attendance in their reported figures while others did not. The change in question during this year resulted in a large change in the average weekly attendance from 2012 to 2013 and a more consistent practice across the church as a whole.
The table below shows the number of confirmations conducted in the Church of England each year since 1994.
As the Established Church, every member of the public, whatever their belief, living within a parish in England has the right to access baptism, marriage and burial services of the Church of England as long as performing that service is lawful under Canon Law.
The detailed data on the number of baptism and confirmation services is published in the annual data ‘Statistics for Mission’.
Post 2009 figures can be found here: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-11/statisticsformission2022_tables.xlsx
Pre-2009 figures can be found here: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/data-services/resources-publications-and-data#na
Year | Number of confirmations |
1994 | 48,024 |
1995 | 43,667 |
1996 | 42,768 |
1997 | 40,881 |
1998 | 39,926 |
1999 | 37,469 |
2000 | 36,387 |
2001 | 33,367 |
2002 | 33,425 |
2003 | 31,797 |
2004 | 30,425 |
2005 | 29,833 |
2006 | 29,380 |
2007 | 27,926 |
2008 | 26,972 |
2009 | 25,028 |
2010 | 22,349 |
2011 | 22,242 |
2012 | 22,540 |
2013 | 19,883 |
2014 | 18,028 |
2015 | 16,723 |
2016 | 15,917 |
2017 | 15,253 |
2018 | 14,475 |
2019 | 13,355 |
2020 | 2,165 |
2021 | 6,388 |
2022 | 10,855 |
The number of equality impact assessments completed by each Department is not collected centrally.
Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty) all public authorities are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions.
Departments are individually responsible for the monitoring of their own equality assessments and their compliance with the Duty. An ‘equality impact assessment’ (EIA) may be produced. However, this is not a legal requirement.
Currently eight people in the House of Commons have job roles including these words in the title: seven in the Diversity & Inclusion team and one person in HR, responsible for the disability specific workplace adjustment process.
Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty), all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ (EIAs) may be produced, there is no legal requirement for duty assessments to be recorded in a specific format.
The Government Legal Department (GLD) is the Attorney General’s Office’s (AGO) HR shared service provider and is therefore responsible for EIAs at the AGO. In the last five years, GLD has completed four EIAs when making substantive changes to HR policies and procedures (two EIAs in 2021 and two in 2023).
The AGO has completed no EIAs relating to policy changes. This aligns with its role as a department that does not hold policy in its own right.
No job titles in the Attorney General’s Office (AGO), the Government Legal Department (GLD), and Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) include the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) employs 6260 members of staff and 21 members of staff within the Department have one or more of the words equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race in their job title.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has no staff with these words in their job titles, however, one of the SFO’s Strategic Objectives is to build an effective and inclusive workforce, treating their staff fairly and with respect and dignity. There are also a large number of people in the organisation engaged on improving equality, diversity and inclusion across the office.
There are 15 active networks listed below:
Flexible working and job share,
Carers,
Parenting,
CORE (Race),
ABLE (disability),
Social Mobility,
Menopause,
Faith & Belief,
Christian Network,
Civil Service Jewish Network,
LGBT+,
EU Nationals
EngAge (intergenerational/age)
Gender Equality Group.
Neurodiversity Network
The No10 Data Science Team has a remit to improve the way in which key decisions are informed by data, analysis, and evidence using cutting-edge data science techniques. This enables the Government to use the best available evidence, throughout the policy and decision-making process, to drive long-term systems change and enable staff to collectively solve the most pressing policy challenges. They also use data to track delivery of government priority programs, working closely with Delivery Unit. Notwithstanding, the Government would not normally comment on the details of policy development and formation, nor the process by which collective decisions are made across government.
The team also runs a transformation program including: (1) project rAPId, a free, open source, lightweight data sharing system; (2) the No10 Innovation Fellowships, bringing industry expertise in AI into central government on year-long secondments to improve public services; (3) Evidence House, a program to upskill civil servants in data science, AI and software engineering; and crowdsource technical solutions to wicked problems; and (4) creating and managing the new Incubator for Artificial Intelligence, a 30-strong team of AI experts who are working on rapid delivery of AI projects in line with the Prime Minister’s priorities.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Questions of 31st January is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Questions of 31st January is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon Members Parliamentary Question of 18th December is attached. I will also deposit a copy of the dataset in the House Libraries.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 12 December is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 8 December is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 8th December is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 8th December is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 11th December is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Questions of 8th December is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Questions of 8th December is attached.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 28 November is attached.
A review is currently being done of what future diversity and inclusion learning should be provided as part of a cross-Civil Service Learning offer. This includes looking at unconscious bias training, and what training shall be promoted. The information on spend is not held centrally.
A review is currently being done of what future diversity and inclusion learning should be provided as part of a cross-Civil Service Learning offer. This includes looking at unconscious bias training, and what training shall be promoted. The information on spend is not held centrally.
As at 31 August 2020, at least 66 staff in the Cabinet Office have roles with equality, diversity, inclusion or disability, gender, LGBT and race in their job title. Further staff within the Department may have roles which contribute to aspects of equality, diversity and inclusion. This answer includes data for the Government Equalities Office, which for HR purposes falls under the Cabinet Office and which accounts for 41 of the 66 roles.
The data available indicates that over the last 5 years up to 22 July 2020, 4,615 Cabinet Office staff completed Civil Service unconscious bias e-Learning training.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond. A copy of the UKSA response will be placed in the Library of the House.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond. A copy of the UKSA response will be placed in the Library of the House.
Nine DBT staff members have the words equality and/or gender in their job titles. These roles are all externally facing roles, responsible for negotiating provisions and chapters within bilateral and multilateral contexts. There are no DBT staff members with diversity; inclusion; LGBT; or race in their job title.
The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the
equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI
spending announced last June. As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.
Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty) all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ may be produced, there is no legal requirement for Duty assessments to be recorded in a specific format.
The Department promotes awareness of the Duty as well as relevant analytical and other tools to help ensure compliance with the Duty in departmental decision making.
Organogram data is released by all central government departments and their agencies. Snapshots are published on 31st January, 30th April, 31st July and 31st October. The published data is validated and released in CSV format and OGL-licensed for reuse.
Please refer to the link below:
All teams have a duty to consider equality in their own policy areas. The Human Resources directorate is responsible for departmental equality considerations and for providing advice and guidance to the Department on equalities-related issues, including the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).
The table below refers to the organisations as per your question:
Organisation | Number of roles |
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority | 4 |
Civil Nuclear Police Authority | 6 |
UK Atomic Energy Authority | 1 |
There is currently no centrally recorded list of job titles held within the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
UKRI’s workforce, including the Research Councils, consists of 8,733 people. Of this total, 22 have the search terms requested in their job title. Not all of the roles are full time.
The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June. As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.
Currently across DSIT, there are three members of staff that hold roles which include the word inclusion. There is a nil return related on job titles which include the terms equality, diversity, gender, LGBT and race.
The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June.
As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.
In line with the Public Sector Equality Duty, all public authorities, including our Department, are required by law to have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ are a tool utilised in this process, there is no legal requirement for these assessments to be recorded in a specific format or centrally monitored. Therefore, providing data for each year is currently not feasible.
I wrote in May to the FTSE 100 Group and accountancy firms, highlighting the importance of paying promptly.
We are engaging with Prompt Payment Code signatories on reforming the Code and will consult on strengthening the Small Business Commissioner’s powers.
Data regarding the number of staff employed by each Government Department is published monthly as part of routine Government transparency. The most recent report was published in August, covering the Department’s headcount and payroll data for July 2020, and can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/beis-workforce-management-information-july-2020.
There are six members of staff in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that have equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race in their job title.
The Department encourages all staff to complete Unconscious Bias training through Civil Service Learning.
We are only able to draw data from 1st April 2018, and 84% of Unconscious Bias training since that date was delivered online and therefore incurred no cost.
The estimated cost of the face-to-face training over the same period is shown in the table below.
| Face-to-face training | Cost |
2018/19 | 221 | £44,200 |
2019/20 | 167 | £33,400 |
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There are six members of staff in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that have equality, diversity or inclusion in their job title.
Higher education providers are independent, autonomous organisations. HM Government does not collect data of this sort.
Higher education providers in the UK are required to submit certain categories of data to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. This is published annually. This includes their overall income from a variety of sources and for a range of different activities, including teaching, research and commercial. This includes research grant and contract income from business. However HESA data does not indicate the individual businesses concerned.
Higher education providers are independent, autonomous organisations. HM Government does not collect data of this sort.
Higher education providers in the UK are required to submit certain categories of data to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. This is published annually. This includes their overall income from a variety of sources and for a range of different activities, including teaching, research and commercial. This includes research grant and contract income from business. However HESA data does not indicate the individual businesses concerned.
We will publish an ambitious place strategy for R&D in the next few months. This will build on existing and emerging research and innovation capabilities across the country, enabling areas to ‘level up’ and reach their economic potential. This is an important part of our ambition to increase R&D investment across the economy.
The National Lottery Community Fund currently has four employees with job titles which include the words (a) equality, (b) diversity, (c) inclusion, (d) gender, (e) LGBT or (f) race.
The average number of Arts Council England employees (headcount) during the most recent reported year (2022-23) was 700. 11 members of staff have job titles which include one of these words.
There are five roles in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that contain any of these words. This includes roles in our sector teams with responsibility for taking forward the government’s commitment to increasing participation in sport.
The Government is auditing the cost-effectiveness of all activities that support the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) of the workforce, through the review of EDI spending announced last June. As stated in the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for Cabinet Office will be outlining the final proposals in response to the review in due course.
Under the Public Sector Equality Duty (the Duty) all public authorities, including Government departments, are required by law to ensure that they have due regard to certain equality considerations when carrying out their functions. While ‘equality impact assessments’ may be produced, there is no legal requirement for duty assessments to be recorded in a specific format.
We do not centrally collate equalities impact assessments in the department, but are confident that we are meeting the Duty in our decision-making processes.