Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the Answer of 2 February 2026 to Question 109196, how many people have been convicted of common assault and battery; and how many of these people did not receive an immediate custodial sentence, by year of conviction and number of previous occasions the offender has been convicted for a violence against the person offence, and where that offence was common assault or battery, where the number of occasions was 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9+ previous convictions.

Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip

The data requested is provided in the attached excel table. The table includes data covering the period 2020 – 2024 on the number of offenders who were convicted of common assault and battery offences who did not receive an immediate custodial sentence; separated by the number of previous occasions the offender had been convicted for a violence against the person offence where that offence was common assault and battery.

Previous convictions are already a statutory aggravating factor, with Sentencing Guidelines being clear that sentencers must consider the nature and relevance of previous convictions, and the time elapsed since the previous convictions.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press release entitled Patients to benefit from improved access to dental appointments, published on 21 February 2026, how many (a) urgent and (b) additional dental appointments have been provided by the NHS in (i) total and (ii) each month since the General Election; and how many additional urgent dental appointments he expects the NHS to provide by the end of 2026-27 above the baseline he is using to monitor progress against his target.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The following table shows the available data for the number of National Health Service urgent dental treatments and total courses of dental treatments delivered each month from July 2024 to October 2025:

Source: Monthly National Dental Activity data – England July 2023 to October 2025, available at the following link:
https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/dental-activity-data-england-july-2023-to-october-2025

Data for April 2025 to October 2025 should be treated as provisional. Final data for 2025/26 will be published in August 2026. Data for dentistry is measured in courses of treatment, not appointments. One course of treatment can be more than one appointment.

1.8 million additional courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered in the seven months between April and October 2025, compared to the same period before the general election, nearly half of which were delivered to children.

We are broadening the scope of the commitment to deliver additional appointments so that they can be used for more patients, not just those who meet the clinical criteria for “urgent” care.

We will ensure a continued urgent care safety net by requiring, from April 2026, high street dentists to deliver 8.2% of their total contract value as urgent or unscheduled care.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much is being spent each year on primary care, and how much is being spent on the core GP contract.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

In 2024/25, the latest year for which data is available, the total value of expenditure on all primary care was £19.8 billion. This includes expenditure on commissioning optometry, pharmacy, and dental services and excludes prescribing and secondary dental care. At this time, the total value of the GP Contract was £12.3 billion.

We are investing £485 million in general practice in 2026/27, bringing the total spend on the GP Contract to over £13.8 billion. This uplift represents a 3.6% cash increase from 2025/26, or 1.4% real terms increase, and includes an assumed pay increase of 2.5%. It follows a record £1.1 billion of investment in 2025/26. As with previous years, we have asked the independent pay review body for Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration, for a pay recommendation for 2026/27 for the Government to consider.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to SOPS 1.1. in the Department's 2024-25 Annual Report, if she will publish a breakdown of the £6,156,284,000 spent on Programme Resource Outturn in A: Core Department in 2024-25.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Please see the breakdown attached at Annex 1.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to sheet Asy_01e of the data release entitled Asylum summary tables, year ending December 2025, updated on 26 February 2026, how many people claiming asylum after entering the UK with a visa or other leave in 2025 were nationals of (a) Myanmar, (b) Sudan, (c) Cameroon and (d) Afghanistan by latest leave held prior to claim.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office publishes breakdowns of the number of people claiming asylum after entering the UK with a visa or other leave, by nationality and latest leave held prior to claim, for the top five nationalities in Asy_01e. This table does not currently include a full nationality breakdown. The total number of people claiming asylum after entering the UK on a visa or other leave is published in Asy_01d for Afghanistan and Sudan.

The Home Office does publish a full nationality breakdown of data on asylum claims and initial decisions, in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. The latest data relates to the year ending December 2025.

A full Impact Assessment has been published for the Visa Brake policy; see Table 1 for historic volumes of asylum claims linked to visa for the relevant nationalities and routes in scope of the Brake.

Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, as well as quality and availability of data. These reviews allow us to balance the production of our regular statistics whilst developing new statistics for future release.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to sheet Asy_01e of the data release entitled Asylum summary tables, year ending December 2025, updated on 26 February 2026, whether she will publish a further breakdown of the nationalities currently grouped under "Other” for people claiming asylum after entering the UK with a visa or other leave in 2025, by latest leave held prior to claim.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Home Office publishes breakdowns of the number of people claiming asylum after entering the UK with a visa or other leave, by nationality and latest leave held prior to claim, for the top five nationalities in Asy_01e. This table does not currently include a full nationality breakdown. The total number of people claiming asylum after entering the UK on a visa or other leave is published in Asy_01d for Afghanistan and Sudan.

The Home Office does publish a full nationality breakdown of data on asylum claims and initial decisions, in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. The latest data relates to the year ending December 2025.

A full Impact Assessment has been published for the Visa Brake policy; see Table 1 for historic volumes of asylum claims linked to visa for the relevant nationalities and routes in scope of the Brake.

Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, as well as quality and availability of data. These reviews allow us to balance the production of our regular statistics whilst developing new statistics for future release.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to SOPS 1.1 in the Department's 2024-25 Annual Report, if she will publish a breakdown of the £1,030,869,000 in gross spend on Programme Resource Outturn in H: Other Benefits in 2024-25; and for what reasons that figure has increased from £343,956,000 in the equivalent SOPS 1.1 table in the 2020-21 Annual Report of the Department.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Please see attached Annex.

We can confirm that the increase in recent years compared to 2020-21 is primarily due to the Household Support Fund. The Household Support Fund came in October of 2021 so is not included in the 2020-21 ARA.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to SOPS 1.1. in the Department's 2020-21 Annual Report, if she will publish a breakdown of the £2,402,602 in gross spend on Programme Resource Outturn in A: Operational Delivery in 2020-21.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Please see attached.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what was the average number of Working Days Lost per staff year was in each jobcentre in the most recent year.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Please see link to published Average Working Days Lost figures: Civil Service sickness absence, 2025: report - GOV.UK.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign national offenders in the UK are currently living in the community while liable for deportation after completing prison sentences.

Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)

Latest published information shows that at the end of Q4 2025 there were 19,470 foreign national offenders (FNOs) living in the community having completed their custodial sentences and subject to deportation or administrative removal. The published information can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK.

Any FNO convicted of a crime who receives a custodial sentence in the UK is referred to the Home Office for deportation consideration following sentencing. We are focussing resource on those cases currently serving custodial sentences to maximise removals directly from prison.

Where removal is not immediately possible, electronic monitoring can be used to manage FNOs.

We will pursue deportation action against individuals living in the community rigorously, actively monitoring and managing cases through the legal process and negotiating barriers to removal.