Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that where objections to a Geographical Indication (GI) application are upheld under assimilated Regulation (EU) 2019/787 the applicant body engages in a formal consultation process with the objector before the GI is finalised.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

By publishing names proposed for Geographical Indication protection and their associated product specifications on the gov.uk website, Defra enables any person with a legitimate interest, or the authorities of a third country, to submit a notice of opposition to the Secretary of State regarding the proposals. If objections are considered admissible, Defra invites the applicant and the objector to engage in appropriate consultations with each other to understand the issue and if possible, propose a solution. At the conclusion of the consultation period, the Secretary of State will consider all the evidence presented and make a decision on whether the revised proposals (if any) support registration, whether the proposal should be rejected on the evidence, whether a new consultation is needed because the changes proposed are “non-standard” (ie significant), or whether the application should be approved in its original format.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS staff were subject to Maintaining High Professional Standards procedures in each of the last five years.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department does not hold data centrally on how many National Health Service staff were investigated under the Maintaining High Professional Standards framework in each of the last five years. This data is also not held by NHS England.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that concerns raised by NHS whistleblowers on patient safety are (a) recorded, (b) escalated and (c) reviewed.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

There are a number of avenues through which healthcare workers can speak up and raise concerns, with established procedures in place to record, act on, and escalate issues as needed.

In England, more than 1,300 Freedom to Speak Up Guardians now support staff in speaking up. Their role involves working alongside governance, risk, and safety teams to ensure that speaking up translates into improvements in patient care, as well as identifying patterns and trends, for example, in patient safety incidents. Freedom to Speak Up Guardians collect and report anonymised data on the issues raised with them, including patient safety. This data is published by the National Guardian’s Office at the following link:

https://nationalguardian.org.uk/learning-resources/speaking-up-data/

The National Guardian’s Office and NHS England are ‘prescribed persons’, authorised to receive protected disclosures, including those in relation to safety and quality concerns. They are legally required to publish annual reports on protected disclosures and their outcomes.

Every National Health Service organisation in England should be following the national Freedom to Speak Up policy, which outlines minimum standards for handling and addressing concerns. This policy ensures that all reported concerns are considered carefully and investigated objectively when necessary.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the prevalence of the use of Class (a) A, (b) B and (c) C drugs in NHS Mental Health Facilities.

Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We currently have no plans to make such an assessment. NHS England does not hold information or data related to the prevalence of illegal drug use across specialised mental health facilities.

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 the adequacy of current national oversight arrangements for the implementation of the framework set out in the document Maintaining High Professional Standards procedures within NHS trusts.

Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Maintaining High Professional Standards was first published in 2005, and it remains an important framework for the initial handling of concerns about doctors and dentists in the National Health Service. All Department and NHS England guidance documents are kept under review.

Found: Justice Committee Member present: Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst.

On the 4 September 2025 the House agreed the following Resolution: