Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
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)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
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.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
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 potential merits of mandating specialist dementia care homes to complete the Herbert Protocol for all residents with dementia.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Herbert Protocol is a form that can provide the police and other emergency services with essential information about a person with dementia should they go missing.
While this is not currently mandated, it is freely available for use online and can be completed by a person living with dementia, or those that care for them. Further information is available on the Herbert Protocol website at the following link:
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of charging members of Overseas Territory Regiments home rates rather than overseas rates for attendance at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
There is no distinction between the home and international rates for attendance at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The only difference is whether costs are charged, and this is dependent on a number of factors which are considered at the time of application. These include the country’s GDP, historic links and the regiment’s place in the British Army Order of Battle.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department plans to introduce a remuneration and conditions framework for court interpreters ahead of the October 2026 target date to support the sustainability of the systems.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on Friday 5 September to Question 73395: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-08-29/73395.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of existing remuneration rates and contractual terms in attracting and retaining Level 6 qualified interpreters to undertake work in the courts.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on Monday 8 September to Question 73394: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-08-29/73394.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to to the Independent Technical Review of Qualifications and Experience Requirements for the Provision of Spoken Language Interpreting, published on 17 March 2025, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that there will be a sufficient number of Level 6 qualified interpreters available to meet the October 2026 target for court interpreting services.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
I refer the honourable Member to the answer I gave on Tuesday 9 September to Question 74494: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-09-02/74494.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what key performance indicators he plans to publish on the impact of the National Armaments Director Group on defence procurement.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are being developed for the National Armaments Director (NAD) Group as part of a single NAD Group performance framework for 2026-27. The KPIs will be aligned to the intent set in the Strategic Defence Review recommendations.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many proposals have been funded through the Defence and Security Accelerator delivering operational advantage via improved self-sufficiency competition.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Due to a change to programme prioritisation after this competition had closed, there were no proposals funded directly through this competition. Fundable proposals submitted into DASA competitions but not funded are retained for potential future use. One proposal submitted as part of the competition was later funded through alternative customer funding.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department spent overseas on (a) equipment and (b) equipment support in 2024-25 by country.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Total Ministry of Defence (MOD) overseas expenditure in 2024-25 was £5,978 million. Of this, £3,771 million was spent directly with industry overseas and can be readily separated by equipment type: equipment (£1,539 million), non-equipment (£1,373 million), and equipment support (£859 million).
The remaining £2,207 million of overseas spend in 2024-25 was made through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Agreements with the US Government and through direct spending with foreign Governments for work completed overseas. The MOD does not hold enough granular information to be able to split the FMS and foreign government expenditure across both equipment type and location.
We are unable to provide a breakdown by country as an assessment of the commercial sensitivities of the underlying contract location data has not been made.
The above totals are derived from the MOD annual publication of regional expenditure with industry 2024-25 which can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mod-regional-expenditure-statistics-with-industry-202425