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 availability of NHS maternity services in rural areas.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

It is important that all women and babies receive safe, equitable, and compassionate care, regardless of where they live.

Recognising the specific challenges in rural and remote areas, such as distance from services and workforce constraints, NHS England applies a targeted “remoteness adjustment” in the funding formulas for integrated care boards. This adjustment is worth £106 million in 2025/2026, including funding for maternity care within that. This supports hospitals that serve sparsely populated areas where providing care is unavoidably more costly due to lower activity levels and long travel times.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether trends in levels of UK reliance on imported cement and construction materials has been identified as a strategic risk to national resilience; and what action is being taken in response to these trends.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) is the Government’s principal tool for identifying and assessing the most serious malicious and non-malicious risks facing the United Kingdom and its interests overseas.

Whilst construction supply is not currently included as a discrete risk, critical supply chain disruption is considered from a range of causes across the NSRA.

Both the NSRA and the publicly available version, the National Risk Register (NRR), are kept under continual review to reflect the changing risk landscape. During every update, policy makers are encouraged to consider the potential implications of their risk across a range of sectors.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether levels of reliance on imported cement and construction materials has been identified as a risk to national resilience or critical infrastructure delivery.

Answered by Angela Eagle - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) is the Government’s principal tool for identifying and assessing the most serious malicious and non-malicious risks facing the United Kingdom and its interests overseas.

Whilst construction supply is not currently included as a discrete risk, critical supply chain disruption is considered from a range of causes across the NSRA.

Both the NSRA and the publicly available version, the National Risk Register (NRR), are kept under continual review to reflect the changing risk landscape. During every update, policy makers are encouraged to consider the potential implications of their risk across a range of sectors.

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 regional differences in life expectancy across England.

Answered by Sharon Hodgson

The Government recognises that regional differences in life expectancy across England remain significant and reflect the wider inequalities in the factors that shape people’s health and life expectancy. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is committed to halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions, shifting care from treatment to prevention and from hospital to community.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS dentists have ceased providing NHS services in each of the last five years.

Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Secretary of State for Wales

National Health Service dental statistics identify dentists who performed NHS dental activity in a given financial year.

The annual NHS dental statistics published by the NHS Business Services Authority show the number of dentists who performed any amount of NHS dental activity in England in the last five financial years. This shows that 24,655 dentists performed NHS work in 2024/25.

Within these statistics a ‘leaver’ is defined as a performer who carried out NHS dental activity in the previous financial year but none in the following year. A joiner is defined as a performer who carried out NHS dental activity in the specified year but none in the previous year.

These data do not show whether a dentist has permanently left NHS practice, as a dentist may return in a later year.

The following table shows the number of dentist leavers and joiners for each year from 2020/21 to 2024/25:

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many assaults on prison staff were recorded in prisons in England and Wales in each of the last five years.

Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

Assaults on staff by year can be found in the Safety in Custody Summary Tables on row 21 in table 4 available at the following link: Safety in custody statistics - GOV.UK.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of staffing levels across the prison estate.

Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

We know that sufficient and skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure and rehabilitative prison regimes. The number of band 3-5 prison officers in post against Target Staffing Levels (the number of staff required to run an optimal regime in each prison) is published quarterly as part of the Annex to the “HM Prison and Probation Service Workforce Statistics” publication. The latest data can be found in Table 4 of this spreadsheet: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a0dbed3faac4bc0b0e906ad/annex-prison-and-probation-officer-recruitment-Mar-2026_final.ods.

HMPPS is operating in a competitive labour market, with some more acute challenges in certain areas of the country and parts of the estate. We are committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced – with work to prioritise vetting and online assessment centre places at prisons with the greatest operational need.

A new values-based assessment launched on 29 April 2026. This is underpinned by HMPPS values and designed to support new starter retention and engagement by providing a realistic view of what the organisation expects. HMPPS continually reviews its recruitment, onboarding and vetting processes to improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary delays while maintaining the high standards required for public protection and operational security.

We are recruiting and focusing additional support on prisons with the greatest need. This includes our First Deployment Scheme, which recruits applicants to difficult-to-recruit-to prisons with a financial incentive, our Prison Officer Alumni Scheme, fast-tracking former officers back into the service, and increasing the frequency of our Operation Support Grade to Prison Officer Fast Track Scheme to twice a year.

The number of prison officer leavers in each year is also published quarterly as part of the “HM Prison and Probation Service Workforce Statistics” publication. The latest data for prison officer leavers from the 12 months to 31 March 2020 to the 12 months to 31 March 2026 can be found in Table 8c of this spreadsheet: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a0d90f1faac4bc0b0e90635/hmpps-workforce-statistics-tables-mar-2026_final.ods.

As of March 2026, the resignation rate for band 3-5 prison officers was the lowest it has been in the last five years.

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prison officers left the prison service in each of the last five years.

Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

We know that sufficient and skilled frontline staffing is fundamental to delivering safe, secure and rehabilitative prison regimes. The number of band 3-5 prison officers in post against Target Staffing Levels (the number of staff required to run an optimal regime in each prison) is published quarterly as part of the Annex to the “HM Prison and Probation Service Workforce Statistics” publication. The latest data can be found in Table 4 of this spreadsheet: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a0dbed3faac4bc0b0e906ad/annex-prison-and-probation-officer-recruitment-Mar-2026_final.ods.

HMPPS is operating in a competitive labour market, with some more acute challenges in certain areas of the country and parts of the estate. We are committed to ensuring prisons are sufficiently resourced – with work to prioritise vetting and online assessment centre places at prisons with the greatest operational need.

A new values-based assessment launched on 29 April 2026. This is underpinned by HMPPS values and designed to support new starter retention and engagement by providing a realistic view of what the organisation expects. HMPPS continually reviews its recruitment, onboarding and vetting processes to improve efficiency and reduce unnecessary delays while maintaining the high standards required for public protection and operational security.

We are recruiting and focusing additional support on prisons with the greatest need. This includes our First Deployment Scheme, which recruits applicants to difficult-to-recruit-to prisons with a financial incentive, our Prison Officer Alumni Scheme, fast-tracking former officers back into the service, and increasing the frequency of our Operation Support Grade to Prison Officer Fast Track Scheme to twice a year.

The number of prison officer leavers in each year is also published quarterly as part of the “HM Prison and Probation Service Workforce Statistics” publication. The latest data for prison officer leavers from the 12 months to 31 March 2020 to the 12 months to 31 March 2026 can be found in Table 8c of this spreadsheet: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a0d90f1faac4bc0b0e90635/hmpps-workforce-statistics-tables-mar-2026_final.ods.

As of March 2026, the resignation rate for band 3-5 prison officers was the lowest it has been in the last five years.

Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many businesses entered insolvency in each region of England in each of the last five years.

Answered by Blair McDougall - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade) (Jointly with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

This information is available in Table 1a of the Insolvency Service’s Business Insolvency Demography official statistics, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/business-insolvency-demography-2015-to-2025.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential barriers to home ownership for first-time buyers.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

This government recognises that the affordability challenges facing prospective first-time buyers mean that too many people are now locked out of homeownership.

In addition to increasing the supply of homes of all tenures, the government is supporting people into home ownership, including through the shared ownership scheme and the Lifetime ISA, and is consulting on a new first-time buyer ISA product.

First time buyers also benefit from paying no Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) up to £300,000 and are able to claim relief on purchases up to £500,000. The government has also introduced a new, permanent Mortgage Guarantee Scheme, available to support and sustain availability of low deposit mortgage products for prospective buyers.

Additionally, the Bank of England has been easing the loan-to-income limit, enabling up to 36,000 additional first-time buyers in the first year. The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) ongoing review of the mortgage market means many buyers can now borrow 10% more towards a property purchase, and in June the FCA published further proposals intended to support first-time buyers. First-time buyers may also benefit from home ownership initiatives offered at the local level.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of population growth on housing demand in England.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

I refer the hon. Member to the answers given to Question UIN 51990 on 19 May 2025.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many planning applications were approved in England in each of the last five years.

Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

Data on planning application statistics can be found in Live Table P120 on gov.uk here.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve educational attainment among white working-class boys in England.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

White disadvantaged boys face a distinct and persistent set of challenges within the current system, including some of the lowest attainment at GCSE. Their average attainment has worsened since the pandemic, in line with declines seen across several other groups, although their outcomes remain among the lowest.

The government recognises that, especially for disadvantaged children, engagement and attainment at school is driven by high-quality teaching, a strong and inclusive school environment, and additional targeted support. The ‘Every child achieving and thriving’ White Paper sets out a coordinated programme of reform to raise standards, with a strong focus on disadvantaged pupils and white working-class children.

The independent inquiry into white working-class educational outcomes identified barriers to engagement and attainment, and the challenges associated with key transitions throughout the education system. Following its publication, we will continue to engage as the inquiry enters its second phase.

Our approach is comprehensive: rebuilding early family support, developing a new model for targeting disadvantage funding so it better reflects need, strengthening teaching quality and ensuring high-quality curricula are embedded across the system.

We are also launching two place-based missions, Mission North East and Mission Coastal, to drive sustained improvement in areas where outcomes remain stubbornly low, including for white working-class boys. These missions will bring together schools, families and local partners at place level to tackle entrenched disadvantage and raise attainment.

In parallel, the department is progressing reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities system to ensure earlier identification of need and more consistent, tailored support. These reforms will support inclusion and ensure that children with special educational needs, who are disproportionately represented among disadvantaged cohorts, receive the support required to achieve and thrive.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what analysis she has conducted of the educational progress of white working-class boys in England.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

White disadvantaged boys face a distinct and persistent set of challenges within the current system, including some of the lowest attainment at GCSE. Their average attainment has worsened since the pandemic, in line with declines seen across several other groups, although their outcomes remain among the lowest.

The government recognises that, especially for disadvantaged children, engagement and attainment at school is driven by high-quality teaching, a strong and inclusive school environment, and additional targeted support. The ‘Every child achieving and thriving’ White Paper sets out a coordinated programme of reform to raise standards, with a strong focus on disadvantaged pupils and white working-class children.

The independent inquiry into white working-class educational outcomes identified barriers to engagement and attainment, and the challenges associated with key transitions throughout the education system. Following its publication, we will continue to engage as the inquiry enters its second phase.

Our approach is comprehensive: rebuilding early family support, developing a new model for targeting disadvantage funding so it better reflects need, strengthening teaching quality and ensuring high-quality curricula are embedded across the system.

We are also launching two place-based missions, Mission North East and Mission Coastal, to drive sustained improvement in areas where outcomes remain stubbornly low, including for white working-class boys. These missions will bring together schools, families and local partners at place level to tackle entrenched disadvantage and raise attainment.

In parallel, the department is progressing reforms to the special educational needs and disabilities system to ensure earlier identification of need and more consistent, tailored support. These reforms will support inclusion and ensure that children with special educational needs, who are disproportionately represented among disadvantaged cohorts, receive the support required to achieve and thrive.