Asked by: Baroness Finn (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 19 January (HL13419), what the specific issue was that limited the available political activity data and prevented the inclusion of that data in the Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25, published on 2 December 2025; whether that issue has been resolved; and whether they will retrospectively publish that data.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Political activity information is collected from candidates as part of the public appointments digital service’s online application process. Political activity data was not included in the Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25 due to a data collection issue which meant it could not be extracted in a usable format for reporting. The data collection issue has now been rectified, and political activity data will be considered for inclusion in the 2025-26 data report.
The last government did not publish a data report after 2021-22, but under this administration, the government has restarted publishing these reports in order to provide transparency.
I also refer the Noble Baroness back to PQ HL13974 and PQ HL13979:
Questions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 19 January (HL13419), what was the title and grade of the most senior official who approved the removal or omission of political impartiality data from the Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25, published on 2 December 2025.
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Swansea on 19 January (HL13419), whether Ministers were informed or consulted on the decision not to include political activity data in the Cabinet Office Public Appointments Data Report 2024–25; and for what reason the headline political activity data published in the Commissioner for Public Appointment’s Annual Report of 17 December was not included in the Cabinet Office report of 2 December.
Combined answer:
As was the case under previous governments, and in accordance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments, the political activity of successful candidates is published by government departments as part of the public announcement regarding the appointment.
The last government did not publish a data report after 2021-22, but under this administration, the government has restarted publishing these reports in order to provide transparency.
Political activity data was not included in the Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25 due to a data collection issue which limited the data that was available. The data collection issue has now been rectified, and this information will be considered for inclusion in the 2025-26 data report.
The Commissioner for Public Appointments, as the independent regulator, decided to include the limited data for 2024-25 in his own reporting.
The Cabinet Office did not publish a data report in either 2022-23 or 2023-24, so political activity data was also not published in a collated form for these years.
Asked by: Baroness Finn (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 19 January (HL13919), whether the Cabinet Office appointments database holds information on the individual political affiliation of the public appointees who declared political activity in (1) 2024-25, and (2) 2025-26.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Political activity information is collected from candidates as part of the public appointments digital service’s online application process. Political activity data was not included in the Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25 due to a data collection issue which meant it could not be extracted in a usable format for reporting. The data collection issue has now been rectified, and political activity data will be considered for inclusion in the 2025-26 data report.
The last government did not publish a data report after 2021-22, but under this administration, the government has restarted publishing these reports in order to provide transparency.
I also refer the Noble Baroness back to PQ HL13974 and PQ HL13979:
Questions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 19 January (HL13419), what was the title and grade of the most senior official who approved the removal or omission of political impartiality data from the Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25, published on 2 December 2025.
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Swansea on 19 January (HL13419), whether Ministers were informed or consulted on the decision not to include political activity data in the Cabinet Office Public Appointments Data Report 2024–25; and for what reason the headline political activity data published in the Commissioner for Public Appointment’s Annual Report of 17 December was not included in the Cabinet Office report of 2 December.
Combined answer:
As was the case under previous governments, and in accordance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments, the political activity of successful candidates is published by government departments as part of the public announcement regarding the appointment.
The last government did not publish a data report after 2021-22, but under this administration, the government has restarted publishing these reports in order to provide transparency.
Political activity data was not included in the Public Appointments Data Report 2024-25 due to a data collection issue which limited the data that was available. The data collection issue has now been rectified, and this information will be considered for inclusion in the 2025-26 data report.
The Commissioner for Public Appointments, as the independent regulator, decided to include the limited data for 2024-25 in his own reporting.
The Cabinet Office did not publish a data report in either 2022-23 or 2023-24, so political activity data was also not published in a collated form for these years.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, further to the Cabinet Office press release entitled Young people from all backgrounds to get opportunity to study abroad as UK-EU deal unlocks Erasmus+, published on 17 December 2025, on what basis was the £570 million a year cost calculated; and what estimate he has made of the potential cost to the public pursue of (a) EU students studying in the UK and (b) UK students studying in the EU.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
I refer the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire to the answer of 2 February 2026 to Question 107708.
Asked by: Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 29 January (HL14010), how much has been spent on the Every Mind Matters campaign to date; and what is the (1) projected, and (2) budgeted spend, over the period of that campaign's operations.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As a point of clarification, the Every Mind Matters (EMM) website remains live on the National Health Service digital domain for anyone to access free of charge. Between 2019 and 2023, the EMM website and its digital tools were promoted via intermittent paid for marketing campaigns to encourage the use of the site to enable the public to take simple self-care actions to improve their mental health.
A total of £21.93 million was spent on these campaigns. Since 2024 no funding has been available to promote the site to the public. However, as noted in the response to HL14010, a campaign launched over the new year and is running until the end of March 2026 to encourage people to do the new NHS Healthy Choices Quiz which asks questions about six health topics, including mental health and sleep. People whose answers to the Quiz indicate mental health difficulties will be signposted to appropriate help, including Every Mind Matters, NHS Talking Therapies, or other NHS mental health services.
Any future budget for the Every Mind Matters campaigns is yet to be agreed by the Cabinet Office, which determines the health issues which will be supported by paid marketing campaigns and how much should be spent on them.
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, what guidance he issues to Departments on whether they may decline to publish or signpost information which has otherwise been released to members of the public under Freedom of Information laws.
Answered by Alan Campbell - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The Guide to Parliamentary Work (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-parliamentary-work), published by my office, sets out the government's position regarding the relationship between the treatment of requests for information through parliamentary questions and the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2000. Paragraph 221 states that “if information would be released under FOI, it would also be released in response to a WPQ”.
I have written to all Members of Cabinet and spoken with Departmental Parliamentary Clerks and Permanent Secretaries to remind departments and Ministers about the importance of providing full and helpful responses to WPQs.
In addition, the House of Commons Procedure Committee recently launched an inquiry into WPQs which is considering the interaction between WPQs and FOIs. I look forward to working with the Committee as this work progresses.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the answer of 16 January 2026, to Question 104159, on Trade Unions: Facilities Agreements, if he will place in the Library the names of the individual public sector organisations which were requested by Cabinet Office Trade Union Facility Time Reporting Service to submit trade union facility time data but which did not do so, for the (a) 2023-24 and (b) 2024-25 datasets.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The answer provided to 104159 was inaccurate and has been corrected. The Cabinet Office does not hold the requested information.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 20 January 2026 to Question 104805 on Senior Civil Servants: Redundancy Pay, and with reference to deposited paper entitled Permanent secretary model employment contract, DEP2025-0830, deposited on 4 December 2025, for what business reason the former Cabinet Secretary was awarded the exit payment under the Compulsory Early Termination of Contract provision of paragraph 18.1 and not under the medical grounds or voluntary exit provisions of paragraph 14.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
I refer to my answer for PQs 104805 and 104161, the business case was made on the basis that the Cabinet Secretary departed the Civil Service, and it was calculated on the basis of the Civil Service Compensation Scheme i.e. 1 month’s pay (capped at £149,820 salary) for each year of service.
Asked by: Baroness Finn (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what guidance the Cabinet Office have issued to departments since the start of December 2025 about the approach to answering Written Questions about direct ministerial appointments; whether the Cabinet Office has made departments aware of expectation of transparency on direct ministerial appointments in the Guidance on Making Direct Ministerial Appointments, published October 2025; and what assessment they have made of compliance with that guidance of (1) the original, and (2) the corrected, Written Answer by the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office on 7 January (HC98100).
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Cabinet Office wrote to departments when the Guidance on Making Direct Ministerial Appointments was published, highlighting the contents of the guidance. As the guidance sets out, the responsibility for the publication of information about direct ministerial appointments rests with individual departments.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the Written Statement of 1 December 2025 on UK–EU Relations, HCWS1114, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for UK national security of not reaching agreement on enhanced UK participation in the SAFE instrument; and what steps her Department is taking to help mitigate capability and interoperability gaps with EU partners.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The matters raised by the Rt Hon Member are primarily for the Cabinet Office who were responsible for the written statement to which her questions refer, and the Ministry of Defence who are the responsible department for defence industrial matters.
We however continue to deepen and strengthen our cooperation with the EU on a range of related matters - including in tackling hybrid threats - via our new Security and Defence Partnership. Our relationships through NATO of course remain the bedrock of our security and defence.
Asked by: Wendy Morton (Conservative - Aldridge-Brownhills)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to HCWS1114 on 1 December 2025, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of limiting UK defence industrial content to 35 per cent of SAFE-funded projects on (a) sovereign capability, (b) export competitiveness and (c) supply-chain resilience across the UK defence sector.
Answered by Stephen Doughty - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The matters raised by the Rt Hon Member are primarily for the Cabinet Office who were responsible for the written statement to which her questions refer, and the Ministry of Defence who are the responsible department for defence industrial matters.
We however continue to deepen and strengthen our cooperation with the EU on a range of related matters - including in tackling hybrid threats - via our new Security and Defence Partnership. Our relationships through NATO of course remain the bedrock of our security and defence.