Asked by: Rupert Lowe (Independent - Great Yarmouth)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the number of marriages between cousins that have taken place in the UK in each of the last ten years.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The number of marriages between relatives, mainly cousins, is not a data set that is collected and the Government therefore cannot give an estimate.
The Office for National Statistics publishes marriage statistics derived from information recorded at the point of marriage registration in England and Wales. This includes data about age, sex, previous marital status and whether the ceremony was civil or religious, but not whether the parties were related.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much on average was invested in Government Bonds by Retail Investors in January (a) 2023 and (b) 2025.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
HM Treasury does not hold data on the average amounts invested in gilts by retail investors; however, the government welcomes participation from a broad and diverse range of gilt market investors, including retail buyers.
The Office for National Statistics publishes aggregate holdings in government bonds by different investors, which can be found using the following link - https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/ukeconomicaccountsjulytoseptember2025
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham Edgbaston)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the ethnic pay gap reporting framework will require employers to record and report pay gap data for Jewish and Sikh employees as distinct ethnic groups.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Our consultation on ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting closed in June 2025. The consultation sought views on the proposed approach, including whether ethnicity data should be collected following the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Ethnicity Harmonised Standard. Good progress has been made in analysing the responses and we will publish the Government response to the consultation in due course.
The ONS current harmonised standard does not include specific “Sikh” and “Jewish” categories for a person’s ethnic group. The Office for National Statistics (ONS), which is independent of government, is currently running a public consultation which seeks to review the harmonised standard to ensure it meets the needs of both data users and respondents.
We will monitor the progress of this review during policy development.
Asked by: Anneliese Dodds (Labour (Co-op) - Oxford East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the extent to which the ten recommendations from the IOPC report 'National learning recommendations and responses - EIP searches of children, published on 19 March 2024 have been implemented.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Independent Office for Police Conduct’s (IOPC) ‘National Learning Recommendations re: Exposure of Intimate Parts Searches of Children’ report made ten recommendations. Seven recommendations have been fully implemented, and work is ongoing for the other three. Progress on these is set out below:
Recommendation 10, Mandatory Safeguarding Referral following exposure of intimate parts searches: The Home Office has led system-wide consultations to consider amendments to Code A and C of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984), including mandating a safeguarding referral for any child who is subject to an exposure of intimate parts search. The Government is committed to introducing new legal safeguards around the strip search of children as soon as possible.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government records deaths where harm caused by sodium valproate exposure is listed as a contributing factor.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) collects and publishes mortality statistics for deaths registered in England and Wales. Deaths in which harm caused by sodium valproate exposure is a contributing factor are not captured as a distinct, searchable category in ONS mortality statistics. Further information on mortality statistics is available on the ONS website, at the following link:
Asked by: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 4 December 2025, to Question 95866, on Business Rates, how many and what proportion of hereditaments have seen their bills (a) increase, (b) remain the same and (c) fall following the revaluation and revised multipliers in England.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The amount of business rates paid on each property is based on the rateable value of the property, assessed by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), and the multiplier values, which are set by the Government. Rateable values are re-assessed every three years. Revaluations ensure that the rateable values of properties (i.e. the tax base) remain in line with market changes, and that the tax rates adjust to reflect changes in the tax base.
At the Budget, the VOA announced updated property values from the 2026 revaluation. This revaluation is the first since Covid, which has led to significant increases in rateable values for some properties.
To support with bill increases, at the Budget, the Government introduced a support package worth £4.3 billion over the next three years to protect ratepayers seeing their bills increase because of the revaluation. As a result, over half of ratepayers will see no bill increases, including 23% seeing their bills go down next year. Government support also means that most properties seeing increases will see them capped at 15% or less next year, or £800 for the smallest.
The new, permanently lower tax rates for Retail, Hospitality and Leisure (RHL) replace the temporary RHL relief that has been winding down since COVID. Unlike RHL relief, the new rates are permanent, giving businesses certainty and stability, and there will be no cap, meaning all qualifying properties on high streets across England will benefit.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government publishes data on the number of properties receiving business rates relief. This data can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-non-domestic-rates-collected-by-councils-in-england-forecast-2025-to-2026
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many illegal working enforcement raids were carried out in Lancashire between July 2024 and December 2025.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
To maintain the highest standards of accuracy, the Home Office prefers to refer to published data, as this has been subject to rigorous quality assurance under National Statistics protocols prior to publication.
Our published data on enforcement visits is available at: Immigration system statistics, year ending September 2025 - GOV.UK
Information about enforcement visits in Lancashire is not currently available in our published data.
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what discussions he has had with the Office for National Statistics to (a) remove and (b) amend questions on gender identity in the next Census.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon gentleman’s Parliamentary Question of 14th January is attached.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many recorded offences involving the use of VoIP services there have been in each of the last five years.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office collects and publishes data on the number of offences recorded by police forces in England and Wales which have been identified as having an online element. Offences involving the use of VoIP services are included but are not separately identifiable in the data held centrally.
This data can be found in table C5 of the Crime in England and Wales: Appendix tables here: Crime in England and Wales: Appendix tables - Office for National Statistics.
The definition of online crime within this data collection was revised in April 2024 to state that offences involving the use of VoIP services should be flagged to improve clarity and consistency in recording.
Asked by: Adrian Ramsay (Green Party - Waveney Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment has he made of the potential impact of arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions on (a) access to employment, (b) levels of economic inactivity and (c) levels of workplace absence.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP publishes annual official statistics to monitor employment outcomes for disabled people including those with ‘Musculoskeletal conditions’. These statistics show that working age (16 to 64) disabled people with ‘Musculoskeletal conditions’ are less likely to be in employment compared to the working age population as a whole. The employment rate for working age disabled people with a ‘Musculoskeletal condition’ was 52.3% in 2024/25 compared to 75.4% for all people aged 16 to 64.
Source: The employment of disabled people 2025 (Table LMS004) - GOV.UK and Nomis - Query Tool - annual population survey
In 2024/25 2.0 million people aged 16 to 64 who reported a ‘Musculoskeletal condition’ were economically inactive. This represents 39.9% of all people with a ‘Musculoskeletal condition’ compared to 19.1% of people without a ‘Musculoskeletal condition’ who were economically inactive.
Source: The employment of disabled people 2025 (Table EIA009) - GOV.UK
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) also publishes statistics on Sickness absence in the UK labour market from the same source – the Labour Force Survey. The latest statistics show that in 2024 26.5 million working days were lost in the UK due to a ‘Musculoskeletal condition' which equates to 17.8% of all working days lost.
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is the main source of data for people with ‘Musculoskeletal conditions’ in the UK labour market. This includes people with arthritis, back pain, neck and upper limb problems. However, it is not possible to specifically identify those with arthritis from the LFS therefore this data is not readily available from published sources.