Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many foreign nationals convicted of sexual offences have been removed under the Early Removal Scheme in each year since 2020.
Answered by Alex Norris - Minister of State (Home Office)
The information requested regarding foreign national offenders (FNOs) convicted of sexual offences removed under the Early Removal Scheme (ERS) is not available from published statistics.
The Home Office has published figures on FNOs removed under the ERS, from 2010 Q1 up until 2022 Q2, which can be found within ‘FNO_09’, here: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK.
The Home Office also recently published figures on FNOs removed under the ERS, from 01 March 2023 up to 31 October 2025, which can be found here: Returns from the UK from 1 March 2023 to 31 October 2025 - GOV.UK
Data on FNOs removed under ERS between July 2022 and February 2023 is not currently available from published statistics, but work is currently underway to publish more detailed information on FNOs subject to deportation. Further information on this work can be found at: Statistics on foreign national offenders and the immigration system - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Baroness Maclean of Redditch (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking in response to the UK unemployment figures released by the Office for National Statistics on 16 December; and what assessment they have made of the rate of unemployment increasing to 5.1 per cent between August and October from 4.3 per cent over the same period in 2024.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are aiming to achieve our employment ambitions by reforming the system to enable greater participation, progression and productivity in the labour market. This requires action to reverse the trend of rising economic inactivity, support people into good quality work, help people to get on in work and increase their earnings and develop the skilled workforce that key sectors need to grow.
We set out our plan in the Get Britain Working White Paper, with three pillars:
Reforming the skills system is also essential to deliver this change. The recent Machinery of Government change provides new opportunities to align our labour market and skills objectives.
The Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper, published in October 2025, outlined our plan to deliver the skilled workforce our economy needs now and in the future.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many and what proportion of civil servants in his Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.
Answered by Kate Dearden - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address:
Consultants are not civil servants and therefore, the response is nil.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of civil servants in his Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address:
Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at the following web address:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/home-office-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-to-2025
Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reports of non-consensual sexual deepfake images have been recorded by police forces in England and Wales in each of the last three years for which figures are available; and what steps her Department is taking to prevent the creation and distribution of synthetic sexual images.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Office for National Statistics publishes information on the number of ‘threaten to share intimate photograph or film’ offences recorded by the police in England and Wales, but information on whether these offences involved non-consensual sexual deepfake images is not centrally held. Data for these offences can be found in Table 11 on the Office for National Statistic’s website (Sexual offences prevalence and victim characteristics, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics)
On 18 December 2025, the Government published ‘Freedom from Violence and Abuse: A Cross-Government Strategy to Build a Safer Society for Women and Girls’, which included an announcement to ban nudification apps and other tools designed to create synthetic non-consensual intimate images. This Strategy includes a commitment to explore routes to ensure that intimate images that are taken, created or shared without consent are removed online.
In January 2024, the Online Safety Act brought into force offences for the sharing, and threatening to share intimate images including ‘deepfakes’. These are ‘priority illegal offences’, the most serious category of online offence under the Act.
The Data (Use and Access) Act inserts new offences into the Sexual Offences Act 2003, criminalising the creation and requesting the creation of an intimate deepfake without consent or reasonable belief in consent.
In addition, the Home Office introduced world-leading measures making the UK the first country to outlaw possession, creation and distribution of AI tools for generating child sexual abuse material, as well as criminalising paedophile manuals that instruct others on developing such tools.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, how many and what proportion of civil servants in her Department are (a) on temporary contracts and are (b) consultants.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Information on the number of staff employed by the Law Officers’ Departments on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address:
Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at the following web addresses.
Government Legal Department Annual Report and Accounts 2024–25 - GOV.UK
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many and what proportion of civil servants in his Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address:
Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Annual Report and Accounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at the following web address:
DESNZ annual report and accounts 2024 to 2025 - GOV.UK
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many and what proportion of civil servants in her Department are (a) on temporary contract and (b) consultants.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Information on the number of civil servants employed on temporary contracts is published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics as part of the quarterly Public Sector Employment statistics. Information can be accessed for September 2025 at the following web address: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/bulletins/publicsectoremployment/september2025
Departmental expenditure on consultancy is published within the Annual Report andAccounts. The latest report for FY 2024/25 can be found at the following web address: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dcms-annual-report-and-accounts-2024-to-2025
Asked by: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the answer of 18 November 2025, to Question 88660, on Elections: Proof of Identity, what is the policy of Government Social Research on using the terms (a) sex and (b) gender.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government Social Research Profession is a professional membership body for social researchers working across government. It supports professional social researchers employed directly by departments through providing opportunities for learning, development, career support and technical development.
The Government Social Research Profession is part of the Government Analysis Function, which sets expectations for analysis, as set out in the Government Functional Standard. In using the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, government analysts should have regard to relevant data harmonisation standards published by the Office for National Statistics and the Government Statistical Service.
The Office for National Statistics and the Government Statistical Service are currently partway through a review of their harmonised standards. That review is focused on developing updated and new harmonised standards for Sex, Gender Identity, Disability and Ethnicity
Asked by: James McMurdock (Independent - South Basildon and East Thurrock)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent estimate her Department has made of the cost of cyber attacks to the economy.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
An increasingly hostile cyber threat poses a risk to the UK economy and public finances. According to the Office for National Statistics, the decline in the manufacture of motor vehicles, observed in the wake of the cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover, reduced September’s GDP by 0.17%. In the 2022 Fiscal Risks and Sustainability report, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimated that a cyber-attack on critical national infrastructure could temporarily increase borrowing by around £30 billion – equivalent to 1.1% of GDP.
Cyber-attacks have significant costs for UK businesses. Recent KPMG modelling for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology suggests the average cost of a significant cyber-attack for an individual business in the UK is around £194,729. KPMG estimate this could represent a total yearly cost to businesses in the UK of £14.7 billion, representing 0.5% of the UK’s annual GDP.
The government is committed to strengthening cyber security across the UK. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) provides a range of tools, guidance and support to businesses to improve their cyber security. At last year's Spending Review, the government increased the Single Intelligence Account's budget by £1 billion over the SR period, which funds the critical cybersecurity work conducted by NCSC.
The UK’s cyber resilience relies on all businesses playing their part. The Chancellor of the Exchequer; Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology; Secretary of State for Business and Trade; Minister for Security; CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre and Director General of the National Crime Agency wrote to chief executives and chairs of FTSE 350 companies in October 2025 year asking them to make cyber security a top priority.