Asked by: Liz Jarvis (Liberal Democrat - Eastleigh)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department is taking to help close the gender pension gap in the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The gender pension gap can be measured in different ways. In order to answer this question, we have used the difference in average pension in payment for men and women, expressed as a percentage of the average pension for men. Based on the latest data available, from 2024, the gap has reduced from 47% in 2016 to 42%.
We fully expect this position to continue to improve as the equality employment legislation reduces historical differences in both the gap in pay and pensions accruing.
The Cabinet Office will be commissioning the Government Actuary’s Department to carry out further analysis of the current position and will then consider next steps.
Asked by: Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they propose to take to support women with long-term health conditions.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The health of women with long-term conditions is a priority for the Government.
Our 10-Year Health Plan is centred around driving three shifts in the way health care is delivered, from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention. More tests and scans are delivered in the community, better-joint up working between services, and greater use of technology will support women in the management of long-term conditions. This will build on the work led by the pioneering women’s health hubs.
The Government is encouraging integrated care boards (ICBs) to expand the coverage of women’s health hubs and is supporting them to use what we learned from the hub pilot programme to improve local delivery of services to women and girls. The Government is backing ICBs to do this through record funding.
We are renewing the Women’s Health Strategy, to tackle enduring challenges and build on vital progress in women’s health.
Asked by: Euan Stainbank (Labour - Falkirk)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment his Department has made of the level of the gender pension gap within the civil service pension scheme.
Answered by Anna Turley - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The gender pension gap can be measured in different ways. In order to answer this question, we have used the difference in average pension in payment for men and women, expressed as a percentage of the average pension for men. Based on the latest data available, from 2024, the gap has reduced from 47% in 2016 to 42%.
We fully expect this position to continue to improve as the equality employment legislation reduces historical differences in both the gap in pay and pensions accruing.
The Cabinet Office will be commissioning the Government Actuary’s Department to carry out further analysis of the current position and will then consider next steps.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to ensure the effectiveness of cancer screening programmes in Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England Screening and Immunisation Teams, including a dedicated team covering Thames Valley, work closely with providers and local partners to ensure cancer screening programmes are delivered in line with national standards for quality, safety and effectiveness.
At a local level, the NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (ICB) works in partnership with NHS England, primary care, providers and the Thames Valley Cancer Alliance to support the delivery and uptake of cancer screening programmes across Buckingham and Bletchley. This includes ongoing monitoring of screening coverage and performance at place and practice level, identifying variation, and supporting action where uptake or performance falls below national standards.
At a national level, we recently announced that the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme in England is lowering the faecal immunochemical test threshold from 120 micrograms of blood per gram of faeces to 80 micrograms of blood per gram of faeces. It is estimated that this change will detect approximately 600 additional bowel cancers early each year in England, approximately an 11% increase, and find 2,000 more people with high-risk polyps in their bowel, allowing doctors to remove them before they ever turn into cancers.
Additionally, in early 2026, the NHS Cervical Screening Programme will be offering a self-testing kit to under-screened women, starting with those who are the most overdue for screening. This will help tackle deeply entrenched barriers that keep some away from screening.
These national-level changes will benefit people across England, including those living in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)
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 adequacy of the training provided to GPs on prescribing risk-reducing drugs to women at increased risk of breast cancer.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practitioners (GPs) are responsible for ensuring their own clinical knowledge remains up-to-date and for identifying learning needs as part of their continuing professional development. This activity should include taking account of new research and developments in guidance, such as that produced by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, to ensure that they can continue to provide high quality care to all patients.
We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in GPs, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26, the biggest increase in over a decade. The 8.9% boost to the GP Contract in 2025/26 is bigger than the 5.8% growth to the National Health Service budget as a whole, demonstrating our commitment to shifting resources to the community.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)
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 establishing a national register to capture and integrate the data of all women at increased risk of breast cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) in NHS England provides England’s national resource for data and analytics on cancer, rare diseases, and congenital conditions.
The NDRS already serves as a national register for women at very high risk of breast cancer. NDRS curates and quality assures the collected data to ensure sufficient accuracy and completeness. The NDRS works closely with the very high risk National Breast Screening Programme to ensure safe and robust identification of women at very high risk of cancer. The integration of this data within the wider NDRS cancer data infrastructure maximises the use of this data which helps with service planning, evaluation, and improvement, and reduces the fragmentation and siloing that would occur with standalone registers.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West and Islwyn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure the accuracy of data collected on all women at increased risk of breast cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) in NHS England provides England’s national resource for data and analytics on cancer, rare diseases, and congenital conditions.
The NDRS already serves as a national register for women at very high risk of breast cancer. NDRS curates and quality assures the collected data to ensure sufficient accuracy and completeness. The NDRS works closely with the very high risk National Breast Screening Programme to ensure safe and robust identification of women at very high risk of cancer. The integration of this data within the wider NDRS cancer data infrastructure maximises the use of this data which helps with service planning, evaluation, and improvement, and reduces the fragmentation and siloing that would occur with standalone registers.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle anti-social behaviour in Gloucester city centre.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
Through the Crime and Policing Bill, we are strengthening the powers available to police and other relevant agencies to tackle ASB, including introducing new Respect Orders to give local agencies stronger enforcement capability to crack down on the most relentless ASB perpetrators.
Under the Government’s Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, we are putting neighbourhood officers back into communities, both urban and rural, and restoring public confidence by bringing back community-led, visible policing. By the end of this parliament there will be 13,000 more neighbourhood policing personnel across England and Wales, including up to 3,000 additional neighbourhood officers by the end of March 2026. Gloucestershire Constabulary’s projected growth over 2025 to 2026 will be 23 police officers (FTE).
Gloucestershire Constabulary participated in the Safer Streets Summer Initiative, as part of activity to tackle anti-social behaviour, retail crime and street crime across six town centres. The force is currently participating in the Winter of Action, which builds on this work and covers twelve town centres, including Gloucester City Centre, with activity focused on anti-social behaviour, retail crime, offending linked to the night-time economy, and violence against women and girls. The full list of locations Gloucestershire has been focusing on as part of the Winter of Action can be found here: Winter of Action: location list - GOV.UK
Asked by: Sarah Hall (Labour (Co-op) - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of State Pension age changes on 1950s-born women in Warrington South constituency.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
All women born since 6 April 1950 have been affected by changes to State Pension age.
Estimates can be made with ONS 2022 Census Data of how many women born in the 1950s were resident in each constituency in that year.
Asked by: Paul Kohler (Liberal Democrat - Wimbledon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the number of convictions for violence against women and girls in England and Wales in the last 12 months.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Violence against women and girls constitutes a number of offences. The Ministry of Justice routinely publishes data on convictions for a number of offences including offences related to violence against women and girls in the Outcomes by Offence data tool. This can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
The Government cannot and does not seek to influence convictions or judicial outcomes, which are rightly matters for the independent judiciary. However, as part of our mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade, we recognise it is vital for victims to feel able to come forward and obtain the justice they deserve.
In December, we published our ‘Freedom from violence and abuse: a cross-government strategy’, which sets out the actions we are taking to achieve our VAWG mission. To support victims to come forward and feel able to stay engaged throughout the justice process, our strategy sets out a comprehensive package of measures to strengthen support at every stage of the criminal justice system. This includes court measures to protect victims from intrusive cross-examination, stronger perpetrator management through a national rollout of Domestic Abuse Protection Orders, and the largest-ever investment of £550 million into victim support services over the next three years.