Asked by: Richard Holden (Conservative - Basildon and Billericay)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance NHS England has issued to maternity services on when and how pregnant patients are informed of their BMI, including requirements on explaining associated clinical risks and available support.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence provides detailed guidelines for maternity service staff in relation to body mass index (BMI) and managing weight during pregnancy.
This includes the Antenatal Care Guidance which specifies that women should be offered measurement of height and weight, including a calculation of BMI, at their antenatal booking appointment. This should also include an explanation of BMI’s relevance to pregnancy, as well as associated risks and available support. This guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng201
In addition, the Overweight and Obesity Management Guidance specifies that for women with a BMI of 40 kilogram per meter squared of height or above, this discussion should include the option of referral to a specialist obesity service or specialist practitioner for tailored advice and support during pregnancy. This guidance is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng247
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve maternity estates and clear the fixable maintenance backlog.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are investing over £131 million through the 2025/26 Estates Safety Fund to address critical safety risks on the maternity estate, enabling better care for mothers and their newborns. The funded works will deliver vital safety improvements, enhance patient and staff environments, and support National Health Service productivity by reducing disruptions across NHS clinical services.
Improving the standard of maternity and neonatal departments is also a core component of the New Hospital Programme. 11 of the 16 hospitals that are expected to begin construction between 2025 and 2030 will be rebuilding maternity and women and children’s services.
Asked by: Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat - Taunton and Wellington)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of upgrading Ofcom’s Violence Against Women and Girls guidance to be a mandatory code.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act has delivered a robust set of legal duties, taking some of the boldest steps in the world. Enforcement for non-compliance is severe.
Ofcom’s guidance on violence against women and girls goes beyond this, setting a new and ambitious standard for women and girls’ online safety with simple and practical measures that tech firms can adopt.
Asked by: Gideon Amos (Liberal Democrat - Taunton and Wellington)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what plans her Department has for cross-government working to encourage safety by design of smart and connected technology to help protect victims and survivors of technology-facilitated abuse.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in all its forms, including online, is a priority for this Government. That is why, in December, we published the cross-government VAWG Strategy.
Within the Strategy, we commit to working across departments to explore what more we can do to encourage safety‑by‑design in smart and connected technologies. This work aims to better protect victims and survivors, and to prevent perpetrators from misusing these technologies to facilitate abuse.
Asked by: Chris Law (Scottish National Party - Dundee Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of engaging in structured, law-based mediation with representatives of women born in the 1950s.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
On 29 January 2026 my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced the Government’s new decision on the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s (PHSO) investigation into the way that State Pension age changes were communicated to women born in the 1950s.
We have set our decision out in full, and the document is available on Gov.uk: Government response to Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s Investigation into Women’s State Pension communications and associated issues.
Asked by: Will Stone (Labour - Swindon North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to improve the Service Justice System.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Ministry of Defence is taking forward a comprehensive programme of reforms to strengthen and modernise the Service Justice System. As a result, investigations, prosecutions and victim support have all significantly improved in recent years. We want to build on the progress made and this is why the Armed Forces Bill strengthens how the Service Justice System tackles violence against women and girls, enhances support and rights for victims in the Service Justice System and, modernises investigation, charging and discipline procedures in the Service Justice System.
The Defence Serious Crime Command, launched in December 2022, operates independently of the Chain of Command, ensuring impartial investigations into serious offences committed in the UK and overseas. It is implementing the National Operating Model under Operation SOTERIA, in line with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing guidance. This ensures that investigations into rape and serious sexual offences are victim-centred, suspect-focused and consistent with nationally recognised policing standards. The Victim Witness Care Unit provides independent, trauma-informed, end-to-end support to victims and witnesses through dedicated Victim Liaison Officers and operates outside of the Armed Forces’ Chain of Command.
Noting the procedural differences between the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales and the Service Justice System, published administrative data drawn from the Criminal Justice System Delivery Dashboard and statistics on timeliness, victim withdrawal rates and conviction rates in adult-rape-flagged cases in the Service Justice System suggest that cases are dealt with much more quickly in the Service Justice System with a smaller proportion of victims withdrawing from proceedings. Following charge, adult-rape-flagged cases in 2024 reached an outcome in the Crown Court in 358 days with 19% of victims withdrawing from proceedings and 199 days in the Court Martial with no victims withdrawing from proceedings.
Whilst conviction rates cannot be reliably compared between the two systems due to differences in case volume, procedure, victim withdrawal rates and case profile, administrative data published in CPS quarterly data summaries and the above-mentioned statistics on timeliness, victim withdrawal rates and conviction rates in adult-rape-flagged cases in the Service Justice System also cast further doubt on claims that the conviction rate in the Crown Court is higher. Excluding guilty pleas, 51% of adult-rape-flagged cases in 2022 to 2024 in the Court Martial resulted in a conviction whereas 36% resulted in a conviction in the Crown Court.
In its November 2024 report regarding the Service Prosecuting Authority, HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate stated that “the level of timeliness and support for victims in the Service Justice System is something we would like to see afforded to all victims in all jurisdictions.”
For more information on the statistics quoted above please see:
https://criminal-justice-delivery-data-dashboards.justice.gov.uk/all-metrics
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 intend to take to prevent any increase in the number of women performing dangerous late-term abortions at home.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Parliament decided in 2022 to amend the Abortion Act 1967 to make home use of medical abortion pills a permanent option in England and Wales where the pregnancy has not exceeded 10 weeks gestation. Before pills are prescribed for an early medical abortion at home, the woman requesting the abortion will have had a consultation with a clinician either in person, by telephone, or by electronic means. If the clinician has any concerns about the gestation of the pregnancy during a telephone or electronic consultation, the woman will be asked to attend a clinic.
In June 2025, the House of Commons voted to add a clause to the Crime and Policing Bill which would decriminalise abortion for a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy. The bill will now progress through Parliament in the usual way and is currently being debated in the House of Lords. Should abortion be decriminalised for a woman acting in relation to her own pregnancy these offences would still apply to medical professionals and third parties who do not abide by the rules set out in the Abortion Act 1967.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the value of graduated pension contributions paid by individuals prior to 1975 relative to the level of the new State Pension.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Graduated Retirement Benefit (GRB) scheme was the precursor to the additional State Pension and ran from 1961 to 1975. One unit of GRB was earned, by a man, for every £7.50 of graduated contributions paid, and in the case of a woman born before 6 April 1950, for every £9.00 paid. The maximum number of units available was 86 for a man and 72 for a woman. These rules were equalised for women born on or after 6 April 1950, with the result that GRB contributions paid by women who have reached State Pension age since April 2010 will be “converted” into GRB units on the same basis as for men. A unit is currently worth 17.83p per week (2025/26).
For people who reached State Pension age before 6 April 2016, GRB is normally paid with other State Pension components, but it is paid on its own if there is no other State Pension entitlement.
GRB is not payable as a separate amount for people who reach State Pension age on or after 6 April 2016, who will claim the new State Pension. Instead, people who had made contributions under the old State Pension system, including graduated contributions, will have their new State Pension calculated under transitional rules. Under the transitional arrangements, we look at an individual's National Insurance record as it stands on 6 April 2016 and compare what this would give them under the new State Pension rules with what they would have built up under the old system. The higher of these two values will be used as their Starting Amount for the new State Pension going forward. Therefore, any previous Graduated Retirement Benefit will be consolidated, along with other elements, into an individual’s entitlement to the new State Pension.
Asked by: Siân Berry (Green Party - Brighton Pavilion)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what has been the financial cost to his Department of litigation related to the WASPI campaign since December 2024.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Based on the information held, since December 2024, the recorded legal costs on litigations with WASPI including disbursements and VAT are £135,999.61.
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.