Written questions by MacDonald.

Whether she has had discussions with the Solicitors Regulation Authority on steps to monitor internal employment practices within regulated firms.

The Ministry of Justice has not held discussions with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) on monitoring internal employment practices within regulated firms. Regulation of the legal profession in England and Wales operates independently of government. Responsibility for regulating the sector sits with the approved regulators, overseen by the Legal Services Board (LSB), as designated under the Legal Services Act 2007. The SRA is responsible for regulating the professional conduct of solicitors and law firms in England and Wales. Given the sector’s independence, it would not be appropriate for the Ministry of Justice to interfere with the operational matters of regulated firms. However, the Department maintains regular engagement with the SRA on strategic and policy matters affecting the legal services sector.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive Scheme on farmers in Inverness, Skye, and West Ross-shire constituency.

Agriculture is a devolved policy area, and the Sustainable Farming Incentive is an England-only scheme. There is therefore no impact on farmers in the Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire constituency.

Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the closure of the Sustainable Farming Incentive Scheme on the natural environment in Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire constituency.

Agriculture is a devolved policy area, and the Sustainable Farming Incentive is an England-only scheme. There is therefore no impact on farmers in the Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire constituency.

Food and Rural Affairs, what information his Department holds on the total quantity of ash produced annually from the burning of biomass at the Drax power station.

The quantities of various waste streams produced at Drax are required to be reported to the Environment Agency using the national Pollution Inventory system. For 2024 the figure for ash from biomass was just over 300,000 tonnes.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the calorie labelling system in restaurants on people with other specified feeding and eating disorder.

Legislation requiring large businesses in England, with 250 or more employees, to display calorie information on non-prepacked food and soft drinks came into force in 2022.The Department continues to evaluate the impact of the Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) Regulations and have commissioned studies through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, which includes an evaluation to understand the impact of the rules, including on people living with eating disorders.We will publish a post-implementation review within five years of implementation which will consider the effectiveness and impact of the policy, including on people living with eating disorders.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of working more than one hour per week on the Housing Benefit receipt for young people in supported accommodation.

It remains the department’s priority to ensure that those who can work are supported to enter the labour market and to sustain employment. The Department acknowledges there is a challenge presented by the interaction between Universal Credit and Housing Benefit for those living in Supported Housing and Temporary Accommodation and receiving their housing support through Housing Benefit. The department will consider the issue carefully in partnership with stakeholders.Like Universal Credit, Housing Benefit has an income taper. As Housing Benefit may be claimed by those both in work and out of work, there are no rules around the number of hours that someone may work; instead, there are income tapers which apply. The income taper in Housing Benefit ensures people in work are better off than someone wholly reliant on benefits. In addition to any financial advantage, there are important non-financial benefits of working. These benefits include learning new skills, improved confidence and independence as well as a positive effect on an individual's mental and physical health. However, the treatment of earnings in Housing Benefit is less generous than that of Universal Credit. Therefore, although customers living in Supported Housing are better off working than doing no work at all, they can be financially better off limiting the hours they work to ensure they retain a small amount of Universal Credit entitlement.Changing the current rules would require a fiscal event and funding at a Budget. As funding is required to allow a change, any future decisions will take account of the current fiscal context.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of adopting restrictions similar to those in Switzerland on the spreading of biomass ash on fields.

Defra has not made an assessment of the potential merits of adopting restrictions similar to those in Switzerland on the spreading of biomass ash on fields. Waste and agriculture are devolved policy areas, so this response only covers England. In England you can spread waste to land to improve soil health. This can help reduce the need to use manufactured fertilisers and quarried soil conditioners. Spreading waste to land must be controlled by an environmental permit, regulatory position statement, low risk waste position or waste exemption to protect the environment and human health. It must result in agricultural benefit or ecological improvement, and be waste recovery, not waste disposal.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the calorie labelling system in restaurants on people with anorexia.

Legislation requiring large businesses in England, with 250 or more employees, to display calorie information on non-prepacked food and soft drinks came into force in 2022.The Department continues to evaluate the impact of the Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) Regulations and have commissioned studies through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, which includes an evaluation to understand the impact of the rules, including on people living with eating disorders.We will publish a post-implementation review within five years of implementation which will consider the effectiveness and impact of the policy, including on people living with eating disorders.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the calorie labelling system in restaurants on people with avoidant restrictive food intake disorder.

Legislation requiring large businesses in England, with 250 or more employees, to display calorie information on non-prepacked food and soft drinks came into force in 2022.The Department continues to evaluate the impact of the Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) Regulations and have commissioned studies through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, which includes an evaluation to understand the impact of the rules, including on people living with eating disorders.We will publish a post-implementation review within five years of implementation which will consider the effectiveness and impact of the policy, including on people living with eating disorders.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the calorie labelling system in restaurants on people with bulimia.

Legislation requiring large businesses in England, with 250 or more employees, to display calorie information on non-prepacked food and soft drinks came into force in 2022.The Department continues to evaluate the impact of the Calorie Labelling (Out of Home Sector) Regulations and have commissioned studies through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, which includes an evaluation to understand the impact of the rules, including on people living with eating disorders.We will publish a post-implementation review within five years of implementation which will consider the effectiveness and impact of the policy, including on people living with eating disorders.

What discussions her Department has had with stakeholders in the banking sector on the use of a birthplace as an (a) online and (b) telephone security question.

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) in the Payment Services Regulations 2017 sets out the requirements which firms must follow when customers are accessing their payment accounts online, including the use of two-factor authentication to verify a customer’s identity. However, the specific questions firms should use to authenticate a customer’s identity are not prescribed, which is a matter for individual firms. Therefore, the Government has not had discussions with banking stakeholders on the specific uses of first school attended, mother’s maiden name, pet’s name or birthplace as online banking or telephone security questions.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department requires operators of biomass power stations to publish annual data on the quantity and composition of ash produced.

All installations permitted under the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016 are required to supply pollution inventory data annually. For biomass power stations, this includes the amount of ash produced, but not it’s composition. Pollution Inventory data is published after it has been verified by the Environment Agency. Pollution Inventory data can be found here: Pollution Inventory - data.gov.uk.

What discussions her Department has had with stakeholders in the banking sector on the use of a first school as an (a) online and (b) telephone security question.

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) in the Payment Services Regulations 2017 sets out the requirements which firms must follow when customers are accessing their payment accounts online, including the use of two-factor authentication to verify a customer’s identity. However, the specific questions firms should use to authenticate a customer’s identity are not prescribed, which is a matter for individual firms. Therefore, the Government has not had discussions with banking stakeholders on the specific uses of first school attended, mother’s maiden name, pet’s name or birthplace as online banking or telephone security questions.

What discussions his Department has had with the British Medical Association on medical students receiving less than two hours of teaching on eating disorders throughout their undergraduate training.

The Department has not had conversations with the British Medical Association about the amount of teaching on eating disorders in undergraduate medical training. The standard of training for doctors is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC). The GMC sets the outcome standards expected at undergraduate level and approves courses and medical schools to write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet the GMC’s outcome standards.Since the 2024/25 academic year, medical students graduating from UK universities have been required to pass the Medical Licensing Assessment, for which the GMC has published a content map documenting the conditions which students are expected to have knowledge. This is available at the following link: https://www.gmc-uk.org/-/media/documents/mla-content-map-_pdf-85707770.pdf. Eating disorders are included in the content map.

What discussions she has had with the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs on the standardised 21-week wait for the Information Commissioner’s Office complaints department.

No discussions have taken place between the former Secretary of State for Justice and the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs on the standardised 21-week wait for the Information Commissioner’s Office complaints department.

What discussions she has had with the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs on the adequacy of the staffing of the Information Commissioner’s Office to deal with complaints.

No discussions have taken place between the former Secretary of State for Justice and the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs regarding the adequacy of the staffing of the Information Commissioner’s Office to deal with complaints.

What discussions her Department has had with stakeholders in the banking sector on the use of a pet’s name as an (a) online and (b) telephone security question.

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) in the Payment Services Regulations 2017 sets out the requirements which firms must follow when customers are accessing their payment accounts online, including the use of two-factor authentication to verify a customer’s identity. However, the specific questions firms should use to authenticate a customer’s identity are not prescribed, which is a matter for individual firms. Therefore, the Government has not had discussions with banking stakeholders on the specific uses of first school attended, mother’s maiden name, pet’s name or birthplace as online banking or telephone security questions.

Whether her Department has had discussions with stakeholders in the banking sector on the use of a mother’s maiden name as an (a) online and (b) telephone security question.

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) in the Payment Services Regulations 2017 sets out the requirements which firms must follow when customers are accessing their payment accounts online, including the use of two-factor authentication to verify a customer’s identity. However, the specific questions firms should use to authenticate a customer’s identity are not prescribed, which is a matter for individual firms. Therefore, the Government has not had discussions with banking stakeholders on the specific uses of first school attended, mother’s maiden name, pet’s name or birthplace as online banking or telephone security questions.

What assessment he has made of the potential merits of developing new NICE criteria for rare conditions that do not meet the 300 patient threshold for the Highly Specialised Technology appraisal system.

Decisions on whether medicines should be evaluated through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) highly specialised technologies (HST) programme are taken by NICE itself against a set of published criteria that have been developed through public and stakeholder engagement.NICE recently reviewed and consulted on updates to its HST criteria and the refined criteria have been implemented since April 2025. The purpose of the review was not to change the number or nature of the topics that are evaluated through the HST Programme, but to ensure that the criteria are sufficiently clear and predictable for companies and patient groups and are aligned to the HST vision.There are currently no plans for NICE to develop new criteria for conditions that do not meet the 300-patient threshold outlined in the current HST criteria. However, NICE’s standard medicines evaluation process has been proven to be suitable for the evaluation of rare disease medicines, where companies are willing to price their medicines fairly.NICE’s approval rate for medicines for rare diseases is in line with its overall approval rate for new medicines. Between April 2024 and April 2025, NICE recommended all 15 of the rare disease drugs that it evaluated through its standard technology appraisal programme, which are now available for the treatment of NHS patients.

Whether he has met with families who have lost relatives following missed diagnoses within the NHS.

NHS England places the utmost importance on optimising the performance of diagnostic services in support of improved patient outcomes. Integrated care boards and trusts are being supported to improve diagnostic performance, including through capital investment, with the aim to significantly shorten long waits for diagnostic tests, reducing the risk of avoidable harm while patients are waiting for them.Where evidence of patient harm emerges, NHS England has taken a proactive approach to addressing the lessons from any incidents and supporting providers to make the necessary changes. An example of this is NHS England’s response in addressing the systemic failings highlighted by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report Unlocking Solutions in Imaging, published July 2021, and subsequent investigations by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch. In this case, NHS England formed a dedicated board to review the recommendations and oversee changes, which included:the publication of the Radiology lifecycle by the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) in February 2025 outlining the roles and responsibilities of clinicians at each stage of the imaging journey, with further information available at the following link: https://www.rcr.ac.uk/media/4mnpxmhw/rcr-publications-radiology-lifecycle-guidance.pdf;the establishment of national standards for reporting turnaround times, published August 2023, with further information available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/diagnostic-imaging-reporting-turnaround-times/;the development of a culture of continuous learning through network and regional Radiology Events and Learning Meetings, or REALMS. The RCR launched an online learning hub, REAL online, in 2023, which is an interactive learning resource for radiologists. Further information is available at the following link: https://www.rcr.ac.uk/cpd-and-events/radiology-events-and-learning-real/; andinvestment in improvements in digital interoperability and connectivity through national capital to support faster, more reliable access to imaging data across the system.My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care often meets with families who have faced failings in their care whilst using the National Health Service. It is important to learn from the experiences of patients and families to improve care in the NHS and learn from any failings.