Written questions by Denyer.

With reference to the Answer of 4 December 2024 to Question 16565 on Suicide: Asylum and Refugees, whether the near to real time suspected suicide surveillance system was expanded to include intell

Awaiting answer.

What steps he is taking to help reduce (a) suicide and (b) deaths amongst young asylum seekers.

Awaiting answer.

Communities and Local Government, with reference to Written Statement of 24 March 2026 on Future Homes and Building Standards, HCWS1445, whether the technical review of Approved Document O of the Building Regulat

Part O was introduced in 2021 to reduce the risk of overheating in new residential buildings. In the response to the Future Homes and Buildings Standards consultation, the Government committed to a full technical review of Part O to ensure it is effective...

What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Education and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on (a) trends in the level of suicide among young asy

The Home Secretary engages regularly with ministerial colleagues across government on a range of issues relating to asylum, including safeguarding and the welfare of vulnerable individuals.The Home Office works closely with the Department for Education, t...

Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the risk of overheating in social housing.

All social homes should meet at least a minimum standard of thermal comfort.My Department made an assessment of subjective overheating through the English Housing Survey, which found that in 2024 10.6% of social housing households reported at least one pa...

What recent assessment he has made of the potential emissions reductions achievable by transitioning the Scunthorpe steelworks to electric arc furnace production.

No recent assessment has been made of the potential emissions reductions achievable from transitioning the Scunthorpe steelworks to electric arc furnace production. However, British Steel stated in December 2023 that moving to electric arc furnaces could ...

What steps he is taking to support the adoption of electrification across foundation industries.

The Government is committed to supporting electrification across industry by addressing key barriers and enabling investment. This is a crucial aspect of delivering clean power by 2030, decarbonising UK industry and securing its long- term competitiveness...

If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the existing cap on fines for offshore oil and gas companies for breaches of environmental regulations.

The Government expects offshore oil and gas operators to meet the highest environmental standards and supports appropriate enforcement action where non-compliance occurs. A range of enforcement powers is already available in respect of breaches of offshor...

Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to commitment 48 in the Environmental Improvement Plan published on 1 December 2025, if she will outline the timescale and process for determining measures to drive the

Reducing the amount of biodegradable waste being sent to landfill has a key part to play in tackling climate change. In February 2025, Defra published a summary of responses to the call for evidence on the near elimination of biodegradable municipal waste...

With reference to the national review of care-leaver deaths announced on 16 April 2026, whether the review will examine deaths of unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people who have left care.

The government is committed to reviewing and addressing the number of early deaths amongst care experienced young people. We recognise that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and care leavers can be some of the most vulnerable people in our society bec...

What steps his Department is taking to reduce the gap in healthy life expectancy between Bristol Central and the rest of the UK.

Healthy life expectancy at birth in the City of Bristol is currently 60.1 years for both males and females. This compares to the England average of 60.9 years for males and 61.3 years for females, and the United Kingdom average of 60.7 years for males and...

When will a Bill be brought forward to update the remit of the National Wealth Fund.

The National Wealth Fund already has the remit it needs to invest in a wide range of projects, businesses, and assets to drive growth across the UK.HMG has provided NWF with a total capitalisation of £27.8bn and has invested £5.8bn since its launch in 202...

When the National Wealth Fund's updated Financial Framework will be published.

HM Treasury, the National Wealth Fund (NWF) and UKGI have developed a Framework Document, which will set out the NWF’s governance, accountability and operating arrangements. This document will be published in due course.NWF’s Financial Framework is an int...

If she will publish the a) terms, b) monitoring arrangements and c) i) children’s and ii) human rights impact assessments for the April 2026 UK-France border security agreement.

The UK and France agreed a new border security partnership in April 2026 that will strengthen joint efforts to tackle illegal migration and prevent dangerous Channel crossings. This work is explicitly focused on saving lives by bearing down on the crimina...

If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending protections for whistleblowers to charity trustees.

The whistleblowing protections provided by the Employment Rights Act 1996 apply to a broader range of individuals than other rights under the Act. For example, they also apply to trainees and certain self-employed NHS practitioners.However, the protection...

If she will exclude incoming exchange students whose tuition is fully funded via (a) scholarships and (b) fee waivers from the International Student Levy.

The International Student Levy will require higher education providers to pay a flat fee of £925 per international student per year. Further details of the levy, including students in scope, will be published in due course. The income raised by the levy will be reinvested into skills and maintenance grants.Providers will be given an allowance for the first 220 international students per year. This is to mitigate the levy having a disproportionate impact on smaller providers, particularly those operating specialist and resource intensive models with limited other means of cross-subsidisation. The levy will not be introduced until 2028/29 to give providers time to plan for its introduction. Providers will pay the levy one year in arrears, to help with their financial planning.

If her Department will publish regular impact assessments for the International Student Levy.

Impact analysis on the International Students Levy was published in November 2025. Any further analysis will be published in the usual way.

With reference to Freedom of Information Request 2025/07437 and her department’s response to it on 29th July 2025, if she will provide details of the a) cybersecurity and b) misuse concerns referred to.

Information is released into the public domain where it is appropriate to do so.  The Home Office would not provide an insight into the design of our technology systems in order to maintain security and protect the border

With reference to the guidance entitled AI Playbook for UK Government, published on 10 February 2025, whether this guidance was used in the context of AI tools for asylum casework.

We follow and abide by Government and Home Office guidance for all AI development, however the development and delivery of the Asylum project pilots predated the AI Playbook.

What assessment her Department has made of the accuracy of (a) benchmarking, (b) validation methods and (c) error rates of AI tools used in asylum casework.

There are two AI tools in use in asylum casework currently; Asylum Case Summarisation (ACS) and Asylum Policy Search (APS).Bench Marking & Validation - Both evaluations used a mixed-methods approach to collect primary data during and after the pilots. All participants in the test and comparison groups were asked to log information for each case undertaken. For the Asylum Case Summarisation pilot, the logging exercise captured data on 334 cases in the test group and 95 cases in the comparison group. For the Asylum Policy Search pilot, the logging exercise captured data on 270 cases in the test group and 214 cases in the comparison group.The following published research note provides more detail on both pilots and the findings we documented - Evaluation of AI trials in the asylum decision making process - GOV.UK.Error Rates - Technical specialists reviewed all summaries created by the Asylum Case Summarisation tool for accuracy prior to use in the pilot. A small proportion of summaries produced (9%) were deemed to be inaccurate or had missing information and were therefore removed from the pilot and these cases progressed in the business-as-usual way. Of the summaries that progressed in the pilot, 23% of users reported they were not fully confident in the summary information and would warrant further exploration in a full roll out. The Asylum Case Summarisation Tool has not yet been rolled out operationally.The methodologies used in the evaluation of our Asylum AI tools were reviewed by and agreed with the Cabinet Office Evaluation Taskforce, and apply to both ACS and APS.