Written questions by Jardine.

If she will take legislative steps to recognise non-binary identities.

The Government is committed to ensuring the UK is a welcoming place for all people, regardless of their background or identity, and where they are able to pursue their goals and ambitions without fear of discrimination.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent) [2025] UKSC 16 on political parties’ use of all-women shortlists.

The Supreme Court Judgment was clear that for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, biological sex determines whether a person is a woman or not. Accordingly, in relation to the Equality Act 2010’s provisions allowing political parties to use all-women shortlists to increase the number of women standing for election, parties will need to have regard to the recent ruling. A political party wishing to use these Equality Act provisions will need to be satisfied that any such shortlists are lawful.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent) [2025] UKSC 16 on transgender people accessing NHS services.

The National Health Service provides a comprehensive service, available to all patients including transgender patients. This principle is established as part of the NHS Constitution and the Supreme Court ruling does not impact this commitment.We are clear that all patients should feel comfortable and confident to access the services they need. Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by the Government, and trusts should follow the clarity the recent Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case provides.The NHS is currently reviewing its ‘Delivering same-sex accommodation’ guidance. Ministers have been clear that this needs to be done as soon as possible and we will be working closely with the NHS to ensure we provide NHS organisations with the guidance they need.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the decision to disestablish NHS England on plans to establish six new regional gender identity hubs.

The abolition of NHS England will strip out the unnecessary bureaucracy and cut the duplication that comes from having two organisations doing the same job. We will empower staff to focus on delivering better care for patients, driving productivity up and getting waiting times down.The Government and NHS England are committed to implementing the recommendations of the Cass Review in full. NHS England has developed a two-year action plan which sets out how it will improve the specialist NHS Children and Young People’s Gender Services, helping to tackle waiting lists, whilst ensuring safe and holistic care. This includes establishing new gender services in each region of England.

What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce waiting times for gender identity services.

The Government and NHS England are committed to implementing the recommendations of the Cass Review in full. NHS England developed an ambitious two-year action plan which sets out how they will continue to transform and improve gender services, helping to tackle waiting lists, whilst ensuring safe and holistic care.NHS England has opened three children and young people’s gender services in the North-West, London, and Bristol. A fourth East of England service will open later this year. These services operate under a fundamentally different model and embed multi-disciplinary teams in specialist children’s hospitals. The Government is pleased to say that these services have begun seeing patients from the national waiting list.NHS England remains on schedule to deliver a gender clinic in each region of England by 2026, helping to improve the care offered to children and young people with gender dysphoria and/or incongruence.The Government is also working to bring down waiting lists and improve care offered in adult gender services. NHS England has increased the number of adult gender dysphoria clinics in England from seven to 12, with the rollout of five new adult gender pilot clinics since July 2020. Furthermore, NHS England is currently carrying out a review of adult gender services, with the aim of producing an updated service specification. The review, which is chaired by Dr David Levy, will examine the model of care and operating procedures of each service, and will carefully consider experiences, feedback, and outcomes from clinicians and patients.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers (Respondent) [2025] UKSC 16 on transgender young people at school.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.The government has set out its expectation that organisations follow the clarity the ruling provides. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has already committed to supporting organisations with its updated statutory Code of Practice. The department will engage them as necessary as they progress this work.For children in schools in England, the department is currently reviewing the draft statutory relationships, sex and health education guidance and the draft non statutory guidance on gender questioning children, ensuring that children’s wellbeing is at the heart of both. We are analysing consultation responses, talking to stakeholders and considering the evidence, including the Cass Review, before deciding next steps.

What steps her department is taking to support (a) transgender and (b) gender-diverse pupils in schools.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.The government has set out its expectation that organisations follow the clarity the ruling provides. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has already committed to supporting organisations with its updated statutory Code of Practice. The department will engage them as necessary as they progress this work.For children in schools in England, the department is currently reviewing the draft statutory relationships, sex and health education guidance and the draft non statutory guidance on gender questioning children, ensuring that children’s wellbeing is at the heart of both. We are analysing consultation responses, talking to stakeholders and considering the evidence, including the Cass Review, before deciding next steps.

What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of the report published by the University of York entitled The Impact of Chiropractors on Workplace Productivity in NHS MSK Pathways, published on 12 February 2025.

No assessment has been made on the potential implications for policies of the report published by the University of York entitled The Impact of Chiropractors on Workplace Productivity in NHS MSK Pathways.

If his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of integrating chiropractic care into the National Musculoskeletal health strategy.

NHS England does not nationally commission chiropractic care as it is a complementary and alternative medicine. There are no plans to make an assessment of the potential merits of integrating chiropractic care into centrally commissioned National Health Service care.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Online Safety Act 2023 on (a) small websites, (b) personal blogs and (c) community forums.

Under the Online Safety Act, in-scope user-to-user and search services must risk assess for content that is illegal and harmful to children. Ofcom, the independent regulator for this regime, set out what steps small, low-risk providers need to take to fulfil their duties following their risk assessment. When implementing these duties, Ofcom is legally required to ensure burdens on providers are proportionate to their risk factors, size, and capacity. Ofcom recently launched an online digital toolkit, aimed at helping smaller services with compliance (https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/ofcom-launches-digital-safety-toolkit-for-online-services/

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the meeting of the UK and Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council between 19 and 21 November 2024, what progress has been made on the implementation of public registers of beneficial ownership in the Overseas Territories.

Work is ongoing to improve beneficial ownership transparency in the Overseas Territories. At the Joint Ministerial Council (JMC) in November 2024, the Falkland Islands and Saint Helena committed to join Montserrat and Gibraltar in implementing fully public registers by April 2025. The British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Anguilla and Turks and Caicos Islands agreed to implement registers of beneficial ownership, accessible to those with a legitimate interest, by June 2025. It remains our expectation that the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies will ultimately implement fully public registers.Every Territory is making progress towards these commitments and FCDO officials are in regular contact with counterparts in the Overseas Territories on their proposals for registers to ensure they meet the agreement made at JMC. I have and will continue to raise this directly with elected leaders across the Overseas Territories. I have recently spoken with the Premiers of BVI and Bermuda on this issue.

What steps he is taking to ensure blind and partially sighted people have access to health information in an accessible format.

Under the Equality Act 2010, health and social care organisations must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people are not disadvantaged. Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment or sensory loss, including blind and partially sighted people. NHS England has been undertaking a review of the Accessible Information Standard (AIS) to help ensure that the communication needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss are met in health and care provision. A revised AIS will be published in due course. In the meantime, the current AIS remains in force and therefore there should not be a gap in provision for people using services.

For what reason her Department has chosen to decline to support more open access services along the Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley via Newcastle route.

As detailed in the 4 February response to the Office of Rail and Road, the Department did not support Lumo’s applications to operate additional Open Access services between London Kings Cross and Newcastle, and to extend existing Newcastle/Edinburgh services on to Glasgow, due to concern over the capacity of the East Coast Main Line and the consequential detrimental effects on reliability; and also the impact of the revenue reduction to existing services on the route, which would diminish revenue and thus increase subsidy from taxpayers to the railway as a whole. Access to the network, however, is currently a matter for the Office of Rail and Road in its capacity as independent regulator, and it will now consider the Department’s response alongside those from other consultees, and its statutory duties before making, a decision.

What steps she is taking to address the pension shortfalls experienced by police officers who, affected by the McCloud judgement, are classified as being in Immediate Detriment.

While the Home Office has responsibility for overarching policy and legislative changes to the police pension regulations in England & Wales, the police pension scheme is locally administered by individual police forces. The Home Office is working with the policing sector to support the effective implementation of the McCloud remedy for all affected individuals.It is for each Chief Constable, in their role as scheme manager for their force, to determine their administrative timetable, including when remedy payments will be distributed.The devolved governments have overarching policy and legislative responsibility in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

What steps she is taking to help increase the availability of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

We have committed £200m funding in the Autumn budget to support charging infrastructure rollout. This is on top of over £6 billion in private investment committed out to 2030, and bolsters existing grants and funding to support chargepoint installation. There are now over 74,000 public chargepoints in the UK, with almost 20,000 new chargepoints added and a 45% increase in rural chargepoints in 2024. On 24 December, we announced a range of measures to remove barriers to chargepoint rollout, including to improve grid connections for chargepoints.

What steps his Department is taking to help protect female members of the armed forces from sexual harassment.

Sexual Harassment has no place in our Armed Forces. Every individual must be treated with dignity and respect. We have a Zero Tolerance policy in Defence – unacceptable behaviour of any kind is not tolerated people will be held accountable. All criminal behaviour is investigated by the Service police and those found to be below the standard will be met with sanctions, including Termination of Service.

Pursuant to the Answer of 6 November 2024 to Question 11845 on Employers’ Contributions: Essex, whether she plans to (a) collect and (b) publish data on the number of (i) businesses and (ii) employers impacted by changes to employer National Insurance contributions at constituency level; and whether she has had discussions with local authorities on the regional impact of those changes.

HMRC monitors Employer National Insurance Contributions through receipts monitoring, and information collected from Real Time Information returns.Receipts are published via the monthly HMRC tax and National Insurance receipts publication: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk

Whether the independent review into the loan charge will include consideration of the issuing of section 684 notices prior to 2011.

At Budget, the Government committed to an independent review of the Loan Charge to help bring the matter to a close for those affected whilst ensuring fairness for all taxpayers. Further details will be set out in due course.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if the Government will take steps to re-establish a separate department for International Development.

As set out in the 2024 Labour Party manifesto, the Government's plans are to strengthen international development work within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to help (a) raise awareness of neglected tropical diseases and (b) tackle neglected tropical diseases.

The UK's new Eliminating Lymphatic Filariasis in Africa programme (ELFA), that will receive £15 million of funding from 2024-25 to 2026-27, supports the broader Reaching the Last Mile Fund initiative to eliminate the neglected tropical diseases lymphatic filariasis and river blindness from Africa by 2030. Part of the programme supports work to raise awareness and change behaviours in order to reduce the impact of lymphatic filariasis. The FCDO is also in the process of renewing funding for research and development through Product Development Partnerships including for neglected tropical diseases.