Written questions by Maguire.

What assessment his Department has made of the the potential merits of increasing prison educators pay in line with their counterparts in other further education workplaces.

The Ministry of Justice recognises the vital role prison educators play in supporting rehabilitation and reducing reoffending. Prison educators are employed by Further Education or Training Providers contracted to deliver education in custody. As such, their pay and terms and conditions are set by those providers. Providers typically align prison educator pay with equivalent roles in community-based further education settings.

Communities and Local Government, what enforcement mechanisms are in place to ensure developers implement and maintain Sustainable Drainage Systems to the required standards in new developments.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given to Question UIN 37386 on 18 March 2025.

What her Department's timetable is for publishing its planned consultation on bringing the licensing of shotguns under Section 2 of the Firearms Act 1968 in line with the licensing requirements under Section 1 of that Act.

The Government response to the 2023 firearms licensing consultation, published on 13 February this year, included a commitment to having a public consultation on strengthening the licensing controls on shotguns, to bring them more into line with the controls on other firearms in the interests of public safety. We intend to publish this consultation later this year.

What steps her Department is taking to prevent Russian crypto assets being purchased in Britain.

Since 2020 UK cryptoasset firms have been subject to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations, requiring strict supervision, customer checks and suspicious activity reporting. Since 2023, these firms have also been required to collect, verify and share information about the sender and receiver of transfers.The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (2023) gave law enforcement new powers to seize criminal cryptoassets. These powers, alongside the 475 new financial investigators funded by the Economic Crime Levy, new crypto track-and-trace technologies, and public-private working, empower law enforcement to tackle crypto crime, including peer-to-peer transactions between self-hosted wallets.In addition, Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) works alongside other government agencies to tackle the threats posed to sanctions by illicit cryptoasset activity. OFSI’s recent Cryptoassets Threat Assessment informs how UK cryptoasset firms can combat breaches. OFSI is fully prepared to pursue any sanctions offences, and continues to scale up its enforcement capacity.

Whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential (a) current and (b) future impact of the number of people seeking asylum in the UK because of the impact of climate change in their countries of origin.

The Home Office regularly assess all potential current and future causes of asylum and irregular migration to the UK, including the impact of climate change on the movement of people. The Home Office and other Government departments consider all available evidence to assess the situation.There is mixed evidence on the impact of climate change on migration flows. FCDO conducted a Rapid Evidence Assessment and found strong evidence that climatic shock events are linked to increased internal and, to a lesser extent, international, migration. In the medium- to long-term, other gradual climate-related emergencies may impact migratory movements, though this is likely to be within the borders or to the immediate neighbours of countries with low climate resilience. The report found there are no rigorous global estimates of the number of people displaced by or migrating in response to weather shocks or climate change, and high-end projections of future climate-related migration are not considered credible.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of changes to the level of funding for (a) conflict prevention, (b) mediation and (c) peacebuilding building efforts on levels of migration to the UK.

We take a comprehensive and integrated approach to tackling conflict using all our diplomatic, development and security levers and working closely with our international partners. This approach recognises that addressing conflict effectively is not only about how much we spend. This enables us to prioritise our resources where they have most impact, and take the broader action needed to address the drivers of conflict, and effect lasting change.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much her Department has spent on market systems strengthening by country in the most recent period for which data is available.

Market system strengthening has been a core part of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's (FCDO) approach to development for over two decades. Roughly 50 different country programmes, and at least 15 centrally managed, multi-country programmes have been identified that broadly deliver impact through this approach, and many more contain elements of the approach. The following table shows spend estimates for the top ten countries, for calendar year 2024, through projects which are primarily Market System Strengthening. A comprehensive estimate is not possible due to definitional issues, and there may be additional programmes containing elements of the approach.Estimated market system strengthening spend by country in 2024 (£millions)Country2024 FCDO ODA spendZambia26.7Kenya12.4Uganda9.2Nigeria8.0Sierra Leone6.1Pakistan5.7Ethiopia5.4Ghana4.1Bangladesh3.8Zimbabwe2.4Additional non-country specific programmingCountry2024 FCDO ODA spendAfrica Regional31.9Middle East regional8.6Other Multi country programming [Note 1]77.4Source: Statistics on International Development: Final UK ODA Spend 2024.Note 1. Programmes that benefit several developing countries, across regions, cannot be tagged to a specific country or region and are tagged as benefitting "Developing countries, unspecified".

What steps his Department is taking to ensure employers provide reasonable adjustments for employees with epilepsy.

All employers have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ in the workplace where a disabled employee, including employees with epilepsy, would otherwise be put at a substantial disadvantage compared with their colleagues. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Equality Act and providing guidance on reasonable adjustments.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions she has had with European counterparts on joint sanctions for people attempting to forcibly deport and indoctrinate Ukrainian children.

As the Foreign Secretary said in her statement to the House on 15 October: "The forcible deportation - and kidnapping - of almost 20,000 Ukrainian children by Russia is one of the most disturbing aspects of this war. We have been supporting organisations such as Bring Kids Back UA and Save Ukraine, which are supporting efforts to return Ukrainian children. Just two weeks ago, Baroness Harman attended the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children event at the UN General Assembly. We will continue to do all we can to support the return of those children."Last month, the UK announced sanctions against those supporting the forcible deportation, indoctrination and militarisation of Ukrainian children, a despicable and systematic attempt to erase Ukrainian identity, and with it, Ukraine's future. Our sanctions aim to hold those responsible to account and shed light on those crimes. UK sanctions are strategically coordinated with allies to impose severe costs on Putin and his regime. We work closely with EU partners, and where appropriate, we seek to align our approaches to sanctions, including against those involved in the deportation of Ukrainian children.

What steps her Department is taking to close chat-mediated services that facilitate the purchasing of Russian crypto assets in Britain.

Since 2020 UK cryptoasset firms have been subject to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations, requiring strict supervision, customer checks and suspicious activity reporting. Since 2023, these firms have also been required to collect, verify and share information about the sender and receiver of transfers.The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (2023) gave law enforcement new powers to seize criminal cryptoassets. These powers, alongside the 475 new financial investigators funded by the Economic Crime Levy, new crypto track-and-trace technologies, and public-private working, empower law enforcement to tackle crypto crime, including peer-to-peer transactions between self-hosted wallets.In addition, Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) works alongside other government agencies to tackle the threats posed to sanctions by illicit cryptoasset activity. OFSI’s recent Cryptoassets Threat Assessment informs how UK cryptoasset firms can combat breaches. OFSI is fully prepared to pursue any sanctions offences, and continues to scale up its enforcement capacity.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of expenditure on marketing the prepare.campaign.gov.uk website on public preparedness in the event of an emergency.

The Prepare website brings together advice and useful material from a range of sources into one place to help individuals, households and communities prepare for emergencies. The civil service hours were not recorded. The cost of creating the content for the campaign site was £60,000. Of the unique users recorded between 22nd May 2024 and 13th October 2025, 327,555 were from the UK (92%) and 29,756 were from outside the UK (8%). These figures only include users who accepted GOV.UK cookies. To date, no paid-for-marketing activity has taken place to promote prepare.campaign.gov.uk. The Government’s Resilience Action Plan has committed to do more to provide households with preparedness information. In September, the Prepare website was included in the message sent out to UK mobile phones as part of the Government’s test of the Emergency Alerts system. We continue to work with our local and national partners, including organisations from the voluntary, community and faith sectors, to raise awareness of advice on the Prepare website and to seek feedback to inform updates to the content. The Government is currently considering what further public communications activities might support improvements to public preparedness for emergencies. We published the first annual UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness in July 2025. The results will be used to inform the development of future public preparedness communications and to monitor trends.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of increases in living costs on children's levels of access to (a) extracurricular activities, (b) school trips and (c) enrichment programmes.

The department has recently announced the extension of the holiday activities and food programme (HAF) with over £600 million for the next three financial years. This means nutritious meals and exciting activities for more than half a million children across the country every year, helping them to thrive during the school holidays.The department will also be publishing a new Enrichment Framework by the end of this year, supporting schools to create a broad and accessible enrichment offer for all pupils.The department recognises the impact the cost of living may have on children’s participation in a variety of enrichment activities and is working to ensure that all children have access to beneficial opportunities of this sort. We continue to collect data on pupil participation in enrichment through our omnibus surveys.

What estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of cyber-attacks against the NHS since 2021.

We do not hold data for the total economic impact of cyber incidents on National Health Service organisations specifically.Cyber-attacks can have a significant economic impact. The WannaCry cyber-attack in 2017 was estimated by the Department to have cost the NHS £92 million. Public estimates of the impact of the Synnovis cyber-attack stand at £32.7 million, according to accounts filed on Companies House.NHS trusts are independent organisations with their own set budgets, and a decision will be made on a case-by-case basis as to whether the economic impact of smaller incidents is assessed.Government is working to fully assess the impact of cyber-attacks on the wider public sector. It is worth noting that the economic impact of cyber incidents affected by a wide variety of complex factors. Further information about the financial cost of breaches or attacks can be found in the Cyber security breaches survey 2025, published by the Department for Science, innovation and Technology (DSIT). This is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/cyber-security-breaches-survey-2025/cyber-security-breaches-survey-2025

What assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of UK readiness against cyber-attacks.

The CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre said this week that the gap between the rising pace of the cyber threat and the UK’s collective resilience against it continues to grow. Cyber attacks are increasing in scale and impact. The number of nationally significant cyber incidents has more than doubled in the last year, including the recent attacks against Jaguar Land Rover, Marks & Spencer and other major British businesses. The Government is committed to strengthening cyber security across the UK. I wrote to chief executives and chairs of the FTSE 350 this week asking them to make cyber security a top priority. The forthcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will strengthen the UK’s cyber defences and ensure that critical infrastructure and the digital services that companies rely on are secure. Our proposed legislative measures on ransomware - a targeted ban on ransom payments, a payment prevention regime and mandatory reporting - will build on the foundation that the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will set. Together they form part of a series of cyber legislation that will secure the UK against cyber threats. Early next year the Government will publish a new National Cyber Action Plan that will set out how we will respond to the growing threat and work with industry to raise resilience levels across the economy.

Whether her Department plans to issue public guidance on the limitations and risks of self-swab rape kits in order to ensure survivors of sexual violence are directed to Sexual Assault Referral Centres.

We recognise the devastating impact of sexual violence, which is why we are absolutely committed to tackling rape and sexual offences and achieving the best possible outcome for victims.We are aware of self-swabbing kits being promoted and made available to victims of sexual violence. These kits are in no way associated with the Government’s VAWG mission.The National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection has produced guidance for police forces outlining the steps officers should take when investigating a case which involves a self-swab. The Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine and other criminal justice agencies have also published a joint position statement on this topic, which does not advocate for the use of self-swabbing kits.There are many types of support available for those who have been a victim of a sexual offence, this includes the 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line and Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs). We recommend that victims of sexual violence attend a SARC, where trained clinicians can provide holistic care and forensic evidence can be collected in accordance with established standards.

What steps his Department is taking to regulate fertility apps.

No formal assessment has been made of fertility apps and no steps are being taken to regulate them. Fertility apps are privately owned health apps, and as such they do not share data directly with the Department.Where fertility apps meet the definition of a medical device, the safety of these products already falls under the remit of the United Kingdom’s medical device regulations and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Examples of products that would fall within the remit of these regulations would be apps intended to facilitate conception and enable contraception based on basal body temperature.Patients looking for fertility advice should speak to their general practitioner or a licensed fertility clinic. They can also find unbiased information on fertility treatments and UK licenced clinics on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority’s website, at the following link:www.hfea.gov.uk

If he will set a national target for eliminating corridor care in NHS hospitals.

We are doing everything we can as fast as we can to eliminate corridor care. The Government is determined to get the National Health Service back on its feet, so that patients can be treated with dignity.Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan, published in June 2025, set out the steps we are taking to ensure that patients will receive better, faster, and more appropriate emergency care, backed by a total of nearly £450 million of funding. This plan includes a target to reduce the number of patients waiting over 12 hours for admission or discharge from an emergency department compared to 2024/25, with the aim of this occurring less than 10% of the time, and a commitment to publish data on the prevalence of corridor care.We will also publish new clinical operational standards for the first 72 hours of care which will support better hospital flow, which aims to reduce overcrowding and long waits.

How many civil service hours were incurred in creating prepare.campaign.gov.uk; and what the cost was.

The Prepare website brings together advice and useful material from a range of sources into one place to help individuals, households and communities prepare for emergencies. The civil service hours were not recorded. The cost of creating the content for the campaign site was £60,000. Of the unique users recorded between 22nd May 2024 and 13th October 2025, 327,555 were from the UK (92%) and 29,756 were from outside the UK (8%). These figures only include users who accepted GOV.UK cookies. To date, no paid-for-marketing activity has taken place to promote prepare.campaign.gov.uk. The Government’s Resilience Action Plan has committed to do more to provide households with preparedness information. In September, the Prepare website was included in the message sent out to UK mobile phones as part of the Government’s test of the Emergency Alerts system. We continue to work with our local and national partners, including organisations from the voluntary, community and faith sectors, to raise awareness of advice on the Prepare website and to seek feedback to inform updates to the content. The Government is currently considering what further public communications activities might support improvements to public preparedness for emergencies. We published the first annual UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness in July 2025. The results will be used to inform the development of future public preparedness communications and to monitor trends.

What assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of misinformation spread by Russia on democracy in the UK.

The Government's Defending Democracy Taskforce, chaired by the Security Minister, is focused on safeguarding our democracy from the full range of threats including foreign interference.MI5’s National Protective Security Authority has recently launched new guidance to protect the UK’s democratic institutions from foreign interference. It notes that the UK is a target of long-term strategic foreign interference and provides advice for at-risk individuals to take to protect themselves, their teams and the integrity of our democratic processes.Protecting the UK’s democratic processes continues to be a priority for this Government and we have a number of mechanisms to tackle foreign interference and misinformation:The National Security Act 2023 provides the security services and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to deter, detect, and disrupt state threats.The Online Safety Act 2023 introduced measures which strengthen our ability to tackle information threats, especially in relation to electoral processes.

Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department plans to diversify UK fruit and vegetable supply chains away from climate-vulnerable regions.

To ensure a consistent supply of food, the UK relies on a combination of strong domestic production from the UK’s agricultural and food manufacturing sectors, and a diverse range of overseas supply sources. Trade supports UK food supply resilience. This is due to the UK having diverse trade routes, strong international supply and purchasing power. At home, the Government’s recently published Food Strategy identifies priority outcomes for resilient domestic production for a secure supply of healthier food, and also to create conditions for the food sector to thrive and grow sustainably, including investment in innovation and productivity, and fairer more transparent supply chains.