Written questions by Shannon.

What steps he is taking to help tackle obesity.

Supporting people to stay healthier for longer is at the heart of the Government’s Health Mission. We face a childhood obesity crisis, and the Government will take action to tackle the root causes of obesity head on, easing the strain on our National Health Service and creating the healthiest generation of children ever.We are committed to tackling the obstacles driving obesity. We have already laid secondary legislation to restrict the advertisements of less healthy food and drink to children on television and online, we have announced changes to the planning framework for fast food near schools, and we are taking steps to ensure the Soft Drinks Industry Levy remains effective and fit-for-purpose. We are also committed to banning the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under 16 year olds.While prevention will be key to addressing obesity, so is ensuring appropriate treatment is accessible. Over 28% of adults in England are living with obesity and even modest weight loss can benefit health and reduce the risk of developing obesity-related diseases. The NHS and local government provide a range of services to help people living with obesity to manage their weight. These range from 12-week behavioural programmes, including the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme, to specialist services for those living with severe obesity and associated co-morbidities, which can include obesity medicines or surgery.We are also working collaboratively across Government to deliver a resilient food system that promotes health and food security. The Food Strategy will work to provide healthier, more easily accessible food to help people live longer, healthier lives.Further action on obesity under the Government’s Health Mission will be set out in due course.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what diplomatic steps to help protect the (a) human and (b) educational rights of young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The UK remains committed to protecting the human and educational rights of young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).We support human rights, including through projects to provide legal support for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence in BiH and to assist social cohesion in heavily divided communities.Our embassy in Sarajevo regularly raises educational rights in engagements with BiH authorities, underlining our support for an inclusive future in BiH where fundamental rights are respected and all may access education.We continue to work with international partners, including through the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, to support these aims.

What discussions she has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on tackling shop lifting.

The measures relating to shop theft in the Crime and Policing Bill will be enacted in England and Wales; however, we have had regular engagement with the Northern Ireland Executive – and will continue to do so as the Bill makes its passage through Parliament - on measures in the Bill.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to help increase global immunisation rates.

The UK is one of the largest donors to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. We have committed £1.65 billion to the current strategic period covering 2021-2025, supporting Gavi to immunise 300 million children and save up to 8 million lives from vaccine preventable diseases. Since 2000, Gavi has vaccinated more than 1 billion children, saving over 18 million lives. Furthermore the UK supports polio eradication and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). Since 1995, we have contributed £1.4 billion, reducing polio cases by over 99 per cent and limiting endemic countries to Pakistan and Afghanistan. GPEI's efforts have enabled over 20 million people to walk who might have been paralysed by polio.

How many registered chiropractors there are in the UK.

The General Chiropractors Council (GCC) is responsible for collecting data on the numbers of chiropractors in the United Kingdom. They publish an annual report which provides the number of chiropractors in the UK, which is available at the following link:https://www.gcc-uk.org/about-us/publicationsIn the GCC 2023 annual report, it states that there were 3,752 chiropractors on the register.

How many people under 50 have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the last 12 months.

Information is not held in the format requested. However, using Hospital Episode Statistics data, the following table shows a count of Finished Admission Episodes (FAEs) for patients under 50 years old with a primary diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, for 2023/24 and provisionally for February 2024 to January 2025:ICD-10 diagnosis codeDescription2023/242024/25J41Simple and mucopurulent chronic bronchitis2414J42Unspecified chronic bronchitis186183J43Emphysema530551J44Other chronic obstructive pulmonary disease3,7273,640J47Bronchiectasis1,7411,834 An FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are typically counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes, which is the approach we have used here. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.

What assessment she has made of trends in the level of the uptake of law degrees in the last five years.

There has been a 6.3% increase in the number of entrants into UK higher education providers studying law across all levels and modes of study between 2019/20 and 2023/24.

What data her Department holds on the amount of cannabis seized in the UK over the last 12 months.

The Home Office latest published data on cannabis seizures made by the police and Border Force for England and Wales covers the period April 2023-March 2024 and it can be found here:https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/seizures-of-drugs-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-2024The latest published statistics show that police forces and Border Force seized 85.01 tonnes of herbal cannabis, 4.16 tonnes of resin cannabis and 0.48 million cannabis plants in England and Wales in the year ending March 2024.Border Force also release quarterly transparency data which include cannabis seizures. The latest available data are below:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/border-force-transparency-data-q4-2024

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions he has had with his Turkish counterpart on reports of social media and internet bans in that country.

The Government has raised recent events with the Turkish Government and the Foreign Secretary spoke with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on 29 March to express the UK's concern. As a staunch supporter of media freedom around the world, the UK expects Turkey to uphold its international commitments and the rule of law, including protecting the fundamental rights to free speech and media freedom.

What assessment she has made of trends in the level of smuggling prosecutions.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on prosecutions by individual year for a wide range of offences at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.Smuggling offences together with their HO offence code can be identified using the Offence Group Classification which is available in the above link. The number of prosecutions together with annual trends for offences related to smuggling can then be accessed by navigating to the ‘Prosecutions and Convictions tab, using the “HO Offence code” filter and selecting the relevant HO offence code.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will hold discussions with his Nigerian counterpart on the decision by (a) Bauchi, (b) Kano, (c) Katsina and (d) Kebbi States to close (i) public and (ii) private (A) primary and (B) secondary schools for Ramadan.

Improving access to education in Nigeria is a key priority for the UK and we are working with the Nigerian Government to ensure that all Nigerians have access to a quality education. Through the Partnership for Learning for All Nigerian Education (PLANE) programme, we have commissioned research to document the number of school days lost through ad hoc closures, insecurity, religious holidays and climate-related factors in states in Northern Nigeria. We will share the key finding of this research with the Nigerian Government.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will hold discussions with his Nigerian counterpart on the decision by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and Social Development in Kano State, Nigeria, not to return children to the care of Professor Solomon and Mrs Mercy Tarfa on 19 March 2025.

The Government is aware of a Kano State court ruling instructing the Ministry of Women's Affairs and Social Development to return children removed from Du Merci orphanage to the custody of Professor Soloman Tarfa and Mrs Mercy Tarfa. We have previously raised the case with the Nigerian authorities and stressed the need to prioritise the welfare of the children involved. Enforcing the court ruling is a matter for the Nigerian authorities.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the policies of China on Falun Gong practitioners.

The environment for freedom of religion or belief in China is restrictive, which includes the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. This Government stands firm on human rights, including the right to freedom of religion or belief. We raise our concerns at the highest levels: the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, Chancellor and Energy Secretary all raised human rights recently with their counterparts (President Xi, Foreign Minister Wang, Vice Premier He and Vice Premier Ding respectively).This Government champions freedom of religion or belief for all abroad. We work to uphold the right to freedom of religion or belief through our position at the UN, G7 and other multilateral fora.

What steps his Department is taking to help ensure that new treatments for (a) Alzheimer’s disease and (b) other dementias are made available to people in the UK.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the National Health Service in England on whether new medicines should be routinely funded, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE evaluates all new medicines, including medicines for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and aims to publish guidance for the NHS as close as possible to licensing. The NHS in England is legally required to fund recommended treatments, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance.The NICE and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency have piloted enhanced information sharing arrangements for the new disease modifying dementia treatments, which have enabled the organisations to fully align their processes and will enable faster decision making for future treatments that may come to market.To prepare for the new generation of dementia treatments in development, NHS England is working to ensure the diagnostic and treatment capacity, clinical pathway redesign and investment are in place to support the adoption of any new licensed and NICE-recommended treatments as soon as possible.Health is a devolved matter and decisions on the availability of medicines are a matter for the respective devolved administrations.

What steps his Department is taking to improve levels of (a) early and (b) accurate diagnosis for dementia; and if he will take steps to help increase the use of (i) blood tests and (ii) AI-driven assessments as diagnostic tools.

We are committed to recovering the dementia diagnosis rate to the national ambition of 66.7%, which in England, at the end of February 2025, was 65.4%. To support the implementation of the Dementia Care Pathway, we have developed a memory service dashboard to support commissioners and providers with appropriate data on the diagnostic pathway and enable targeted support where needed.The Department delivers dementia research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR funds a range of research into dementia, for example investing nearly £11 million to develop new digital approaches for the early detection and diagnosis of dementia.To aid dementia diagnosis and provision of support in care homes, NHS England funded an evidence-based improvement project to fund two trusts in each region (14 sites), to pilot the Diagnosing Advanced Dementia Mandate protocol. Learning is currently being shared and promoted with regional and local partners following an impact assessment of the pilots.The Government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme has invested £13 million into three biomarker innovation competitions, which include an AI tool designed to improve the accuracy of blood tests for dementia. Alongside Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society, and the People’s Postcode Lottery, the NIHR is funding the Blood Biomarker Challenge, which seeks to produce the clinical and economic data that could make the case for the use of a blood test in the National Health Service to support improved diagnosis of dementia in the future, if validated for clinical use.

What steps his Department is taking to help tackle regional differences in (a) timely and (b) accurate diagnostic rates for dementia.

We are committed to recovering the dementia diagnosis rate (DDR) to the national ambition of 66.7%, which in England, at the end of February 2025, was 65.4%. To support the implementation of the Dementia Care Pathway, we have developed a memory service dashboard to support commissioners and providers with appropriate data on the diagnostic pathway and enable targeted support where needed.To reduce variation in diagnosis rates, OHID’s Dementia Intelligence Network has developed a tool for local systems, which includes an assessment of population characteristics such as rurality and socio-economic deprivation. This enables systems to investigate local variation in diagnosis and take informed action to enhance their diagnosis rates. The tool has been released and is available via the NHS Futures Collaboration platform.To aid dementia diagnosis and the provision of support in care homes, NHS England funded an evidence-based improvement project to fund two Trusts in each region, which is 14 sites, to pilot the Diagnosing Advanced Dementia Mandate (DiADeM) protocol. Learning is currently being shared and promoted with regional and local partners following an impact assessment of the pilots. The Department delivers dementia research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR funds a range of research into dementia, for example investing nearly £11 million to develop new digital approaches for the early detection and diagnosis of dementia. The NIHR is also partnering with the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Alzheimer’s Society to support a £5.5 million investment in four Dementia Network Plus research grants. One of the Networks, EQUADEM, seeks to address inequalities in dementia diagnosis and care.

What discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on regional inequalities for nursing placements in universities.

No discussions have taken place with the Northern Ireland Executive on the regional variation of nursing placements. Both health and education are devolved matters, with each home nation setting its own education and training policies for students residing in their respective countries.Although devolution can lead to a degree of variation in clinical placements across the four nations, it allows each to focus on their own unique set of challenges and put in place policies that best assure the financial viability and sustainability of their independent National Health Service system.

How many people are on the waiting list for cancer screening across the UK.

There are no waiting lists for the three cancer screening programmes, bowel, breast or cervical, in England. Lung cancer screening, which is being rolled out nationally, does not have waiting lists either.Cancer screening is a devolved matter, and we do not hold information regarding waiting lists for Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

How many men have been diagnosed with prostate cancer in the last 12 months.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave on 21 March 2025 to Question 37562.

What steps he is taking to discourage the use of sunbeds.

The Sunbeds (Regulation) Act 2010 prohibits the use of sunbeds for those under 18 years old. For those over 18 years old, advice has been issued by both the National Health Service and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to increase awareness of the public health risks of excessive exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The UKHSA’s advice is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sunbeds-safety-advice/sunbeds-safety-adviceThe NHS’ advice is available at the following link:https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/seasonal-health/sunscreen-and-sun-safety/