Written questions by Hayes.

How many full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff are employed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) headcount stands at 1,452 employees. The MHRA has a Head of Diversity and Staff Engagement, and a Diversity and Staff Engagement Coordinator, who are focussed on diversity, equality, and inclusion for half of their full-time equivalent (FTE) hours, with the remaining half of their FTE hours focussed on other human resources portfolio priorities.

How many full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff are employed by the Civil Aviation Authority.

As of 12 December 2024, the Civil Aviation Authority employs one full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion member of staff.

Whether his Department awarded financial assistance to Vodafone during the 2020 lockdown.

The Government does not comment on whether individual businesses received financial assistance during the 2020 lockdown as that information is considered commercially sensitive.

If he will take steps to prevent companies from changing commissions to franchisees at short notice.

The franchising industry self-regulates through the British Franchise Association (BFA) and its Code of Ethics, and the Quality Franchise Association, which offers a Code of Conduct. Franchise agreements are the primary instrument that govern the relationship between franchisors and franchisees and those should normally include details such as fees, territory rights, contract duration and dispute resolution mechanisms. Disputes are, therefore, a private matter in which it would be inappropriate for Government to intervene.

On what occasions Ministers in his Department met representatives of Vodafone in the last five years.

Details of the meetings held by Ministers of the Department for Business and Trade and its predecessor the Department for International Trade are available on transparency pages of gov.uk and are released as part of the Government’s transparency agenda.

Innovation and Technology, how many full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff are employed by the Met Office.

The Met Office currently employs one full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion member of staff.

Innovation and Technology, how many full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff are employed by the UK Space Agency.

The UK Space Agency employs one member of staff in an Employee Experience Lead role, of which 0.5 FTE is allocated to equality, diversity and inclusion.

How many full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff are employed by the Health and Safety Executive.

There are 1.3 full time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff employed by the Health and Safety Executive. Their remit extends beyond the equality, diversity and inclusion specialty, encompassing areas such as health, safety and wellbeing and includes occupational health, accessibility requirements and assessing potential equality risk factors.

How many full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff are employed by the Office of Rail and Road.

The Office of Rail and Road employs no full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to reduce time taken for (a) sanitary and (b) phytosanitary checks at border control posts for horticultural produce.

GB plant health services have increased the number of plant health inspection staff to service the demand for import checks in England and Wales of EU plants and plant products. Inspector levels are being monitored to ensure these meet demand and deliver checks in line with set Service Level Agreements (SLA) and ensure minimal trade disruption. BCPs are designed to handle high volumes of imported SPS goods with inspectors working shifts to carry out reliable checks which minimise friction on traffic flow. Checks at BCPs are handled by trained staff ensuring inspections are undertaken safely and efficiently.

If she will make an estimate of the number of sharia councils operating in England and Wales.

Sharia Councils are not part of the judicial system; therefore the Ministry of Justice does not hold data on the number of sharia councils in operation, and there is no plan to produce such data at this time.

Food and Rural Affairs, how many plant health inspection staff were employed at UK Border Control Posts in (a) England and (b) Wales as of 10 December 2024.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has 162 plant health inspectors in post covering England and Wales. This number includes all inspectors working at border control points (BCPs), inspection centres and control points. This number cannot be broken down to specify the number of inspectors specifically at BCPs because inspectors often cover multiple sites. The inspectors cover all work for the EU, and the rest of the world including work at ports and inland. The number does not include new inspectors which APHA is currently onboarding or who are currently at the job offer stage of recruitment.

How many full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff are employed by the Serious Fraud Office.

The Serious Fraud Office has one full-time equivalent staff member employed on this basis.

How many full-time equivalent diversity, equality and inclusion staff are employed by High Speed Two Limited.

HS2 Ltd has no full-time roles dedicated to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

If he will increase the staffing budget for the East Midlands Ambulance Service.

The allocation of National Health Service funding, including local staffing budgets, is set by NHS England.

Whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of changes to the level of the bus fare cap on public transport use in Lincolnshire.

In the Budget on 30 October, the government confirmed it will invest over £150 million to introduce a new £3 cap on single bus fares in England outside London from 1 January until 31 December 2025. Under the plans of the previous administration, the current £2 cap on bus fares had been due to expire on 31 December 2024, and prior to the Budget, there was no further funding available to maintain the cap beyond this point.The published interim evaluation of the £2 fare cap showed that patronage continued to recover following the COVID 19 pandemic and early evidence from the first two months of the scheme suggested the £2 fare cap may be playing a role in this recovery. The final evaluation of the £2 fare cap, including a further assessment of its impact on patronage will be published in due course.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has made an estimate of the amount of overseas development assistance funds that have been spent on providing abortion services in the last five years.

We report spend in line with Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development and Assistance Committee sector codes which do not track spend specifically for abortion services which are part of a wider package of women's healthcare. FCDO support to safe abortion services is within what is permitted by national laws, as well as providing life-saving treatment for women who have had unsafe abortions.The FCDO annually reports on Official Development Assistance (ODA) expenditure via the Statistics on International Development publications [https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-on-international-development]. All of our programmatic spend data can be found on the Devtracker website [https://devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk/].

What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding for Lincolnshire police force.

This Government is committed to ensuring that the police have the resources they need to tackle crime effectively.Lincolnshire Police’s funding will be up to £173.2m in 2025-26, an increase of up to £9 million when compared to the 2024-25 police settlement.The Home Secretary announced over half a billion for 2025-26 more funding for policing and confirmed that police forces will be fully compensated for the changes to employer National Insurance contributions.

What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the support provided for people with mobility issues to access trains at Spalding station.

No recent assessment has been made regarding accessibility at Spalding Station. Spalding Station has step free access to platforms.

What steps he is taking to ensure that people in (a) South Holland and the Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire are able to access essential postal services.

The Government provides an annual £50m Network Subsidy to support the delivery of a minimum number of Post Office branches and a geographical spread of these branches in line with published access criteria. This requires 99% of the UK population to be within three miles of their nearest Post Office outlet. The Government-set Access Criteria ensures that however the network changes, services remain within local reach of all citizens.