Written questions by O'Brien.

How many Universal Credit households in the most recent quarter for which data is available are undergoing a third party deduction for the purpose of paying a court fine.

Around 250,000 Universal Credit households had at least one third party deduction for court fines in the quarter ending in November 2025.  Notes:1. Figures have been calculated by identifying Universal Credit households with at least one thirdparty deduction for court fines during any month within the quarter. Households with a court fines deduction in more than one month of the quarter have been counted once only, to reflect the number of unique households affected during the period.2. Data up to November 2025 has been provided in line with the latest available Universal Credit Deductions Statistics.3. Figures have been provided for Universal Credit households in Great Britain.4. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.5. Numbers are rounded to the nearest 10,000.

How many children aged (a) under one, (b) one, (c) two, (d) three, (e) four, (f) five, (g) six, (h) seven, (i) eight, (j) nine and (k) ten and over years old were (i) adopted and (ii) subject of a Special Guardianship Order in each year since 2021.

Data on age of children subject to adoption and Special Guardianship Orders is routinely published in the quarterly Family Court Statistics and the relevant tables are attached.

How many children aged (a) under one years old, (b) aged between one and four years old and (c) aged five years and older were (i) adopted and (ii) given a Special guardianship order in each year since 1996.

Data on the age of the children subject to adoption and Special Guardianship Orders is routinely published in Family Court Quarterly statistics and the relevant tables are attached.Data prior to 2011 is not readily available and to source it would incur disproportionate costs.

With reference to her Department's press release entitled Interest rate cap introduced to protect Plan 2 borrowers, published on 7 April 2026, what estimate her Department has made of the cost to the public purse of capping interest on Plan 2 and 3 student loans at 6% for the 2026/7 academic year.

I refer the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston to the answer of 22 April 2026 to Question 124528.

What assessment he has made of the equity of the process for accessing the General Dental Council's Overseas Registration Examination; and whether he has assessed the potential merits of introducing a queuing system.

The General Dental Council (GDC) is aware that the booking process for its Overseas Registration Exam (ORE) can be challenging for candidates due to the very high demand for exam places. The GDC’s recently concluded procurement exercise has resulted in new contracts for ORE provision that will substantially increase capacity of the exam, with places for Part Two increasing from 720 to 944 in the first year of the contract, and to 1,500 by year three.The GDC currently offers priority booking to candidates approaching their five-year time limit to pass the ORE exam, as well as to candidates with refugee status, as they are particularly disadvantaged by their inability to return to their country of origin to practise as a dentist.The Department has asked the GDC to develop an improved booking system as part of the new ORE contract arrangements and to consider what measures could be taken to support candidates on the waiting list who are resident in the United Kingdom.

What the total annual cost of administering the Community Payback scheme was in each of the last five years; and what the average cost per (a) sentence and (b) completed hour of unpaid work was in each of those years.

Financial Year Total Community Payback Unpaid Work Spend (£) 2021/22£47,340,4922022/23£77,175,8932023/24£89,614,9152024/25£96,014,945In terms of what the total cost covers, it is things such as staffing costs, fleet (vans) and tools.We do not hold information on average cost per sentence in the format requested.The average cost per hour of Unpaid Work credited was £17.15 (2022/23), £19.14 (2023/24) and £21.24 (2024/25). Data are not provided for the performance year 2021/22 as this is only a partial year of data following the reunification of the Probation Service.The average cost per hour credited is calculated by dividing the total spend by the number of hours credited in each year.

How many hours of unpaid work were (a) sentenced and (b) credited in each of the last five years.

Between July 2021 and June 2025, a total of 24,341,125 hours of unpaid work were sentenced in England and Wales. In the same period, 17,614,065 hours of unpaid work were credited in England and Wales.By Performance Year Hours of unpaid work sentenced Hours of unpaid work credited July 2021 to March 2022*4,351,6552,769,930April 2022 to March 20235,943,4554,499,655April 2023 to March 20246,108,4054,683,290April 2024 to March 20256,273,2904,520,280April 2025 to June 2025*1,664,3201,140,910Periods marked with an asterisk (*) indicate incomplete performance years.Hours sentenced are the number of hours that the offender is required to work as part of the sentence of the court.Upon attendance of the unpaid work session, the time the offender spends working will be credited towards the number of hours they have been ordered to complete. This includes where a person attends a session and subsequently fails to comply with instructions or is sent home due to poor behaviour, or where service issues during the day cause a session to be cancelled.Data from April 2022 to June 2025 sourced from the latest published statistics on unpaid work. A link can be found here - Unpaid work management information, update to June 2025 - GOV.UKData from July 2021 to March 2022 sourced from nDelius on 13/04/2026. While these data have been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.Data from the biannual Unpaid Work publication are rounded to the nearest five hours worked for data suppression purposes and yearly totals are calculated on the rounded values of each quarter. To be consistent with the publication, the same principle has been applied to data between July 2021 and March 2022.The next publication is due on 14 May 2026.Data are provided from July 2021, the month following the reunification of the Probation Service.

How many grants of indefinite leave to remain have been revoked and have lapsed in each year since 2004.

The information requested is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate costs. Under section 12(1) of the FOIA, the Home Office is not obliged to comply with an information request where to do so would exceed the appropriate limit.

What proportion of individuals sentenced to an unpaid work requirement last year were given a (a) community order, (b) suspended sentence order, (c) youth rehabilitation order, (d) enforcement order and (e) supervision default order.

The data requested are provided in the attached excel tables.The decision as to what type of order to impose at sentence, or when imposing any other type of Order in court, is a matter for our independent judiciary, taking into account all the circumstances of the case before them.

What the cost was to the public purse of graffiti removal across the Network Rail network in each of the last five years.

The cost of graffiti removal across the Network Rail network is available on Network Rail’s website.

How many community sentences were passed in each of the last ten years; and what proportion of these included an unpaid work requirement.

The data requested are provided in the attached excel tables.The decision as to what type of order to impose at sentence, or when imposing any other type of Order in court, is a matter for our independent judiciary, taking into account all the circumstances of the case before them.

What proportion of people who received a sentence of unpaid work failed to (a) start and (b) complete their sentence in each of the last five years.

The data requested can be found in the following table:Sentence Financial Year% individuals who failed to start UPW% individuals who failed to complete UPW2021/22*8.4%40.7%2022/237.8%36.4%2023/246.2%34.2%2024/256.1%36.7%Periods marked with an asterisk (*) indicate incomplete performance years. The data provided is from July 2021, the month following the reunification of the Probation Service.All data has been sourced from nDelius on 13/04/2026. While this data has been assured as much as practical, as with any large administrative dataset, the data should not be assumed to be accurate to the last value presented.Please note, data relating to those sentenced in 2025/26 has not been provided as recording of this period is still ongoing and it would therefore not portray a true reflection of current performance.

How many Community Payback supervisors have been employed in each of the last five years.

The number of band 3 Community Payback supervisors employed by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service in each of the last five years is given in the following table. Figures are provided for 31 December each year and are on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis.Table: Number of FTE band 3 Community Payback supervisors in post on 31 December: 2021 to 2025 Date Number (FTE) 31/12/202141931/12/202257031/12/202363231/12/202462331/12/2025584Notes:1. Only includes band 3 staff with the job title of ‘community payback supervisor’. Any staff with that job title but are not band 3 are not included.

How many and what proportion of sentences given in each of the last five years included an unpaid work requirement.

The data requested are provided in the attached excel tables.The decision as to what type of order to impose at sentence, or when imposing any other type of Order in court, is a matter for our independent judiciary, taking into account all the circumstances of the case before them.

Of the households exempt from the Benefit Cap due to receipt of the Limited Capability for Work and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) element of Universal Credit, how many contain a second working age adult who is not in receipt of LCWRA.

The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

With reference to sheet Ret_04 of the data release entitled 'Returns summary tables, year ending December 2025', updated on 26 February 2026, if she will publish a further breakdown of the nationalities currently grouped under "Other” for asylum-related returns in 2025.

As you are aware, the Home Office publishes statistics on the number of returns from the UK in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. The latest data on returns from the UK, by nationality and asylum and non-asylum is published in table Ret_04 of the ‘Returns summary tables’. The latest data goes up to the end of December 2025.Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, as well as quality and availability of data. These reviews allow us to balance the production of our regular statistics whilst developing new statistics for future release.

How many asylum-related returns there were in 2025 for people from (a) Bangladesh, (b) Afghanistan, (c) Iran and (d) Sri Lanka.

As you are aware, the Home Office publishes statistics on the number of returns from the UK in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. The latest data on returns from the UK, by nationality and asylum and non-asylum is published in table Ret_04 of the ‘Returns summary tables’. The latest data goes up to the end of December 2025.Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile the statistics, as well as quality and availability of data. These reviews allow us to balance the production of our regular statistics whilst developing new statistics for future release.

What is the estimated capital cost for a new prison place in England and Wales, broken down into categories A, B, C and D.

As set out in the 10-Year Prison Capacity Strategy, we are committed to delivering an additional 14,000 prison places and aim to do so by 2031. Our build programme consists of the construction of four new prisons, including HMP Millsike, as well as the expansion and refurbishment of the existing estate. These places are being delivered at category B, C and D sites and therefore no cost estimate has been made for category A places.As per the ‘Independent Review of Prison Capacity’ (published in August 2025) as of March 2025, the updated capital cost per place for the remainder of the 14,000 additional prison places is £600,000 (in 2025/26 prices). Due to commercial sensitivities, this figure cannot be broken down any further.

Whether the Government plans to change the law or guidance around Freedom of Information requests.

The Government is committed to Freedom of Information (“FOI”) and continues to monitor the performance and implementation of the FOI Act to ensure it is operating as intended by Parliament. Any changes to FOI legislation will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny.

How many foreign national offenders in the UK are currently living in the community while liable for deportation after completing prison sentences.

Latest published information shows that at the end of Q4 2025 there were 19,470 foreign national offenders (FNOs) living in the community having completed their custodial sentences and subject to deportation or administrative removal. The published information can be found at: Migration transparency data - GOV.UK.Any FNO convicted of a crime who receives a custodial sentence in the UK is referred to the Home Office for deportation consideration following sentencing. We are focussing resource on those cases currently serving custodial sentences to maximise removals directly from prison.Where removal is not immediately possible, electronic monitoring can be used to manage FNOs.We will pursue deportation action against individuals living in the community rigorously, actively monitoring and managing cases through the legal process and negotiating barriers to removal.