Written questions by Siddiq.

What recent steps his Department has taken to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower the unit cost of the drug Enhertu.

Awaiting answer.

What recent steps his Department has taken to help those migrating from legacy benefits to universal credit.

Awaiting answer.

Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle excessive household water bills based on rateable values.

The Government has set out in the Water White Paper a commitment to accelerate the smart meter rollout. This includes maximising cost savings to customers by moving customers away from a ratable value to a smart metered charge. Smart meters also provide data to increase leakage identification and reduction and provide customers with insights into their water usage. Ofwat has also announced a competition, closing in March, as part of its £25 million Water Efficiency Lab to enable better data insights on water usage for customers, this includes those customers who cannot have a meter fitted and are reliant on ratable values.

What steps she is taking to help improve safeguarding practices in nurseries and early years settings.

The safety and wellbeing of children in nurseries and early years settings is our priority and we continually monitor and review safeguarding requirements for early years settings to ensure children are kept as safe as possible. Where evidence shows that changes are needed, we take action to strengthen requirements and provide clearer expectations for providers.In September 2025, the government introduced changes to the safeguarding requirements within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. These changes were informed by evidence and engagement with the early years sector and were designed to strengthen safeguarding practice across settings, including clearer and more robust expectations around safer recruitment, whistleblowing and staff training.The department is developing free, online safeguarding training in collaboration with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The training will support providers to meet statutory requirements and promote a strong and open safeguarding culture across early years settings.In December, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced that she will be appointing an expert panel to inform guidance for the sector on the effective and safe use of digital devices and CCTV in relation to safeguarding. The panel will consider the question of whether CCTV should be mandated and will set out best practice, technical information and clear expectations on CCTV and digital device usage. No decisions have been taken in advance of this work.The safety of the youngest children is our utmost priority, which is why the EYFS statutory framework includes clear requirements on safe sleep. The framework requires that babies are placed down to sleep safely and in line with the latest government guidance and that sleeping children are frequently checked. To make the existing requirements clearer for all, we plan to add in more detail to the EYFS frameworks. We have worked with safe sleep experts, including the Lullaby Trust, on proposed new wording.Ofsted inspects early years providers against the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the EYFS statutory framework. Through our Best Start in Life strategy, we are investing in raising the quality, frequency and consistency of inspections, including work to strengthen oversight of larger nursery chains.The government is also strengthening multi-agency safeguarding arrangements through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. These measures place duties on safeguarding partners to ensure education providers and childcare settings are appropriately involved in local safeguarding arrangements, while not changing any existing duties on providers.

Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help protect social tenants not in receipt of housing benefit from increases in service charges.

Registered Providers of social housing are expected to set reasonable and transparent service charges for tenants that reflect the service being provided. Tenants should be supplied with clear information about how service charges are set.The government’s policy statement on rents for social housing makes clear out that Registered Providers should endeavour to keep increases for service charges within the limit on rent increases, which is CPI (as at September in the previous year) +1 percentage point, to help keep charges affordable.On 4 July, the government published a consultation on strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services. The proposals will apply to tenants of local authorities and private registered providers who pay both fixed and variable service charges.It can be found on gov.uk here.For an overview of the proposals set out in the consultation, I refer the hon. Member to the associated Written Ministerial Statement made on 4 July 2025 (HCWS780). This consultation closed on 26 September and we are analysing responses.

What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help protect female whistle-blowers in male-dominated industries.

The Government is taking a range of actions to strengthen whistleblowing protections for workers, including female workers. Through the Employment Rights Bill, we are amending the Employment Rights Act 1996 to clarify that workers are protected from detriment or dismissal by their employer if they ‘blow the whistle’ on sexual harassment, as long as the conditions in the legislation are met. This is an important reform that may encourage more workers to speak up about sexual harassment. In addition, the Government will introduce legislation in this Parliament to disbar senior NHS leaders who have been dishonest or covered up unsafe practice from working in leadership roles in the NHS again.

Whether he has held discussions with the EU on waiving the need for passports for school groups visiting the UK as part of his negotiations on a youth experience scheme.

We recognise the importance of cultural and educational exchanges between UK and other nations. Any decisions relating to our policy on school trip travel must be made with due regard to the proper functioning of our immigration system. The UK and France agreed measures in 2023 which made UK-France school trip travel easier. These arrangements were agreed as part of a wider package of measures. A similar agreement with Germany has also been reached, as part of the wider UK-Germany Friendship and Bilateral Cooperation Treaty, which was signed by the Prime Minister in London on 17 July.These arrangements are separate from our discussions with the EU regarding a youth experience scheme.

Whether her Department plans to make an assessment of the potential merits of statutory codification of the duty of care to students in higher education.

I refer my hon. Friend, the Member for Hampstead and Highgate to the answer of 8 January 2025 to Question 21514.

What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of abolishing NHS England on the NHS’s statutory duty to safeguarding.

It is only right that with such significant reform, we commit to carefully assessing and understanding the potential impacts. Evidence from these ongoing assessments will inform our programme as appropriate.NHS England will continue to carry out its statutory duties until Parliamentary time allows for legislation to be brought forward to amend the Department’s responsibilities.We will ensure our decisions are guided by evidence, and above all, focused on improving outcomes for people.

What steps her Department is taking to help improve the inheritance rights of unmarried couples in cases were the couple where cohabiters for an extended period.

The current law allows people to make a will to set out their wishes on who should inherit their assets after their death, including cohabitees.At present, unmarried cohabiting partners have no automatic inheritance rights under the current intestacy rules (which apply if an individual dies without a valid will). However, cohabitees may apply for family provision claims from the estate of the deceased if they cohabited with the deceased for a continuous period of at least two years, ending immediately before the death of the deceased.The Government shares concerns about these limited existing protections for cohabiting couples. It is particularly concerning that the weakness of these protections disproportionately affects the vulnerable, including survivors of domestic and economic abuse, and women, who are often the more financially vulnerable party in a relationship.For these reasons, the Government made a 2024 manifesto commitment to “strengthen the rights and protections available to women in cohabiting couples”. The Government is working to deliver this manifesto commitment and plans to issue a formal consultation as a next step later this year to build public consensus on what cohabitation reform should look like.