Every parliamentary written question tabled by Ben Obese-Jecty this session, with the full answer and department. See how every department answers, or back to the MP page.
Showing 1,201–1,220 of 4,549 · this parliament
If the Ajax Programme is within the scope of the Defence Growth Deal for Wales announced in September 2025.
No, the AJAX Programme is outside the scope of the Defence Growth Deal for Wales. The aim of the Defence Growth Deal is to drive growth in Wales through connection, resilience, and collaboration. Centred around Autonomy, evolving a skilled workforce, enhancing sovereign capability, connecting companies to the defence sector across the rest of the UK and the world.
What is the remit of the fleet experimental squadron.
Information on the remit of fleet experimental squadron can be found here: https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news/2025/april/29/20250430-creation-of-dcto.
With reference to page 12 of the Police reform white paper entitled From Local to National: A New Model for Policing” (CP1489), what plans she has to bring forward legislative proposals for vetting standards to allow police forces to retrospectively suspend police officers under investigation for (a) domestic abuse and (b) sexual offences.
The recently published police reform White Paper sets out the Government’s plans to further strengthen the police vetting and misconduct systems These reforms will, for the first time, place police vetting standards into legislation. These new regulations will include robust measures which will enable forces to exclude individuals from policing who have a caution or conviction for relevant violence against women and girls offences, and will be subject to consultation with the Police Advisory Board for England and Wales (PABEW) Police forces have existing powers to suspend police officers who are subject to an allegation, but must first consider temporary redeployment to alternative duties or location. We will therefore strengthen these arrangements, placing greater requirements on police forces to suspend officers who are under investigation for crimes such as domestic abuse or sexual offences. Subject to the statutory consultation process, we intend to make these changes this summer.
Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the need to introduce a legal requirement to consider access to hospital helipads in any planning application in the vicinity of a hospital.
The government is currently consulting on a new National Planning Policy Framework that includes clearer, ‘rules based’ policies for decision-making and plan-making. The proposed new Framework gives substantial weight to the benefits of providing new or improved public service infrastructure, including healthcare facilities of all types. The consultation also sets out updated policy to make clear that public services should not have unreasonable restrictions placed on their current or permitted operation as a result of development being approved after they were established. This means that development proposals should be capable of being integrated effectively with existing public service activities and infrastructure in their vicinity. The consultation will remain open for responses until 10 March 2026 and can be found on gov.uk here.
What assessment he has made of the potential benefits of adopting the .338 calibre for Project Cairns.
Project CAIRNS is currently a pre-concept project and as such formal consideration of systems and specifications, including calibre, has not yet taken place.
By when will all current Ajax-family vehicles be brought up to Drop 3 standard.
All current Ajax-family vehicles will be at CD3 standard by October 2028.
With reference to page 11 of the white paper entitled From Local to National: A New Model for Policing (CP1489), what her proposed timetable is for publishing new national policing guarantees.
The Home Secretary announced her plans to introduce a set of Local Policing Guarantees in the white paper “From Local to National: A New Model for Policing” published on 26 January. Local Policing Guarantees will set out minimum levels of service expected across frontline policing across England and Wales, and therefore, on a national basis. The Local Policing Guarantees will be complemented by the introduction of performance targets into the Police Performance Framework.Publication of the Local Policing Guarantees and subsequent performance targets will happen as soon as possible following further engagement with the policing sector to provide assurances that the scope is reflective of operational policing.
With reference to page 11 of the Police reform white paper entitled From Local to National: A New Model for Policing (CP1489), from which financial year does the revised police funding formula apply.
The White Paper represents the most significant reforms to policing for nearly 200 years. The reforms to our policing system set out in the White Paper will have significant consequences for the way policing is funded in future. Changes to police governance, force mergers and the creation of the National Police Service require a new way of allocating funding between forces, aligned with these new structures.We will launch an independent review of police force structures, which will report in the summer. Once we have considered the outcome of the review, we will set out further proposals to reflect changes in the new model of policing.
What steps he is taking to improve the Royal Navy’s targeting decision cycle, including through the Navy AI Cell.
Subject to the Defence Investment Plan, the Royal Navy intends to use digital systems, data tools, and structures that allow maritime forces to contribute to a Digital Targeting Web that is effective across different domains and integrates with NATO allies.
What is the remit of the Royal Navy’s Disruptive Capabilities and Technologies Office.
I refer the hon. Member to the response given to Question 105587 on 21 January 2026.
What is the scope of the Royal Navy’s Develop Directorate.
The Royal Navy’s Develop Directorate leads the development of future warfighting capability and acts as the Design Authority for naval capabilities of the future. It seeks to achieve the optimum mix of present and future warfighting technologies required for a modern, global and ready Royal Navy.
What assessment he has made of the potential merits of integration between Project Asgard and Project Boyd.
The Strategic Defence Review outlined how the Armed Forces must complete the journey from a joint force to an Integrated Force underpinned by a common digital foundation and shared data. Project BOYD and Project ASGARD represent the Royal Air Force (RAF) and British Army’s respective contributions to this endeavour. While Project BOYD is led by the RAF’s Rapid Capabilities Office and Project ASGARD from the Army’s Information Directorate, both fall under the effort to establish the digital targeting web to connect ‘sensors’, ‘deciders’ and ‘effectors’ which will be implemented across all domains by the Integrated Force model. Learning captured by Project ASGARD and Project BOYD will be shared by both teams to inform future acquisition decisions.
What assessment he has made of the potential impact of the Atlantic series deployments on deterring Russia’s Northern Fleet from deploying.
Through the First Sea Lords’ Warfighting Ready Plan, the Royal Navy is transforming to a Hybrid Navy, where crewed, uncrewed and autonomous capabilities are operating together to enhance our warfighting readiness. The Hybrid Navy is our response to maintaining comparative operational advantage over our adversaries. Atlantic Bastion is our concept for assuring our nuclear deterrent, protecting our critical underwater infrastructure and denying sea control to our adversaries. Atlantic Shield will deal with adversarial threats, followed by Atlantic Strike, which will take the fight to the enemy by sea, air or land.
What requirements changes have the Army made to the Early Capability Demonstrator platform as part of the Mobile Fires Platform programme.
The Early Capability Demonstrator platform provides the common design baseline and technical specification for both the UK and Germany. The UK has not added any additional requirements changes.
With reference to page 9 of her Department's White Paper, entitled From Local to National: A New Model for Policing, published on 26 January 2026, CP1489, what steps she is planning to take to remove bureaucratic barriers linked to crime and incident recording standards.
The Government is committed to a proportionate approach to the recording of crime and incidents that ensures the police focus on the crimes that matter to local communities.The College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council have been commissioned to undertake a comprehensive review of the recording of Non-Crime Hate Incidents (NCHIs).This will examine and make recommendations about when such incidents should be recorded and how best to balance public safety with freedom of expression. The findings of this review will also inform consideration of standards, especially around the recording of online crime.The Government has committed to update Parliament once the findings are published and will consider any changes required to the statutory Code of Practice on NCHIs introduced in 2023.
Which occupations have been (a) added and (b) removed from the shortage occupation list since 5 July 2024.
The Government's Immigration White Paper set out how we will phase out the Immigration Salary List (ISL, formerly the Shortage Occupation List), and introduce a new Temporary Shortage List (TSL) , where entries will be genuinely temporary and linked to workforce plans to tackle the root causes of workforce shortages.As interim measures, we applied end dates to the ISL and added two occupations (“1232 Residential, day and domiciliary care managers and proprietors” and “6131 Nursing auxiliaries and assistants”) on 22 July 2025. We also introduced the interim TSL at this time.The ISL can be found here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-immigration-salary-list/skilled-worker-visa-immigration-salary-listThe interim TSL can be found here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-temporary-shortage-list/skilled-worker-visa-temporary-shortage-listThe Migration Advisory Committee are currently reviewing the TSL and are due to report in July this year.
What progress has she made in procuring a new firearm to replace the Heckler and Koch G36 for Cambridgeshire Constabulary.
The Home Office does not procure or proscribe services to Police forces. It is a matter for each Force to assess and procure services proportionate to its needs to provide effective policing for their area as they are best placed to understand local needs and priorities.
With reference to page 9 of the Police reform white paper From Local to National: A New Model for Policing (CP1489), what Artificial Intelligence powered a) tools and b) software to automate manual processes will she roll-out.
The Government is determined to ramp up the responsible use of Artificial Intelligence across policing. We have already begun to support policing to adopt AI responsibly, with over £50 million invested to date in priority areas such as facial recognition technologies, AI enabled audio visual file redaction, and robotic process automation. These technologies are already helping to catch more criminals and make policing more efficient. We will continue progressing this work in the coming years.We recently announced over £115 million over the next three years to support the rapid and responsible development, testing and rollout of AI tools across all 43 police forces in England and Wales.This will be spearheaded by the creation of Police.AI, a new National Centre for AI in Policing. Whilst specific use cases and tools are still being investigated and developed, in its first year, Police.AI is expected to focus on some of the biggest administrative pressures facing policing. This includes developing and supporting tools to automate tasks such as disclosure, the analysis of CCTV footage, production of case files, crime recording and classification, and the translation and transcription of documents. These tools are expected to save around six million policing hours a year, while improving the speed and quality of service provided to victims and witnesses.Police.AI will support forces to adopt AI tools and software by testing and assuring AI models, helping with scaling implementation, and providing public facing transparency through a registry of AI tools in use by policing.This announcement reflects the Government’s commitment to supporting policing to use AI in an evidence based and transparent way to catch more criminals, speed up investigations and free up officers for frontline duties.
Pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2026 to Question 107813 on Army, what new capabilities )a) have and (b) are in the process of being fielded to the Army via Task Force Rapstone.
RAPSTONE is an Army initiative to accelerate the fielding of new capabilities into the British Army. These include: - Tactical uncrewed airborne systems (UAS) – short and medium range tactical drones.- Systems to detect, track and counter UAS at the tactical level.- Medium range loitering munitions.- Uncrewed ground vehicles for last-mile resupply of tactical units.- Electronic warfare (EW) systems for specialist and generalist users.- Dispersed digital sensor systems to enhance the intelligence capability of tactical units.- Enhanced counter UAS protection for vehicles.- Utility vehicles for tactical units (4x4 pick-ups and vans).- Hybrid power supplies for tactical headquarters and deployed teams.- Personal individual power packs.- Digital tools for tactical logistic planning and enhanced deployed maintenance.- Enhanced digital tools for fire control.- Increased satellite communications capabilities for mobile tactical units.- Develop dried blood plasma technology into a deployable medical capability. I am unable to provide greater detail on the individual capabilities listed due to Operational sensitivities.
With reference to page 10 of the Police reform white paper From Local to National: A New Model for Policing (CP1489), by what date will the independent review of police force structures report its findings.
The Police Reform White Paper, published on 26 January 2026, set out an ambitious package of reform, including an ambition to significantly reduce the number of police forces across England and Wales by the end of next Parliament.We will shortly launch an Independent Review of Police Force Structures, which will make recommendations on the optimum number and configuration of forces. It will be led by an independent Chair and will consider a wide range of evidence in making its recommendations by Summer.We will announce the Chair and publish the full Terms of Reference for the Review shortly.