Written questions by Obese-Jecty.

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 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.​

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.

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.

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.

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 assessment has she made of the potential benefit of establishing a joint Public order, firearms and tactics training centre in Cambridgeshire.

The use of police resources and the provision of training within police forces is a matter for Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners, who are operationally independent of government.

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.

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, if she will publish a list of the legislation she intends to modernise.

The Home Secretary launched an independent review of public order and hate crime legislation on 5 October 2025.The review will address whether the existing legislation, including the Public Order Act 1986, is effective and proportionate, whether it adequately protects communities from intimidation and hate and whether it strikes a fair and sustainable balance between the right to freedom of expression and peaceful protest, and the need to prevent disorder and keep communities safe.To lead this vital work, the Home Secretary has appointed Lord Ken Macdonald of River Glaven KC, former Director of Public Prosecutions and one of the UK’s most respected legal authorities. His independence and expertise will ensure a rigorous and impartial review.The review is underway and will report its findings to the Home Secretary by spring 2026.

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 is her planned timetable to take legislative steps to modernise the Public Order Act 1986.

The Home Secretary launched an independent review of public order and hate crime legislation on 5 October 2025.The review will address whether the existing legislation, including the Public Order Act 1986, is effective and proportionate, whether it adequately protects communities from intimidation and hate and whether it strikes a fair and sustainable balance between the right to freedom of expression and peaceful protest, and the need to prevent disorder and keep communities safe.To lead this vital work, the Home Secretary has appointed Lord Ken Macdonald of River Glaven KC, former Director of Public Prosecutions and one of the UK’s most respected legal authorities. His independence and expertise will ensure a rigorous and impartial review.The review is underway and will report its findings to the Home Secretary by spring 2026.

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.

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.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what progress has she made in building the new British Embassy in Beijing.

I refer the Hon Member to the response to Question 22931 on 16 January 2025.

Whether NHS England collects data on the (a) performance and (b) downtime of hospital decontamination units.

NHS England does not hold or collect the information requested.

What assessment his Department's Defence AI and Autonomy Unit has made of the potential role of AI within the targeting decision cycle.

The Ministry of Defence recognises that AI has the potential to enhance multiple stages of the targeting decision cycle by improving the speed, accuracy and consistency with which information can be processed. AI, as a general‑purpose enabling technology, can support better‑informed and faster decision‑making while maintaining full compliance with the UK’s legal and ethical obligations. The Department is clear that the incorporation of AI into the targeting process does not diminish the requirement for robust human judgement. Any system used in support of targeting requires context‑appropriate human involvement, and human responsibility and accountability for decisions on the use of force cannot be delegated to machines.

Which NHS Trusts operate on-site endoscope (a) reprocessing and (b) decontamination centres.

NHS England does not hold or collect the information requested.

What assessment he has made of the potential merits of adopting the US military’s business operators for national defence scheme.

The Ministry of Defence has no plans to recruit a dedicated cadre of former defence industry executives. Nevertheless, the Department is conscious of the value that those with private sector experience can bring. This can be seen in the appointment in October last year of Rupert Pearce as the UK National Armaments Director (NAD), bringing over 40 years of experience across law, technology, telecommunications, energy, and venture capital. His track record of managing large-scale organisations, driving innovation and building international partnerships make him ideally suited to lead the transformation of how defence works with industry to deliver for the UK Armed Forces. The commitment to recruiting individuals with a breadth of experience can also be seen in the current competition for a new Director General UK Defence Innovation, in which the Department is accepting applications from both within and outside the Civil Service.

Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of a Sovereign Frontier Lab.

The Government recognises the importance of building resilience and strategic advantage in frontier AI. While US companies currently provide most frontier model capabilities, our approach is to ensure the UK can access the best global models while safeguarding national interests.We are expanding sovereign capability where it matters most by scaling onshore compute, supporting emerging national champions, and strengthening the UK talent pipeline. Our focus is on areas of the AI value chain where there is the greatest opportunity for the UK to advance its strategic position.

Innovation and Technology, whether her Department has made plans for potential uses of the Isambard supercomputer.

This government is committed to harnessing the power of compute to enable innovations that will deliver growth and opportunity and for people across the UK.The AI Research Resource (AIRR) is now live and is free to use for the UK’s scientists, public sector organisations, and start-ups and SMEs. It is made up of two supercomputers: Dawn at Cambridge, and Isambard-AI in Bristol – one of the world’s top 10 public supercomputers and the 4th greenest in the world. As of last month, more than 350 projects are actively running on the Isambard-AI supercomputer.