Written questions by Shannon.

How many people who are currently in prison for drug offences are under 21 years of age.

As of 31 December 2024 (latest available published data snapshot), there were 463 people in prison in England and Wales under 21 years of age with an associated (alleged or proven) drug offence. This is based on the total prison population, and includes those held on remand (both unconvicted, and convicted unsentenced), sentenced and non-criminals. It also includes those held in Young Offenders' Institutions (YOIs).For those whose offending is driven by a drug problem, we work with health partners to divert them into treatment in the community where appropriate. This includes working to increase the use and strengthen the quality of Drug Rehabilitation Requirements as part of community sentences, which aim to tackle the root causes of offending behaviour through structured treatment and regular testing. Where a prison sentence is appropriate, we focus on supporting people into treatment, and ensuring their environment supports recovery – 81 prisons have an Incentivised Substance-Free Living unit, which provide a dedicated, supportive environment for any prisoner who wants to live drug-free in prison, with regular drug testing and incentives.Recognising the distinct needs of young adults, HMPPS have developed a Young Adults Custodial strategy to ensure there is a consistent approach amongst prisons to understand this group and support staff in working with them, to better respond to the needs of the cohort.

With reference to her Department's statutory guidance entitled Initial teacher training (ITT): criteria and supporting advice - Statutory guidance for accredited ITT providers, whether the curriculum for primary trainees must cover (a) the national curriculum subjects and (b) the statutory subject of religious education.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.The initial teacher training (ITT) criteria and supporting advice is statutory guidance for accredited ITT providers which sets out mandatory guidance on the criteria that organisations must meet to provide ITT for all courses leading to Qualified Teacher Status.All accredited ITT providers must design a sequenced ITT curriculum that adequately covers all national curriculum subjects for primary trainees.As a statutory subject, religious education should also be included.

Whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of simplifying the application process for unpaid carers claiming Pension Credit.

The Government appreciates the vital contribution made by carers every day in providing significant care and continuity of support to family and friends. We recognise the challenges they face and we are determined to provide unpaid carers with the help and support they need and deserve. Pensioners who are entitled to Carer's Allowance – or in Scotland, Carer Support Payment – can also qualify for the additional amount for carers in their Pension Credit award in recognition of their caring responsibilities. The overlapping benefit rules generally mean that Carer’s Allowance at the full rate cannot normally be paid with the State Pension. However, where Carer’s Allowance cannot be paid or is not paid in full, the person will keep underlying entitlement to the benefit, which still gives access to the additional amount for carers in Pension Credit of £45.60 a week. Unpaid carers go through the same claim process as any other claimant for Pension Credit. However, where they haven’t already claimed Carer’s Allowance, there is a requirement for them to make a claim for it. This is because it is a legal requirement for entitlement to Carer’s Allowance to be established before the additional amount for carers can form part of the Pension Credit award.

How many carers have a Carer’s Allowance overpayment debt as a result of breaching the earnings limit in (a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland and (d) Northern Ireland.

This Government recognises and values the vital contribution made by carers in supporting some of the most vulnerable in society, including pensioners and disabled people. We are determined to provide unpaid carers with the support they need and deserve. From April 2025, the Government is boosting the Carer’s Allowance earnings threshold by £45 a week to £196, benefitting more than 60,000 carers by 2029/30. This is the biggest ever cash increase in the earnings threshold for Carer’s Allowance. Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. We understand that providing care can be a demanding role, which is why we are trialling new ways of communicating with customers to support them in fully understanding their responsibilities to report changes in their circumstances, such as employment, including through a trial of text message reminders. An independent review into the issue of overpayments of Carer’s Allowance in cases where earnings have exceeded the entitlement threshold has begun. The review will investigate how overpayments of Carer’s Allowance related to earnings have occurred, how we can best support those who have accrued them, and how to reduce the risk of these problems occurring in future. Timelines and terms of reference were published on Gov.uk on 9 December for reference. We expect review findings and recommendations to be submitted to the Department in early summer 2025. Liz Sayce OBE, the Independent Reviewer, is keen to hear from interested parties. Where overpayments do occur, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans. Information on the volume of customers with an outstanding Carers Allowance debt and the volume of customers with a Carer’s Allowance overpayment debt as a result of breaching the earnings limit is provided below. This will include people who are no longer receiving Carers Allowance, people who are no longer carers and people who made fraudulent claims and were never entitled to carers allowance. Volume of customers with an outstanding CA debt Volume of Customers with an Outstanding CA Debt with the E-Referral Overpayment Reason of - 'Earnings over CA Limit' English postcode116,87481,503Welsh postcode7,6575,359Scottish postcode13,9229,112Northern-Irish postcode5,4693,375 The data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

How many carers have Carer’s Allowance overpayment debt in (a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland and (d) Northern Ireland.

This Government recognises and values the vital contribution made by carers in supporting some of the most vulnerable in society, including pensioners and disabled people. We are determined to provide unpaid carers with the support they need and deserve. From April 2025, the Government is boosting the Carer’s Allowance earnings threshold by £45 a week to £196, benefitting more than 60,000 carers by 2029/30. This is the biggest ever cash increase in the earnings threshold for Carer’s Allowance. Claimants have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits they claim and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. We understand that providing care can be a demanding role, which is why we are trialling new ways of communicating with customers to support them in fully understanding their responsibilities to report changes in their circumstances, such as employment, including through a trial of text message reminders. An independent review into the issue of overpayments of Carer’s Allowance in cases where earnings have exceeded the entitlement threshold has begun. The review will investigate how overpayments of Carer’s Allowance related to earnings have occurred, how we can best support those who have accrued them, and how to reduce the risk of these problems occurring in future. Timelines and terms of reference were published on Gov.uk on 9 December for reference. We expect review findings and recommendations to be submitted to the Department in early summer 2025. Liz Sayce OBE, the Independent Reviewer, is keen to hear from interested parties. Where overpayments do occur, the Department has a duty to the taxpayer to protect public funds and to ask for money to be paid back. We remain committed to working with anyone who is struggling with their repayment terms and will always look to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans. Information on the volume of customers with an outstanding Carers Allowance debt and the volume of customers with a Carer’s Allowance overpayment debt as a result of breaching the earnings limit is provided below. This will include people who are no longer receiving Carers Allowance, people who are no longer carers and people who made fraudulent claims and were never entitled to carers allowance. Volume of customers with an outstanding CA debt Volume of Customers with an Outstanding CA Debt with the E-Referral Overpayment Reason of - 'Earnings over CA Limit' English postcode116,87481,503Welsh postcode7,6575,359Scottish postcode13,9229,112Northern-Irish postcode5,4693,375 The data has been sourced from internal DWP management information, which is intended only to help the Department to manage its business. It is not intended for publication and has not been subject to the same quality assurance checks applied to our published official statistics.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps to help tackle (a) propaganda, (b) disinformation, (c) persecution and (d) other forms of transnational repression by the Chinese Communist Party against Falun Gong practitioners.

Within China, the environment for freedom of religion or belief is restrictive, which includes the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. This government will work to uphold the right to freedom of religion and belief for all abroad, for example through bilateral engagement. The Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary, and Chancellor all raised human rights recently with their counterparts.Within the UK, attempts by foreign governments to intimidate, harass, or harm our residents will not be tolerated. We have a broad suite of powers available to counter this threat, and we continue to implement measures in the National Security Act 2023, which make the UK a harder target for those states which seek to conduct hostile acts.

What progress his Department has made on funding bowel cancer research.

Research is crucial in tackling cancer, which is why the Department invests over £1.6 billion per year in research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). NIHR research expenditure for all cancers was £133 million in 2023/24. Cancer is a major area of NIHR spend, reflecting its high priority.Over the past five years, the NIHR has committed approximately £52 million across 57 bowel cancer research programmes. These include the FOCUS4 Trials Programme, which recruited over 1,500 patients at centres across the United Kingdom to evaluate how well tumour samples from patients with advanced stage bowel cancer may help select the best treatment for an individual patient, and the Translational Proteomic study, which uses primary tumour samples derived from patients, combined with the application of emerging technology, to understand the mechanisms of drug resistance in cancer cells to help better target anticancer drugs. Additionally, over this period the NIHR supported over 245 commercial and non-commercial clinical research studies into bowel cancer through the NIHR Research Delivery Network, allowing another 30,729 people to participate in potentially life-changing research in the National Health Service.The NIHR continues to encourage and welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including bowel cancer.

What steps she is taking to encourage people on long-term sickness back to work.

Backed by £240m investment, the Get Britain Working White Paper launched on 26 November will drive forward approaches to tackling economic inactivity and work toward the long-term ambition of an 80% employment rate. We are committed to reforming the system of health and disability benefits so that it promotes and enables employment among as many people as possible. The system must also support disabled people to live independently. It is also vital to ensure that the system is financially sustainable in the long term. We are working to develop proposals for reform in the months ahead and will set them out in a Green Paper ahead of the Spring Statement later this year.Appropriate work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work, whoever they are and wherever they live.Disabled people and people with health conditions are a diverse group so access to the right work and health support, in the right place, at the right time, is key. We therefore have a range of specialist initiatives to support individuals to stay in work and get back into work, including those that join up employment and health systems.Measures include support from Work Coaches and Disability Employment Advisers in Jobcentres and Access to Work grants, as well as joining up health and employment support around the individual through Employment Advisors in NHS Talking Therapies and Individual Placement and Support in Primary Care.Employers play a key role in increasing employment opportunities and supporting disabled people and people with health conditions, to thrive as part of the workforce. Our support to employers includes increasing access to Occupational Health, a digital information service for employers and the Disability Confident scheme.

How many people are on a waiting list for treatment for Tinnitus.

The Department does not hold information in this format. Tinnitus is a condition that can result in many different treatments, including medication, which are not all captured in the Waiting List Minimum Dataset.As of November 2024, the waiting list for ear, nose and throat (ENT) stood at 633,270. This marked a decrease of 4,380 compared to October 2024. As of November 2024, 49.2% of pathways were within 18 weeks. Not all of the patients on the waiting list will have a “decision to treat”.Tackling waiting lists, including in ENT, is a key part of our Health Mission, and we will deliver an additional two million operations, scans, and appointments during our first year in Government, which is equivalent to 40,000 per week, as a first step in our commitment to ensure that patients can expect to be treated within 18 weeks.The Elective Reform Plan, launched as part of the Government’s Plan for Change, sets out how we will get back to the NHS Constitutional Standard that 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from Referral to Treatment by the end of this Parliament, whilst also ensuring that patients have the best possible experience of care. The Elective Reform Plan also commits to reforming clinical pathways to improve efficiency in five priority specialties, one of which is ENT.

How many bank closures there were in 2024.

The Government does not hold bank branch closure data. Guidance from the FCA sets out its expectation of firms when they are deciding to reduce their physical branches or the number of free-to-use ATMs. Firms are expected to carefully consider the impact of planned branch closures on their customers’ everyday banking and cash access needs, and put in place alternatives, where this is reasonable. The Government is working closely with banks to roll out 350 banking hubs by the end of this Parliament. These will provide individuals and businesses up and down the country with critical cash and banking services. Over 100 are open so far.

What steps she has taken to recruit more bus drivers.

Transport is a devolved matter, and the Department for Transport is responsible for transport in England only. Bus services in England are predominantly run on a commercial basis by private operators. Ultimate responsibility for recruiting bus drivers falls to individual operators. The government recognises the sector has had issues recruiting and retaining bus drivers in England, Scotland and Wales, but this is now more of a localised issue. The Department held a Driver Shortages Summit in 2022 with industry, and local and national government attendees to identify actions to help resolve this. In April 2024, the Department subsequently launched a consultation to help support driver recruitment on measures to amend licensing restrictions which would enable 18- to 20-year-olds to drive a bus and coach over 50km when driving a regular service and enable some of the tests required to be passed in order to gain a driver certificate of professional competence to be taken before a provisional licence is issued. The Department is reviewing responses to the consultation and will publish a response in due course.

How many schools have closed in the last five years.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.98 state-funded mainstream primary and secondary schools in England closed between January 2020 and December 2024. The attached table sets out these closures by calendar year.

How many convictions there have been for hate crime in the last 12 months.

The Ministry of Justice publishes data on convictions for a large range of offences at criminal courts in England and Wales in the Outcomes by Offences data tool, that can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics. Convictions for selected racial and religiously aggravated crimes can be identified by filtering on the HO offence code. Other offences contained within the Outcomes by Offences data tool may be related to hate crimes, including different strands of hate crimes, but are not identifiable from data held centrally. Crown Prosecution Service performance data which includes convictions data pertaining to hate crime flagged offences is available here: CPS data summary Quarter 2 2024-2025 | The Crown Prosecution Service. The published offence-level data reflects the offence wording as set out in legislation. The published volumes will not include all racially or religiously motivated offences. In addition, other aggravating factors which contribute to the commissioning of an offence are not identifiable from the published Ministry of Justice convictions data.

What discussions he has had with the devolved Administrations on innovation in nuclear technology.

DESNZ Ministers engage with Devolved Government counterparts on energy matters regularly, including through the Net Zero, Energy and Climate Change Interministerial Group (IMG) which last took place on 17 October 2024. The next IMG is scheduled to meet on 6 March in Belfast with NI Ministers chairing.

What assessment has been made of the adequacy of the uptake of Universal Credit in under 21s in the last 12 months.

Monthly statistics for the number of Starts to Universal Credit in Great Britain by age, are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore, and are currently available to October 2024, with statistics to January 2025 due to be published on Tuesday 18th February 2025. Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required. There is also a Universal Credit Official Statistics: Stat-Xplore user guide. The Department’s Youth Offer provides individually tailored Work Coach support to young people aged 16 to 24 who are claiming Universal Credit. This support includes the Youth Employment Programme, Youth Employability Coaches for young people with additional barriers to finding work, and Youth Hubs across Great Britain.

What discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on small businesses sourcing material.

The Windsor Framework established a broad set of arrangements to support Great Britain-based businesses to move goods to Northern Ireland, including to small businesses based in Northern Ireland. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy and are front and centre of the Government’s growth mission. The Government is committed to supporting the Executive as it works to generate economic growth. In support of that, I hold regular discussions with ministers and political parties in the Assembly, as well as with businesses and their representative bodies.

What assessment he has made of the potential impact of fizzy drinks on type 2 diabetes.

Scientific risk assessment and United Kingdom dietary recommendations are based on independent advice from the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN).In 2015, the SACN published its report on Carbohydrates and Health and recommended that “the consumption of sugars-sweetened beverages should be minimised in children and adults”. With respect to type 2 diabetes, the SACN noted that “a greater risk is associated with a higher intake of sugars-sweetened beverages”. Energy intakes that consistently exceed requirements lead to weight gain and obesity in the long term.A 2014 Public Health England report found that adults living with obesity are five times more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than adults of a healthy weight. Approximately 90% of adults with type 2 diabetes are living with overweight or obesity.The SACN is currently considering the World Health Organisation’s guideline on the use of non-sugar sweeteners and the associated systematic review, and whether additional assessment is required. The SACN is due to publish a position statement in 2025.

What contracts his Department plans to provide to businesses in each of the devolved regions.

The Defence footprint is nationwide and in every one of the UK’s nations and regions the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is making a positive difference. The MOD is required to use fair and open competition for all its contract opportunities, which includes non-discrimination on the grounds of location of a potential supplier in the UK, and is always keen to attract new entrants to the supply chain. Details of contracts awarded by the Department can be found on the Defence Sourcing Portal.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of reports of freedom of religion or belief violations in India.

The UK Government condemns any instances of discrimination because of religion or belief, regardless of the country or faith involved. Concerns about the rights and opportunities of some religious minorities in India are widely reported, and our High Commission in New Delhi and network of Deputy High Commissions across India track these issues closely.We take this seriously. Dialogue concerning this is an important aspect of the UK-India relationship, and where we have specific concerns, we raise them directly with India. Our network in India also meets regularly with religious representatives from different faith communities, and, on 18 October, I held a roundtable with a range of faith leaders in Delhi to discuss issues facing religious organisations today.

What assessment she has made of trends in the level of electric vehicle purchases in the last 12 months.

The Government closely monitors developments in the EV market. 2024 was a record year for the sale of new zero emission cars. In 2024 over 380,000 electric cars were sold, the highest number ever in the UK. These made up a fifth of the new car market – also the highest ever. In 2024, the UK overtook Germany to become the largest electric car market in Europe and the market as a whole grew by 2.6%, faster than France, Germany, and the EU. The electric van market also continues to experience growth. New electric van volumes increased by 3.3% in 2024, compared to the previous year.