Written questions by Anderson.

What information they hold on the number of workdays that were completed remotely in their Department in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

On 24 October 2024 the Cabinet Office announced that 60% minimum office attendance for most staff continues to be the best balance of working for the Civil Service. Senior managers will continue to be expected to be in the office more than 60% of the time. Due to space constraints the department has set the requirement of 40% for delegated grades.The department does not hold comprehensive data on the number of workdays that were completed remotely. See Civil Service Headquarters occupancy data for published information covering departmental headquarters building occupancy.The department introduced a process to record office attendance information from 4 August 2025. This data is not yet available.

If she will make an estimate of the projected interest costs to the taxpayer of the £11.6 billion in overseas climate aid.

The UK has committed to deliver £11.6bn of International Climate Finance (ICF3) to support developing countries’ climate mitigation and adaptation action from Financial Year 2021/22 to Financial Year 2025/26. The Office for Budget Responsibility produces forecasts for interest costs in the round as part of its independent official forecast.

What information they hold on the number of workdays that were completed remotely in their Department in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

Hybrid working is an informal, discretionary, non-contractual arrangement that enables employees to work partly in the workplace and partly at home. Employees are expected to spend a minimum of 40% of their working hours in the office. Office attendance requirements are managed locally to ensure the minimum requirement is met, and no central data is held on this.

What information they hold on the number of workdays that were completed remotely in their Department in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

The Department for Transport does not record this data centrally. In the core department, a management tool is used to record the number of days a member of staff attends an official workplace. This figure excludes business travel, site visits and absences (e.g. special leave, flexible leave and TOIL), and it is not possible to state exactly how many of the days not spent in the workplace were due to remote working. In the calendar year of 2024, 321,561 working days were recorded in DfT workplaces. From 1st January 2025 to 31st July 2025, 168,066 working days were recorded in DfT workplaces. This data is for the core department, excluding the executive agencies.

What information they hold on the number of workdays that were completed remotely in their Department in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

The department’s employees work remotely from offices for a variety of reasons, including to visit educational institutions, partner organisations or when they have agreement to work from somewhere other than an office. IT log-on data indicates that approximately 55% of available working days in 2024 and 2025 to date were spent working remotely, but this figure should be treated as indicative rather than definitive, due to limitations in how the data is captured.

What proportion of foreign nationals receiving Universal Credit arrived in the UK in the last five years.

The Department does not hold this information for all claimants over the last five years.

What recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of trends in the number of foreign national Universal Credit claimants on the (a) delivery and (b) availability of employment support services.

The Department considers migration trends when planning resources for delivering support including employment services and training to ensure that all claimants, regardless of their nationality or immigration status, can access this support if they are entitled to it. The Department does not collect information on or hold a record of the nationality or immigration status of claimants at the point of referral to specific employment services and training.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his Chinese counterpart on the location of Peng Shuai.

This Government remains deeply committed to the promotion and protection of human rights globally, including in China. We continue to monitor developments closely and raise issues of concern with Chinese counterparts at senior levels. The Prime Minister, Chancellor and former Foreign Secretary all raised human rights recently with their Chinese counterparts. We remain concerned about cases that raise broader questions around freedom of expression, and accountability, and we continue to work with international partners to support these principles.

What recent assessment she has made of the financial sustainability of the number of asylum seekers in receipt of Universal Credit.

People who are in the UK with no immigration status who are applying for asylum are not permitted access to public funds and therefore cannot claim Universal Credit.

What recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of (a) prevention and (b) detection measures used to identify fraudulent claims for Universal Credit by foreign nationals.

This government takes all cases of fraud seriously and has introduced the biggest package of measures in recent history to reduce welfare fraud, error and debt, which includes new legislation, the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill. This contains new powers to modernise our defences and is currently progressing through Parliament. In 2024-25, we saved an estimated £25bn from our up-front controls and detect activity, with the latter delivering £2bn savings and thereby significantly exceeding our Annually Managed Expenditure savings target. The Department always checks a person’s identity and immigration status before paying them benefits if they are a foreign national. We verify this information with the Home Office, including through automatic system-to-system checks.

If she will publish the number of foreign nationals in receipt of each benefit across working age welfare spending.

There are no plans to start consistently collecting nationality data across all working age benefits. This is because DWP policy responsibility lies in establishing a customer’s eligibility to claim benefits. An individual’s specific nationality does not play a role in this. The Department checks immigration status when assessing eligibility for benefits, but this information is not collated centrally across all benefit lines and hence is not readily available. The Department publishes Universal Credit (UC) immigration status and nationality statistics as part of the Universal Credit statistics publication. The latest release of these statistics is included in the latest Universal Credit statistical bulletin. ‘Table 2’ in the latest Universal Credit immigration status and nationality data tables provides information on the number of people on Universal Credit by immigration status, nationality group and employment status, for each month from April 2022 to June 2025.

Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance his Department provides on the assessments used to decide whether to return a dangerous dog to its owner after it has been seized.

Dogs that are prohibited under section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and which do not have a valid certificate of exemption could be seized by the Police. In these cases, there is an interim exemption scheme which allows suspected prohibited dogs to remain with their owners in advance of a court hearing. It is for the Police to determine whether to make use of this scheme on a case-by-case basis.

Food and Rural Affairs, what guidance his Department provides on the assessments used to decide whether to return a dangerous dog to its owner after it has been seized.

Dogs that are prohibited under section 1 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 and which do not have a valid certificate of exemption could be seized by the Police. In these cases, there is an interim exemption scheme which allows suspected prohibited dogs to remain with their owners in advance of a court hearing. It is for the Police to determine whether to make use of this scheme on a case-by-case basis.

What steps her Department is taking to increase arrests relating to mobile phone theft.

Through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee we will place thousands of additional police officers and police community support officers in neighbourhood policing roles to provide a more visible and effective service to the public, with each neighbourhood having a named, contactable officer dealing with local issues, including the theft of mobile phones and other personal items.On 6 February the Home Secretary brought together police, the National Crime Agency, the Mayor of London, leading tech companies and others to drive greater collaboration in breaking the business model of mobile phone thieves. The Summit resulted in clear commitments from attendees to work in partnership, including to significantly boost the sharing of data and intelligence on mobile phone theft to build a comprehensive picture of the problem, better understand the role of organised crime networks and identify the most effective means of tackling these crimes.In addition, the Crime and Policing Bill includes a measure to give police the power to enter and search premises for stolen property that has been electronically geo-location tracked to those premises, where it is not reasonably practicable to obtain a warrant without seriously prejudicing the entry and search purpose. This will significantly enhance the ability of the police to act swiftly and effectively.

Pursuant to the Answer of 21 July 2025 to Question 67468 on Diseases: Undocumented Migrants, what the cost to the public purse was for initial health assessments for irregular migrants in each of the last five years.

The Department and NHS England do not hold the information requested.The Department, NHS England and UK Health Security Agency officials are supporting the Home Office and regional and local health partners to support delivery of reforms to the asylum system, including to accommodation for asylum seekers. The Department’s role focuses on addressing the health needs of asylum seekers, protecting local services, and addressing the transmission risks for infectious diseases.

What discussions he has had with the Food Standards Agency on increasing the frequency of food hygiene assessments.

The Food Law Code of Practice (the Code), which is prepared by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and issued by my rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, provides statutory guidance to local authorities and Port Health Authorities responsible for the delivery of official food controls and other official activities. Within the Code is guidance for authorities on how to determine the frequency of official controls using a risk-based approach. Higher risk or non-compliant establishments receive a higher frequency of official control than lower risk, compliant establishments.The FSA has recently consulted upon a revised Code which included proposals to introduce and develop flexibilities available to authorities. These can help support more focus on higher risk or non-compliant food establishments. The FSA aims to lay the revised Code in autumn 2025. The FSA also continues to work across Government and with local authority partners to ensure food safety regulation remains proportionate and effective.

Communities and Local Government, what information they hold on the number of workdays that were completed remotely in their Department in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

This information is not held centrally and can only be collated at a disproportionate cost to the department.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, which countries were the top 5 recipients of international climate finance from the UK in each of the last 3 years; and how much each of these countries received.

For detail on live programme information please refer to the UK Government's Development Tracker or for the official source of information on UK Official Development Assistance spend covering previous calendar years, the Statistics on International Development publication.

Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what information they hold on the number of workdays that were completed remotely in their Department in (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 to date.

The Department does not centrally record the number of remote workdays completed. However, building occupancy data is published monthly by the Cabinet Office and provides an indicative measure of office attendance across government departments. The latest figures are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-hq-occupancy-data/monthly-average-hq-building-occupancy.

What assessment she has made of the potential impact of trends in the number of foreign nationals claiming Universal Credit on future (a) public spending and (b) taxation.

The Department takes into account migration trends and benefit entitlement conditions when producing twice-yearly benefit expenditure and caseload forecasts as part of the fiscal event process, but these forecasts do not break down expenditure by nationality. These were last updated in 23 April 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/benefit-expenditure-tables