Written Statements

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Written Statements

Wednesday 10 June 2026

Bovine TB Control in England

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Dame Angela Eagle)]

Today, I can inform the House of the publication of the co-designed bovine tuberculosis control strategy for England, developed and recommended by the steering group of the Bovine TB Partnership. It is now available on the Government-industry TB Hub website.

We said in our manifesto that we would work with farmers and scientists on measures to eradicate bovine TB, and that is exactly what this process has done. The recommended strategy reflects the contribution of farmers, vets, scientists, industry representatives, and members of the public, brought together through several dedicated working groups and public dialogue workshops.

I want to place on record my thanks to all those who took part, giving their time, their expertise, and their experience to help shape this work.

Bovine TB remains one of the most difficult and persistent animal health challenges we face. We know the toll it takes, not only on cattle but on farmers, their families, vets, and rural communities. Too many have lived with that burden for too long.

We must also recognise that bovine TB is a deeply contested and often polarised issue, particularly around wildlife and the role of badgers in disease spread. Let me be clear: the badger cull is ending, and no new licences can be issued under that policy, as we instead keep the focus on cattle while also protecting wildlife.

When we announced the co-design of a new strategy in August 2024, this Government committed to end the badger cull by the end of this Parliament, and we have made good on that commitment.

The 2025 culling season marked the final year of industry-led culling in England’s high risk and edge areas. Today, just one licence remains in Cumbria in the low risk area. However, no decision has been taken by Natural England to authorise culling under that licence in 2026, and I understand that the licence will be formally revoked by it, with a transition to badger vaccination now under way.

Against that backdrop, I welcome the steering group’s recommended strategy. It sets out a clear direction, and what we now need to deliver: reducing TB in cattle, improving early detection, giving farmers and vets more agency to manage disease risk, strengthening biosecurity, and keeping a firm focus on the long-term prize of achieving officially bovine TB free status for England by 2038.

This goal matters. It means lifting the shadow of this disease from farming families, restoring confidence for the future, growing the rural economy, and supporting profitable, resilient farm businesses.

The publication today is an important step forward. It responds directly to the challenge set by Professor Sir Charles Godfray and his panel to increase the pace and urgency of our efforts. Crucially, it also sets a clear ambition to deploy a cattle vaccine and a DIVA—detect infected among vaccinated animals—test by 2030. A licence application for the vaccine has already been submitted to the Veterinary Medicines Directorate.

The Government will now consider the steering group’s proposals carefully, and we will do so at pace. We will continue to work closely with farmers, vets, scientists and industry partners to move swiftly from recommendation to delivery, so that the momentum we have begun is not lost.

Our intention is therefore to translate this strategy into action without delay, through a series of rolling three to five year delivery plans that ensure progress is sustained, transparent, and felt on the ground.

I will update the House further in due course.

[HCWS103]

Orphines: Temporary Class Drug Order

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Written Statements

[The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)]

Tackling illegal drugs is key to delivering this Government’s missions by making our streets safer, improving our nation’s health, breaking down barriers to opportunities for all and supporting economic growth.

In the last year orphines, a class of lethal synthetic opioids, have emerged in the UK. The National Crime Agency and Office for Health Improvement and Disparities have reported that in England alone there have been more than 15 confirmed deaths in which orphines were involved since the spring of 2025. The OHID’s National Drug Treatment Monitoring System data shows that 12 of these were in the period September to December 2025, including five in December.

I am today laying a temporary class drug order before Parliament, under section 2A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. This will control seven named orphines. Three of the seven have been identified as being involved in deaths in the UK; the other four were notified by the EU Drugs Agency as being present in EU drugs markets. This is in line with a recommendation from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, for whose recent report on orphines I am grateful.

The TCDO will make it easier for law enforcement to take action against those supplying orphines. It will make it a specific offence to supply, offer to supply, produce, possess with intent to supply, import or export these seven substances. The maximum sentence will be 14 years’ imprisonment.

The TCDO comes into force tomorrow, and lasts for a year, unless the substances named within it are, before then, permanently controlled under the 1971 Act. I intend to lay before Parliament in due course a draft Order in Council which would, if agreed by Parliament, enact such a permanent control by making these substances class A drugs.

These substances are not believed to have legitimate uses, but should someone need to make legitimate use of them, for example for research purposes, they will be able to apply to the Home Office for a licence.

We will continue to support law enforcement agencies in taking action against these and other harmful drugs, to protect our communities.

[HCWS105]

Belfast Attack: Further Information

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Hilary Benn)]

In my response to yesterday’s urgent question, I committed to provide the House with a further update on the facts surrounding the horrific attack in north Belfast on 8 June.

My thoughts remain with the victim and his family, and with the wider community, who have been left shaken by these brutal events.

The scenes of disorder that we witnessed in some parts of Northern Ireland last night were shameful. It has put innocent lives at risk, injured police officers and caused terror to people—forced to flee their homes by mobs of masked men. I know that the whole House will utterly condemn these attacks, the burning of cars and homes and the other related violence that we have seen. There is no justification at all for this type of thuggery.

I spoke with the chief constable yesterday and have seen him this morning in Belfast. I have extended my full support to the Police Service of Northern Ireland as it seeks to protect the public, and I have wished the officers injured in last night’s disturbances a speedy recovery.

The Home Office confirmed yesterday afternoon that the individual is a Sudanese national with leave to remain in the UK until 2028. He entered the UK in 2023 and was granted refugee status the same year. The suspect says that he travelled from mainland Europe to Dublin and then on to Belfast, where he claimed asylum.

The PSNI yesterday stated that it has no information to suggest that this was a terrorist-related incident.

The suspect was charged last night with attempted murder, possession of an article with a blade or point in a public place and threats to kill.

Although nationality, immigration and asylum are excepted matters under the devolution settlement, the Home Office maintains close co-operation with the Northern Ireland Executive. The Home Office operates the same range of immigration functions in Northern Ireland as it does across the rest of the United Kingdom.

Nearly 70,000 individuals were returned or removed from the UK between July 2024 and the end of March 2026. This represents a 41% increase on the number of returns recorded in the previous 21-month period.

Of the total returns in the year ending March 2026, nearly 5,900 were of foreign national offenders—an increase of 13% compared to 5,203 FNO returns in the previous year.

Foreign nationals who commit crimes should be under no illusion: the law will be strictly enforced and, where appropriate, we will pursue deportation.

This attack was deeply shocking and public concern is understandable, but this moment requires calm leadership. We must stand united in rejecting any attempts to use this incident to incite violence, which, as we saw last night, only harms local communities. There is absolutely no excuse for further disorder and the route to justice will be achieved solely through the work of the PSNI and the legal system. I would encourage anyone with relevant information to contact the police.

[HCWS106]

Digital and Technologies Sector Plan

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Kanishka Narayan)]

I am repeating the following written ministerial statement made today in the other place by my noble Friend, the Minister of State for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear, Lord Vallance of Balham.

I am pleased to update the House on the publication of the “Digital and Technologies Sector Plan: Year One Update”. In June 2025, we published the sector plan—the UK’s first long-term plan to back the sectors and technologies of the future—as part of the Government’s modern industrial strategy. We set out a clear, ambitious, 10-year vision: to make the UK one of the top three places in the world to create, invest in and scale up a fast-growing technology business by 2035. We are working to secure the UK’s first trillion-dollar technology company.

The implementation update we are publishing today sets out our progress in delivering on the commitments set out in our sector plan, and where we have expanded our ambition, across the following areas:

Unlocking economy-wide measures to boost digital and technologies growth. The Government are providing end-to-end support for our sector’s innovative, high growth companies across the UK to underpin the UK’s growth, security and sovereignty. We have announced record public investment in R&D to back frontier technologies at the earliest stage, including committing nearly £4 billion of funding until 2029-30 through UK Research and Innovation. We have launched TechFirst, which has already reached over 100,000 young people, to grow our domestic skills pipeline for our six frontier technologies. We have expanded the British Business Bank’s mandate, with a new activist focus on scale-ups to back British deep tech champions, such as its recent £100 million investment in the UK based spinout, Oxford Quantum Circuits. We have introduced tax reforms to encourage frontier technology companies to start, scale and stay in the UK. And we are delivering world-class infrastructure, including the telecoms infrastructure that is fundamental to our digital economy.

Supporting our frontier technologies. The Government are taking an active and strategic approach to grow the UK’s technological capabilities. Earlier this year, we expanded and extended the engineering biology mission awards with £20 million of funding and delivered our third engineering biology accelerator programme in collaboration with Science Creates. We have launched Sovereign AI, a new sovereign venture fund which will invest £500 million to scale AI companies in the UK. This week we published the AI hardware plan to back British companies developing the chips and semiconductor technologies behind AI and invest in the scientists, engineers and technicians needed to turn new ideas into products and good jobs in the UK. We have published the cyber growth action plan to boost the UK cyber-security industry and we are scaling the national security strategic investment fund to invest in strategic dual-use science and technology companies. Expanding on our sector plan commitments, we announced up to £2 billion to establish the UK as a world-leader in quantum, including skills and talent, research, and a world-first commitment to procure large scale quantum computers in the early 2030s.

Growing the Digital and Technologies sector across the UK. The Government are committed to maximising the benefits of innovative technologies for communities across the country. We are backing places across the UK to build on their strengths, with support ranging from the local innovation partnership and global talent funds to the five digital and technology technical excellence colleges.

One year into delivery, we can already see this work is paying off. The UK alone has captured 48% of all European venture capital funding so far in 2026. Last year, digital and technologies companies received £8.3 billion of equity investment and strategic companies are choosing to anchor and scale in the UK.

We have made strong progress in the first year of delivery of the sector plan, but our ambitions do not stop here. Our update publication also outlines our next steps and where we will go further as we move into year two of our decade-long commitment to the sector. I look forward to further updating the House on our future delivery.

[HCWS104]