Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government which public offices in the United Kingdom are barred to individuals practising the Roman Catholic faith.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government recognises that there are historical restrictions in statute on Roman Catholic and Jewish people making and advising the Crown on Church appointments. The Government keeps this matter under review, but, given other pressing issues, this is not a current priority.
As the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the Sovereign must be in communion with the Anglican Communion. Individuals practising the Roman Catholic faith therefore cannot become Sovereign, Regent or a Counsellor of State.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to reduce persistent absences in schools.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Thanks to the work of the sector, persistent absence has fallen to 18.7% in the latest published data. Our world leading data collection and tools enable schools to identify earlier those pupils who are at risk of becoming persistently absent to intervene early.
The department has also expanded its attendance mentor programme, committing £15 million to provide one-to-one support for 10,800 pupils in local authorities with some of the poorest attendance rates in the country.
Breakfast Clubs have been rolled out to all primary schools since September 2025 to ensure that good habits and routines are established early in a child’s school life.
We have also started to establish RISE Attendance and Behaviour Hubs with £1.5 million of funding being made available this year, where up to 90 hubs led by schools with excellent attendance and behaviour practice will support more than 4,500 schools to improve.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will review the impact of the failure of supply by Amazon Web Services and identify how best to ensure the future resilience of essential national services.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is already working with departments to assess the high-level impacts of the outage, and will use the data gathered to inform future resilience plans for essential national services.
Government is also working to fully understand the broader impact of the outage. Under the Security of Network and Information Systems Regulations (2018) relevant digital service providers - including cloud providers like AWS - are required to have measures in place to boost the physical and cyber security and resilience of the systems they rely on to provide those services. The forthcoming Cyber Security & Resilience Bill will boost those protections and bring managed service providers and critical suppliers into scope.
DSIT will publish the Government Cyber Action Plan this Winter, which sets out a clear approach for Government and the public sector to manage cyber security and resilience incidents.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 23 July (HL9313), whether they can identify the reasons as to why London’s economy is 28.5 per cent more productive on average than the rest of the United Kingdom.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
Please see the letter below from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.
The Lord Birt
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
4 September 2025
Dear Lord Birt,
As Acting National Statistician, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 23 July (HL9313), whether the reasons as to why London’s economy is 28.5 per cent more productive on average than the rest of the United Kingdom can be identified (HL9939).
London is home to a high proportion of knowledge-intensive sectors such as financial services, insurance, and professional, scientific, and technical industries, all of which drive higher levels of productivity. There is evidence that London, like other major cities, benefits from an agglomeration effect, whereby the close proximity of a diverse mix of businesses, highly skilled labour, and major institutions fuels knowledge spillovers, collaboration, and innovation which enhance overall economic output. 1
London-based firms also consistently outperform their regional peers, even within the same industries, with firms benefitting from access to a large highly skilled labour market and a well-developed infrastructure and also from high competition between firms driving business dynamism.
This same pattern is found globally, with the largest cities typically having higher productivity levels compared with other areas due to these agglomeration impacts.
Yours sincerely,
Emma Rourke
1 https://whatworksgrowth.org/insights/understanding-agglomeration/
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications have been made by landlords for electric vehicle chargepoint grants and electric vehicle infrastructure grants, since the schemes were introduced; how many of these have been approved; what the total value of grants awarded has been; and how these figures compare with the estimated number of multi-dwelling residential buildings in the United Kingdom.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The EV chargepoint grant has had 2,102 applications for landlords since March 2022. This grant has seen 1,759 sockets installed with a corresponding grant value of £627,049 as of 1 July 2025.
In addition, the EV infrastructure grant has had 797 applications for landlords since March 2022. The grant has seen 2,310 sockets installed as of 1 July 2025 and has a grant value (including non-socket costs such as wiring) of £3,826,425. There are an additional 100 applications, 502 sockets installed, and £648,886 in grant value from either landlords or SMEs but which cannot be attributed to one or the other.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of vehicles used to transport ministers on official business are wholly electric.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government Car Service fleet is currently 39% wholly electric and a further 56% hybrid.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of suppliers to Government and to publicly-funded services have their invoices settled on the due date.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Government departments routinely publish the percentage of invoices paid within 5 and 30 days, and there is a requirement under the Procurement Act 2023 for invoices relating to public contracts to be paid within 30 days.
The most recent published data indicates that all departments pay at least 95% of invoices within 30 days and half of departments pay at least 99% within 30 days.
For publicly-funded services, we do not hold this data centrally at present. However, from 1 October, a new Payments Compliance Notice (under the Procurement Act 2023) will commence. This will require all contracting authorities to publish information every six months on the average number of days taken to pay invoices and the percentage of invoices paid within 30 days, 31-60 days, 61+ days.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the evidence presented by BBC Panorama that ketamine is openly advertised for sale on the internet, and delivered to the buyer speedily.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to tackling the supply of illegal drugs, including online, and the harms associated with their misuse.
Our County Lines Programme is targeting exploitative drug-dealing gangs while breaking the organised crime groups behind this trade. Between July 2024 and March 2025, law enforcement activity delivered through the Programme has resulted in more than 1,200 drug dealing lines closed and 2,000 arrests. In parallel, law enforcement agencies continue to target those facilitating the online sale of drugs. The National Crime Agency is working with partners in the UK and internationally to target offenders operating on open and dark-net markets, and to take down UK-based sites committing offences.
In addition, the Government has strengthened the regulatory framework to address online harms. The unlawful sale of controlled drugs online is a priority offence under the illegal content duties in the Online Safety Act 2023 and internet companies are legally required to implement measures to protect their users and to remove illegal content from their platforms, including that related to the sale of illegal drugs. Ofcom, as the independent regulator, is monitoring compliance with the regime.
Finally, the Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention wrote to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in January 2025 to request an updated assessment about ketamine, including advice on reducing harms. The ACMD is also reviewing internet-facilitated drugs markets. The Government will consider their advice carefully once received.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will commission and publish an integrated cross-departmental strategy for the development of an electric vehicle charge point network across the United Kingdom (1) covering the ready availability of charge points where people live and work, (2) ensuring that charge points are as simple to use as petrol pumps, and (3) covering the development of the National Grid to supply power to charge points where it is needed.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to accelerating the roll-out of affordable and accessible charging infrastructure so that everyone, no matter where they live or work, can make the transition to an electric vehicle. This includes improving availability including through the Local EV Infrastructure Fund and grants to support workplaces to provide charging infrastructure for their staff and fleets.
To ensure chargepoints are reliable and simple to use, the Public Charge Point Regulations have requirements for operators relating to contactless payments, open data, and roaming. These enable consumers to reliably locate, charge, and pay at public chargepoints.
We are also working with DESNZ and Ofgem to ensure the energy sector can support EV charging infrastructure. We are very confident the grid can support the increase in power supply to chargepoints and the wider transition to EVs.
Asked by: Lord Birt (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Hayman of Ullock on 23 July (HL9314), whether they will answer the question put, namely whether Natural England will provide financial compensation to cover the sunk costs of groups whose proposals for National Landscape status or extension of this status were under consideration, but where Natural England has announced it will now cease work on their bids.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Natural England is not required to provide compensation in this instance.