Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the UN report entitled A/HRC/59/23: From economy of occupation to economy of genocide - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, published on 16 June 2025, what steps he is taking to raise concerns on the accusations contained within the report with (a) UK-based companies and (b) companies with UK government contracts listed in the report.

Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office

It is the long-standing policy of successive British Governments that judgement as to whether genocide has occurred is for a competent national or international court. Genocide is a crime and whether it has occurred should be decided after consideration of all the evidence available in the context of a credible judicial process.

The UK Government is committed to upholding international law and promoting human rights in all its operations, including procurement. We expect all suppliers to uphold the highest of ethical standards and to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.

Public sector procurement is subject to a legal framework set out by the Procurement Act 2023 which came into force in February 2025. Individual contracting authorities are responsible for their own procurement and contract award decisions under the Act.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the recent UN report A/HRC/59/23 entitled, From economy of occupation to economy of genocide - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, published on 16 June 2025, whether his Department will consider updating procurement processes to ensure companies implicated in genocide do not receive (a) public money and (b) Government contracts.

Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office

It is the long-standing policy of successive British Governments that judgement as to whether genocide has occurred is for a competent national or international court. Genocide is a crime and whether it has occurred should be decided after consideration of all the evidence available in the context of a credible judicial process.

The UK Government is committed to upholding international law and promoting human rights in all its operations, including procurement. We expect all suppliers to uphold the highest of ethical standards and to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.

Public sector procurement is subject to a legal framework set out by the Procurement Act 2023 which came into force in February 2025. Individual contracting authorities are responsible for their own procurement and contract award decisions under the Act.

Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the UN report entitled A/HRC/59/23: From economy of occupation to economy of genocide - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, published on 16 June 2025, whether he is taking steps to review contracts with companies listed in the report.

Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office

It is the long-standing policy of successive British Governments that judgement as to whether genocide has occurred is for a competent national or international court. Genocide is a crime and whether it has occurred should be decided after consideration of all the evidence available in the context of a credible judicial process.

The UK Government is committed to upholding international law and promoting human rights in all its operations, including procurement. We expect all suppliers to uphold the highest of ethical standards and to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.

Public sector procurement is subject to a legal framework set out by the Procurement Act 2023 which came into force in February 2025. Individual contracting authorities are responsible for their own procurement and contract award decisions under the Act.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a working time council to explore the wider implementation of a four-day working across the economy.

Answered by Justin Madders

A four-day week is an example of a flexible working arrangement. All employees have the right to request flexible working, and we are changing legislation through the Employment Rights Bill to make it more likely that feasible requests are accepted.

The government continues to monitor the impacts of flexible working. As the full results of the latest four-day week trial have not yet been published, it has not been possible to determine any implications for business productivity or government policy.

Employers considering changes in working practices can draw on flexible working guidance on gov.uk and the Help to Grow website, as well as the new Business Growth Service which will launch shortly.

As we have no plans to mandate a four-day week, government is not planning to establish a working time council or business forum focussed on this topic. Our priority is to consult with and support businesses and employees with the planned changes to the flexible working measures as part of the wider Plan to Make Work Pay.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what assessment he has made of the productivity outcomes of the latest four-day week pilot facilitated by the 4 Day Week Foundation.

Answered by Justin Madders

A four-day week is an example of a flexible working arrangement. All employees have the right to request flexible working, and we are changing legislation through the Employment Rights Bill to make it more likely that feasible requests are accepted.

The government continues to monitor the impacts of flexible working. As the full results of the latest four-day week trial have not yet been published, it has not been possible to determine any implications for business productivity or government policy.

Employers considering changes in working practices can draw on flexible working guidance on gov.uk and the Help to Grow website, as well as the new Business Growth Service which will launch shortly.

As we have no plans to mandate a four-day week, government is not planning to establish a working time council or business forum focussed on this topic. Our priority is to consult with and support businesses and employees with the planned changes to the flexible working measures as part of the wider Plan to Make Work Pay.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether his Department plans to support a structured forum for businesses to share learning on reduced-hour models.

Answered by Justin Madders

A four-day week is an example of a flexible working arrangement. All employees have the right to request flexible working, and we are changing legislation through the Employment Rights Bill to make it more likely that feasible requests are accepted.

The government continues to monitor the impacts of flexible working. As the full results of the latest four-day week trial have not yet been published, it has not been possible to determine any implications for business productivity or government policy.

Employers considering changes in working practices can draw on flexible working guidance on gov.uk and the Help to Grow website, as well as the new Business Growth Service which will launch shortly.

As we have no plans to mandate a four-day week, government is not planning to establish a working time council or business forum focussed on this topic. Our priority is to consult with and support businesses and employees with the planned changes to the flexible working measures as part of the wider Plan to Make Work Pay.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to support businesses transitioning to a four-day working week.

Answered by Justin Madders

A four-day week is an example of a flexible working arrangement. All employees have the right to request flexible working, and we are changing legislation through the Employment Rights Bill to make it more likely that feasible requests are accepted.

The government continues to monitor the impacts of flexible working. As the full results of the latest four-day week trial have not yet been published, it has not been possible to determine any implications for business productivity or government policy.

Employers considering changes in working practices can draw on flexible working guidance on gov.uk and the Help to Grow website, as well as the new Business Growth Service which will launch shortly.

As we have no plans to mandate a four-day week, government is not planning to establish a working time council or business forum focussed on this topic. Our priority is to consult with and support businesses and employees with the planned changes to the flexible working measures as part of the wider Plan to Make Work Pay.

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the four-day week pilot facilitated by the 4 Day Week Foundation.

Answered by Justin Madders

A four-day week is an example of a flexible working arrangement. All employees have the right to request flexible working, and we are changing legislation through the Employment Rights Bill to make it more likely that feasible requests are accepted.

The government continues to monitor the impacts of flexible working. As the full results of the latest four-day week trial have not yet been published, it has not been possible to determine any implications for business productivity or government policy.

Employers considering changes in working practices can draw on flexible working guidance on gov.uk and the Help to Grow website, as well as the new Business Growth Service which will launch shortly.

As we have no plans to mandate a four-day week, government is not planning to establish a working time council or business forum focussed on this topic. Our priority is to consult with and support businesses and employees with the planned changes to the flexible working measures as part of the wider Plan to Make Work Pay.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has considered creating a national identity card system.

Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Home Office keeps all aspects of the immigration system under regular review, in consultation with a wide range of experts and stakeholders.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to eradicate destitution by 2035.

Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

The Government is committed to tackling poverty, including deep poverty across the UK.

The Child Poverty Taskforce is developing an ambitious child poverty strategy which we will publish in the autumn. The Strategy will look at levers across four key themes of increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience; and better local support especially in the early years. This will build on the reform plans underway across government and work underway in Devolved Governments.

Good work can significantly reduce the chances of people falling into poverty so this will be the foundation of our approach to delivering lasting change, as reflected in the proposals in our plan for Making Work Pay and our Get Britain Working White Paper. We have also commenced reviewing Universal Credit to make sure it is doing the job we want it to do, to make work pay and tackle poverty. We have begun this work by introducing a Fair Repayment Rate for deductions from Universal Credit and announcing the first sustained above inflation rise in the basic rate of Universal Credit since it was introduced.

As a significant downpayment ahead of strategy publication, we have already taken substantive action across major drivers of child poverty through the Spending Review 2025. This includes an expansion of Free School Meals that will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the parliament, establishing a long-term Crisis and Resilience Fund supported by £1bn a year including Barnett impact, investing in local family support services, and extending the £3 bus fare cap. We also announced the biggest boost to social and affordable housing investment in a generation and £13.2bn including Barnett impact across the Parliament for the Warm Homes Plan.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he plans to make an assessment of the potential impact of AI on working hours across sectors.

Answered by Feryal Clark

The Government is working to harness the benefits that AI can bring in terms of economic growth, productivity gains, rising living standards, and improved worker wellbeing; while mitigating the risks. The Government is planning for a range of plausible outcomes and closely monitoring the data that will help us track and prepare for these. We will continue to work closely with other government departments through the AI Opportunities Action Plan to ensure we shape AI to deliver economic prosperity for the UK.

Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the potential for AI-driven productivity gains to support reduced working hours without loss of pay.

Answered by Feryal Clark

The Government is working to harness the benefits that AI can bring in terms of economic growth, productivity gains, rising living standards, and improved worker wellbeing; while mitigating the risks. The Government is planning for a range of plausible outcomes and closely monitoring the data that will help us track and prepare for these. We will continue to work closely with other government departments through the AI Opportunities Action Plan to ensure we shape AI to deliver economic prosperity for the UK.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2025 to Question 63048 on Blood: Donors, whether he will provide a breakdown of the top 10 countries travelled to by the 4,493 donors deferred due to travel.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for blood donation in England. NHSBT has confirmed that they do not hold the requested data.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit decisions made using (a) automated and (b) AI-assisted systems have been overturned on appeal since 2020.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

No Artificial Intelligence is currently deployed to make decisions regarding benefit entitlement or value in isolation. There is automation in some benefit processes but decisions regarding entitlement and value will have a human decision maker involved.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department collects data on (a) errors and (b) false positives arising from algorithmic fraud detection tools.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP is committed to processing data lawfully, proportionately, and ethically, with meaningful human input and safeguards in place to protect individuals. “Algorithmic fraud detection tool” is not a term we use in DWP however, the department develops, tests, and invests in advanced analytics to support the detection of fraud and error. Currently, the UC Advances model is the only machine learning model deployed at scale in live service. On the 17^th July, the Department published a fairness assessment of the UC Advances model, which includes consideration of the model’s performance. The model remains an effective fraud prevention control, performing approximately three times better than a control group in identifying high-risk advances.

Fairness assessment including statistical analysis of the Universal Credit advances machine learning model: 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025 - GOV.UK

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to ensure (a) transparency and (b) accountability in its use of AI systems in public services.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

We have AI governance in place to ensure we use AI in a safe, ethical, and transparent way. DWP is committed to publishing details of its use of algorithms against the cross-Government Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard (ATRS). We ensure our generative AI tools can trace outputs back to the source data so that humans can understand how the output has been created. Outputs from our use of AI technology are traceable for governance purposes.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether benefit claimants are informed when their claims are assessed using algorithmic tools.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP’s Personal Information Charter (PIC) (Personal information charter - Department for Work and Pensions - GOV.UK) outlines how DWP processes personal data related to and its use of both Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automated Decision Making (ADM).

DWP does not use AI to replace human judgement to determine or deny a payment to a claimant.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of its use of algorithmic decision-making tools on levels of risk of (a) bias and (b) discrimination.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

DWP is committed to regularly assessing AI use in the Department to ensure it meets business needs, is quality assured, and does not lead to a risk of discrimination or harm. In some areas, the Department uses automated decision-making to make benefit awards, but AI is not used as part of that process. DWP has a legal requirement to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place when carrying out automated decision-making or the use of AI, using tools such as Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) and fairness assessments to highlight any potential bias or discrimination risks associated with AI and automation. The Department carries out regular checks to ensure our systems are working as intended.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether any of the algorithmic systems used by her Department are subject to independent oversight.

Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Department is committed to publishing details of its use of complex algorithms in line with the cross-Government Algorithmic Transparency Reporting Standard (ATRS). We also engage with external bodies, such as the Information Commissioner's Office, the National Audit Office, and Parliament as required.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 2 July 2025 to Question 63048 on Blood: Donors, what the ethnic breakdown is of the 4,493 donors deferred due to travel; and what this is as a proportion of (a) total deferrals and (b) total deferrals per ethnic group.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for collecting blood donations across England, in order to fulfil hospital requests to meet patient need.

From 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2025, a total of 4,493 donors deferred due to travel. The following table shows the ethnic breakdown of these deferrals as a proportion of (a) total deferrals and (b) total deferrals per ethnic group:

Source: NHSBT’s centrally held administrative systems, extracted 27 June 2025.

Note: *Any other ethnic group includes Gypsy or Irish Traveller and Roma to comply with small number suppression.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the UN report entitled A/HRC/59/23: From economy of occupation to economy of genocide - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, published on 16 June 2025, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the report on (a) UK-based companies and (b) companies with UK government contracts listed in the report.

Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

No formal assessment has been made. We are of the clear view that Israel must fully respect International Humanitarian Law and should bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) as rapidly as possible - this must be done in a way that creates the conditions for negotiations towards the two-state solution. The UK Government has a clear position that Israeli settlements in the OPTs are illegal under international law. Goods from illegal Israeli settlements are not eligible for tariff or trade preferences under UK agreements with Israel or the Palestinian Authority. The UK does not support economic or financial activities in these settlements due to associated risks. Businesses are advised to seek legal counsel before engaging in such activities. Official guidance on handling goods from Israel and the OPTs is available on gov.uk to help UK operators make informed decisions.

Job reductions at news publisher Reach plc

Skilled Worker Visa eligibility rules and transport workers

Global Sumud Flotilla

Sanctions on Israel and International Court of Justice findings

Digital-only immigration status

Armed Forces Training Contract and Elbit Systems

Baby loss kits

Companion bus passes for the disabled

Strike action in the Parliamentary Security Department

Oscar Mayer workers in Wrexham

Arrest of protestors in Liverpool

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Found: _NC23 Marsha De Cordova Bell Ribeiro-Addy Emma Lewell Kim Johnson Dame Meg Hillier .

Found: _NC24 Marsha De Cordova Bell Ribeiro-Addy Emma Lewell Kim Johnson Dame Meg Hillier .