Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether payments received by a surrogate mother in the UK are treated as income for the purposes of benefits assessments.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Surrogacy payments in the United Kingdom should only be for reasonable expenses. They are not taken into account as income for Universal Credit purposes. If any of the surrogacy payment is unspent in the period it is paid for, then this can be treated as capital if not spent by the end of the next assessment period. The normal capital rules apply to the build-up of unspent income if capital exceeds £6,000.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the increase in the number of children entering the UK who have been born through surrogacy in countries where commercial surrogacy operates on the UK's not-for-profit surrogacy framework.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made an assessment of the potential impact of the increase in the number of children entering the United Kingdom who have been born through surrogacy in countries where commercial surrogacy operates, on the UK's not-for-profit surrogacy framework.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office have published advice for those considering surrogacy overseas, which is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/surrogacy-overseas/surrogacy-overseas
This clearly sets out the possible risks and the processes for returning to the UK with a child born through an international surrogacy arrangement.
The Department Health and Social Care does not hold any information on trends in the number of children born via surrogacy abroad, in particular in Kazakhstan and Nigeria.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on trends in the number of children born via surrogacy abroad, in particular in (a) Kazakhstan and (b) Nigeria.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made an assessment of the potential impact of the increase in the number of children entering the United Kingdom who have been born through surrogacy in countries where commercial surrogacy operates, on the UK's not-for-profit surrogacy framework.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office have published advice for those considering surrogacy overseas, which is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/surrogacy-overseas/surrogacy-overseas
This clearly sets out the possible risks and the processes for returning to the UK with a child born through an international surrogacy arrangement.
The Department Health and Social Care does not hold any information on trends in the number of children born via surrogacy abroad, in particular in Kazakhstan and Nigeria.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the role that small, high‑harm online platforms play in hosting antisemitic content that is subsequently amplified by larger platforms.
Answered by Kanishka Narayan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Antisemitic content is divisive, hateful and has no place online. The government expects Ofcom to use its full powers in the Online Safety Act to tackle it.
Antisemitic material that meets the criminal threshold is illegal content, and the Act’s duties apply to all regulated services, regardless of size.
To address risks from smaller platforms, Ofcom has established a ‘small but risky’ supervision taskforce. This focuses on identifying smaller services posing severe risks, engaging with them, assessing compliance and escalating concerns to Ofcom’s Enforcement team.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients have reported adverse outcomes following rectopexy mesh procedures in the last ten years; and whether his Department has considered those cases in determining eligibility for mesh-related redress schemes.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Up to and including the 16 March 2026, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has received a total of 3,303 adverse incident reports. Please note that this search was conducted across all relevant brands, models, and manufacturers associated with the Global Medical Device Nomenclature CT codes listed above and the data is not linked to specific procedures. As such, the data provided will include reports concerning mesh used in a range of different surgical applications, not limited to rectopexy. It is important to note that this data does not directly correlate to the number of United Kingdom procedures undertaken in the UK.
Adverse incident reports are not a direct measure of the number of individual patients affected, as the same incident, or user, may be reported multiple times and duplicates cannot always be reliably linked, and figures may also include cases drawn from published literature and may change slightly as further details are received. Reports may describe recognised complications, and their inclusion does not establish causation or fault with any particular device, so the data should not be interpreted as a summary of known or proven adverse reactions.
The Government is carefully considering the work by the Patient Safety Commissioner and her report, which set out options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh. The abovementioned data will form part of the Department’s considerations regarding a redress scheme.