Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps HMRC is taking to improve the responsiveness and consistency of its telephone customer service.

Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)

Improving day-to-day performance is a key priority for HMRC.

HMRC are investing in new technology to improve their telephony services. Last year, they launched procurement for a new Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform which will significantly enhance the customer experience.

They are also expanding their digital services. HMRC online services and the HMRC app are convenient to access and receive high customer satisfaction ratings.

As more people use HMRC digital services, HMRC’s customer service advisers are freed up to support those who are digitally excluded, have complex tax affairs, or find themselves in vulnerable circumstances.

HMRC’s Transformation Roadmap sets out further steps to improve the customer experience for taxpayers, agents, and businesses. The Roadmap can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-transformation-roadmap

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has had with the Scottish Government regarding the availability and UK-wide supply of flu and RSV vaccines this winter; and what steps are being taken at a UK level to support devolved administrations in managing winter pressures related to respiratory illness.

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

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) works closely with flu vaccine manufacturers and suppliers to maintain high level oversight of the overall United Kingdom supply of flu vaccine for adults. This enables early identification and mitigation of potential risks to programme delivery, such as constraints in dose availability or delays to deliveries.

The UKHSA procures the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine and the live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV), which is the primary vaccine used in the children’s flu programme, on a UK wide basis. As such, the UKHSA liaises regularly with all devolved nations, including the Scottish administration, on procurement activities and supply arrangements for these vaccines.

Both the RSV vaccine and LAIV are available for Scottish Health Boards to order via the UKHSA’s online ordering platform, ImmForm, ensuring consistent access across the UK.

Ensuring timely and reliable access to flu and RSV vaccines is a key part of reducing the burden of respiratory illness over the winter period, helping to limit avoidable hospital admissions and support health systems, including those in devolved administrations, in managing winter pressures.

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the Defence Industrial Strategy on employment and skills in Scotland; and what steps are being taken to ensure defence procurement supports jobs and economic growth across all parts of the United Kingdom.

Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

The Defence Industrial Strategy is already having a significant impact on employment and skills in Scotland. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) spent more than £2.1 billion with industry in Scotland in the last financial year alone, backing almost 12,000 skilled jobs and highlighting Scotland as a backbone for defence of the UK - from the home to our nuclear deterrent, to boasting a long-term pipeline of major international military shipbuilding.

This is illustrated by the deal to supply Norway with Type 26 frigates, the biggest ever warship export deal by value, that will support 4,000 jobs across the UK supply chain, including more than 2,000 at BAE Systems’ Glasgow shipyards. The Scotland Defence Growth Deal and the defence industry skills package that was also announced in the Defence Industrial Strategy will support even more employment and skills opportunities in Scotland.

The Defence Industrial Strategy sets out our commitment to revamp our procurement framework, delivering a comprehensive review of defence contracting to incentivise productivity and improve delivery. This includes our new segmented approach to procurement that is enabling the MOD to tailor its acquisition processes to the type of capability, supplier and risk involved, as well as measures aimed at making it easier for SMEs to do business with the MOD. All of these initiatives will have benefits for jobs and economic growth across the UK, including in Scotland.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on the development of the new Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy; and how her Department is working with devolved governments, including the Scottish Government, to ensure effective coordination on prevention, perpetrator interventions and data sharing.

Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

“Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls”, was published on 18 December 2025. It sets out the strategic direction and concrete actions to prevent violence and abuse, pursue perpetrators, and support victims, and to deliver our unprecedented commitment to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade.

We have engaged with the Welsh Government, Scottish Government, and Northern Ireland Executive in the development of the Strategy.

Each Devolved Government has its own strategy, and ours has been informed by best practices drawn from the approaches of all three jurisdictions, including Equally Safe, Scotland’s strategy to prevent and eradicate VAWG, the Northern Ireland Ending VAWG Strategic Framework, and Wales’s Strategy for Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence. We are committed to sharing learning and best practice to make our work complementary, and this includes sharing data. VAWG is a national and international emergency, and we will continue working with all devolved governments to ensure a coordinated UK-wide response.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of UK Government measures to reduce child poverty on children in Scotland; and how he is working with the Scottish Government to complement devolved policies and support progress towards Scotland’s statutory child poverty targets.

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

We estimate that removing the two-child limit alongside other measures in the Child Poverty Strategy, published on 5 December, will lift 550,000 children out of poverty across the whole of the UK, leading to the largest expected reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since comparable records began.

Removing the two-child limit from April 2026 will alone reduce child poverty across the UK by 450,000 in the final year of parliament and could benefit 95,000 children living in households in Scotland impacted by the policy.

We have published the UK wide impacts for the Child Poverty Strategy here: Child Poverty Strategy: Impact on low income poverty levels and children gaining in the UK: December 2025.

We are committed to continued collaboration with the Devolved Governments to tackle child poverty across the UK. As set out in our Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, published alongside the Child Poverty Strategy, we will continue to work closely with them to consider how best to feed into their own findings to track progress at both the local and national level.

Falkirk Foodbank SCIO

Recognition of Helix Park gardener at Green Flag Awards

Carmuirs Primary School awarded SportScotland Gold Award

Roots in Falkirk

Denny High School pupils represent Falkirk at Franco-British Youth Ocean Conference

Falkirk Braes Grange Centre

68 Is Too Late report by the Prison Officers' Association

Palestine Action hunger strike

International sport and alleged United States violations of international law

Climate Finance Fund (Fossil Fuels and Pollution) Bill