Asked by: Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total cost to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) of the Data and Analytics Research Environments UK research programme; how much if any in additional funds that programme has received from non-UKRI sources; and how much of those funds were finally spent, and by which UK universities or organisations, at the end of the institutional funding chain.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Data and Analytics Research Environments UK (DARE UK) programme is funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and co-delivered by Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) and Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK) who jointly oversee programme delivery.
The Medical Research Council (MRC), which is part of UKRI, has provided £24.4m since 2021 to the DARE UK research programme. This was allocated from the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure (DRIC) fund. Funding has been awarded to a range of projects led by over 28 research organisations.
Details of recipient organisations are available at GtR.ukri.org.
A list of the DARE UK Early Adopters (projects supporting the testing and integration of capabilities in UK Trusted Research Environments) awarded by the DARE UK team are available at dareuk.org.uk.
Final spend figures for on-going projects will be confirmed in due course via DARE UK (Data and Analytics Research Environments UK) – HDR UK.
Asked by: Stuart Anderson (Conservative - South Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help support (a) innovation and (b) collaboration in improving public health outcomes in rural areas.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Upper and single tier local authorities have a statutory duty to take steps to improve the health of local people. Under this duty, local authorities commission a range of public health services and are responsible for determining the most effective approaches to the delivery of these services, taking account of different local needs, including the needs of rural areas. This can include testing new approaches to service delivery, implementing technology-based interventions or improving data analytics to better understand population health. In 2025/26, we provided funding of £3.884 billion to local authorities for their public health duty, through the Public Health Grant. This is an average 6.1% cash increase, or 3.4% real terms increase, compared to 2024/25.
NHS England is responsible for commissioning further specified public health services, including national immunisation and screening programmes. The 10-Year Health Plan signaled innovative approaches in these public health services, including a transformed NHS app that will be linked with screening programmes allowing individuals to receive reminders and book appointments online for breast, cervical and bowel cancer screening. Working with integrated care boards, commissioning of these services should also take account of local needs, including the different urban and rural characteristics of communities.
The 10-Year Health Plan also announced that, from 2026, we will set the expectation that every single or upper tier local authority participates in an external public health peer review exercise, on a five-year cycle, with the results directly informing local plans. These will support local government to improve public health services, including those in rural areas, through sharing innovations and adopting best practices.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking explore potential (a) genomics and (b) AI opportunities for (i) preventing, (ii) diagnosing and (iii) treating bowel cancer.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will use genomics, predictive analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to shift from sickness to prevention, enabling earlier diagnosis and personalised care.
The National Health Service Genomic Medicine Service provides equitable access to cancer genomic testing, guided by the National Genomic Test Directory, which includes over 200 cancer indications. NHS England’s Cancer Genomics Improvement Programme is delivering quality improvement initiatives and establishing Cellular Pathology Genomic Centres to streamline clinical pathways and accelerate genomic testing.
In addition, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department of Health and Social Care fund research via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) into AI applications for cancer diagnosis. This includes the £21 million AI Diagnostic Fund, the £10 million Cancer Data-Driven Detection programme, and the £11 million Early Detection using Information Technology in Health Trial.
The Office for Life Sciences (OLS) is also funding the £11 million NIHR i4i/OLS Cancer Healthcare Goals: Early Cancer Diagnosis Clinical Validation and Evaluation programme, which includes a project to assess a breath test technology's effectiveness by using AI for gastrointestinal cancers in over 8,000 patients (including bowel cancer). AI offers significant opportunities for faster triage and improved outcomes, and evaluations of its impact are ongoing.
Asked by: Lord Kamall (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what opportunities they have identified in the NHS 10 Year Plan for the expansion of the NHS Genomic Medicine Service in relation to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will shift from sickness to prevention. As part of this, we will harness the combination of genomics, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence to usher in a new era for secondary prevention. The National Health Service, in partnership with Our Future Health, will trial the use of Integrated Risk Scores, which combine genomic, lifestyle, and health data, within the newly announced neighbourhood health services. Initially focused on cardiovascular disease and diabetes, the programme will expand to includes breast, bowel, and prostate cancer, with other diseases such as glaucoma, osteoporosis, and dementia under consideration. This marks a major step toward routine genetic testing in preventive care, enabling earlier and more personalised interventions.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he plans to take steps to prevent commercial entities acting as digital ID verifiers from using verification data for (a) marketing, (b) analytics and (c) employment profiling.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government will conduct a full public consultation on the new digital ID to inform our approach. We are currently exploring best practice from other countries with digital identity schemes and other private sector companies who have digitised their services in order to develop the set of proposals to take to public consultation.
The Government has been clear that privacy and security will be hard-wired into the system from the start, and user control will be central to plans. It will operate to best practice standards for security and privacy.
This includes established standards for cyber security, counter-fraud and data storage, and following all existing UK legislation.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will set how the Public Sector Fraud Authority is working with local authorities to prevent fraud at the local level.
Answered by Josh Simons - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Public Sector Fraud Authority (PSFA) works closely with local authorities to prevent fraud through the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), which is one of the PSFA’s key data and analytics services.
The NFI specialises in data matching, which involves comparing sets of data electronically, such as the council tax records of an authority, against other records held by the same or another authority, to see to what extent they match.
The NFI is vital in tackling fraud in local authority spending. This includes the removal of fraudsters from social housing properties, ensuring they go to those families in genuine need, and cracking down on blue badge fraud - of which 22,000 fraudulent permits were cancelled in the last year alone. It also has a strong record of delivering outcomes for local authorities. To date, the NFI has detected, prevented and recovered over £3bn in fraud and error.
The NFI is collaborating closely with local authorities to tackle fraud in other areas of local spending. For example, the introduction of the Legislative Reform (Disclosure of Adult Social Care Data) Order 2025, will once again ensure that fraud in adult social care spending can be identified and investigated by local authorities.
Asked by: Ben Obese-Jecty (Conservative - Huntingdon)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 47 of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, published on 8 July 2025, what recent progress he has made on implementing the core digital platform for the warfighter.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The fundamental capabilities of the core common platform set out within the Strategic Defence Review already exist and are being used today; however, they are not at the scale or delivering the integrated and innovative capabilities at the speed required to support the Integrated Force model.
Progress is continuously being made. In September 2025, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Palantir (link) which will help the UK military develop the latest digital tools and harness Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to accelerate decision making, improve targeting and keep the nation safe from evolving threats. A contract with Google was also signed (link) to ensure that MOD has access to the latest technology developed by Google Cloud, including AI, data analytics, and cyber security, and will be used by defence intelligence and national security specialists to share secure information between our partners and outcompete our adversaries.
Asked by: Callum Anderson (Labour - Buckingham and Bletchley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what criteria HMRC will use to prioritise enforcement on high-risk tax areas.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC uses a risk-based approach to identify individuals and businesses for investigation, applying civil and criminal powers to tackle avoidance, evasion, and error. In 2024–25, this approach helped protect an estimated £48 billion in tax revenue.
Its Strategic Picture of Risk combines data analytics and expert insight to assess key compliance risks. This informs HMRC’s planning, resource allocation, and case selection, using data from tax returns and third-party sources (e.g. banks, online platforms, other departments).
Compliance activity is tailored to taxpayer groups such as large businesses, individuals, and suspected tax avoiders or criminals. HMRC prioritises interventions based on their wider impact on tax compliance, economic objectives, and societal harm. HMRC’s compliance approach, Prevent, Promote and Respond, focuses on preventing non-compliance from happening in the first place, and helping customers get their tax right before they submit their return or claim.
Asked by: James Cartlidge (Conservative - South Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to recommendation 15 of the Strategic Defence Review: Making Britain Safer: secure at home, strong abroad, published on 2 June 2025, how many recommendations he plans to make by October 2025 to help tackle (a) structural, (b) behavioural and (c) leadership barriers to the creation of a more (i) representative and (ii) meritocratic workforce by June 2026.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
Raising our Standards has been established by Defence to address structural, behavioural, and leadership barriers. This work is key to operational delivery, recruitment, retention and driving forward an inclusive and safe culture. Raising our Standards has planned initiatives under five pillars: communications and influencing behaviour change, data and analytics, 100% action when tackling unacceptable behaviours, streamlined education and training, and developing world-class leaders.
In response to recommendation 15 of the Strategic Defence Review regarding independent oversight of implementation, Raising our Standards is working to implement a refreshed External Challenge Panel by October 2025.
Asked by: Martin Wrigley (Liberal Democrat - Newton Abbot)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what comparative assessment she has made of the effectiveness of IT systems used by (a) Companies House and (b) HMRC.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
No comparative assessment has been completed of the IT systems. HMRC and Companies House have a joint commitment on sharing data and analytics to tackle corporate fraud relating to accounting and registration services.