The Department funds health and care research via its research operational arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), across England. The Department is committed to ensuring that research is inclusive and representative of the population geographically and demographically. Inclusion is one of the top four priorities for the NIHR, reported against publicly in the NIHR Annual Report.

From November 2024 the Department made inclusion a condition of NIHR funding for all domestic research awards. All applicants must demonstrate how their research will address existing inequalities, including place-based inequalities in health and social care, and researchers will be held to account for delivering on their plans.

The Department does not allocate research funding on a per-head population basis. Funding decisions are made through open competition and peer review to ensure support for the highest-quality research. The NIHR’s funding committees prioritise research that addresses the most important health and care evidence gaps, with strong potential for impact, and also consider scientific excellence and value for money.

The Department, through the NIHR, is taking action to ensure health research funding across England by targeting research in areas with significant health inequalities, encouraging applications from a wider geographical spread of institutions, and investing in research capacity in underserved regions. This includes establishing Commercial Research Delivery Centres (CRDC), Primary Care CRDCs, Health Determinants Research Collaborations, and support for new medical schools, alongside a Research Delivery Network (RDN) that operates across all regions in England. From April 2026, a new national RDN funding model for research delivery support aims to reduce regional variation in investment and expand opportunities to participate in research across all parts of the country.

The Department funds health and care research via its research operational arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), across England. The Department is committed to ensuring that research is inclusive and representative of the population geographically and demographically. Inclusion is one of the top four priorities for the NIHR, reported against publicly in the NIHR Annual Report.

From November 2024, the Department made inclusion a condition of NIHR funding for all domestic research awards. All applicants must demonstrate how their research will address existing inequalities including place-based inequalities in health and social care, and researchers will be held to account for delivering on their plans. Application guidance for our expectations for inclusive research can be found at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/about-us/who-we-are/research-inclusion/funding-application-guidance

The NIHR also published Best Research for Best Health: The Next Chapter in 2021 which identified seven areas of strategic focus, one of which was bringing more research to under-served regions. Subsequently, the NIHR published a Research Inclusion Strategy (2022 – 2027) which includes reaching underserved geographic communities. Best Research for Best Health: The Next Chapter is available at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/best-research-best-health-next-chapter

Last year saw over 3,000 illegitimate premises raided and nearly 1,000 arrests, and I have provided £30 million of additional funding over the next three years to go even further. As a result, thousands more businesses will be raided, hundreds of people will be arrested and millions in cash will be seized as part of a permanent national crackdown.

The Department has not identified employment, earnings or occupational outcomes for Sikhs as a distinct group.

A range of information on Universal Credit claimants, including claimant characteristics, is published as part of the Department’s official statistics. The latest release is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-quarterly-statistics-29-april-2013-to-12-february-2026. Additional data can be accessed through the Department’s Stat-Xplore service, which allows users to explore benefit statistics by a variety of claimant characteristics where held: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

This Government are determined to ensure that public procurement backs small and medium-sized businesses. That is why we have strengthened late payment rules, have set ambitious targets for all Departments to spend more with small and medium-sized enterprises—totalling £7 billion by 2028—and are simplifying the entire system to ensure that SMEs get a fairer crack. We are working with the Federation of Small Businesses on this, and there is much more to come.

This Government recognises the valuable contribution that Sikh communities make to this country and is committed to bringing down barriers to opportunity for all.

The Government Statistical Service (GSS) ethnicity harmonised standard helps to make statistics and data more comparable, consistent and coherent. The current ethnicity harmonised standard does not recommend collecting data on Sikhs as a distinct ethnic group.

A review of the harmonised standard for ethnicity data collection is underway by the GSS Harmonisation team. As part of this review, a consultation on user needs for additional response options in a future ethnicity standard ran from 28 October 2025 to 4 February 2026.

In total, the consultation received 1,433 responses, 113 of which were from organisations, including four UK government departments. The GSS will publish a full report on the consultation in late summer 2026. This report will include all formal responses to the consultation, and the names of the organisations that responded. The GSS has published its evaluation criteria for additional response options in the new harmonised standard.

This Government recognises the valuable contribution that Sikh communities make to this country and is committed to bringing down barriers to opportunity for all.

The Government Statistical Service (GSS) ethnicity harmonised standard helps to make statistics and data more comparable, consistent and coherent. The current ethnicity harmonised standard does not recommend collecting data on Sikhs as a distinct ethnic group.

A review of the harmonised standard for ethnicity data collection is underway by the GSS Harmonisation team. As part of this review, a consultation on user needs for additional response options in a future ethnicity standard ran from 28 October 2025 to 4 February 2026.

In total, the consultation received 1,433 responses, 113 of which were from organisations, including four UK government departments. The GSS will publish a full report on the consultation in late summer 2026. This report will include all formal responses to the consultation, and the names of the organisations that responded. The GSS has published its evaluation criteria for additional response options in the new harmonised standard.

The department does not identify educational attainment outcomes for Sikhs as a distinct group in its measurements of outcomes across key stages. This is because the department does not collect data and report on religion as a pupil characteristic in the way that it does for other characteristics such as ethnicity or sex.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency is responsible for collecting and publishing data on the UK higher education (HE) sector. These data are reported annually and shared with the department and include information on student outcomes by religion.

The Office for Students, the independent regulator of HE in England, annually report on student outcomes including religion in their ‘Outcomes data dashboard’, which can be found here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/student-characteristics-data/outcomes-data-dashboard/.

The Treasury carefully considers the impact of its decisions on those sharing protected characteristics, including religion, in line with both its legal obligations and its commitment to fairness. The department uses the best available evidence to assess equalities impacts in each case.

The Government Statistical Service is undertaking an ongoing review of the harmonised standard for ethnicity data used across government. This work has included a now closed public consultation. The aim is to ensure that data collection is robust, consistent and reflects user and community needs.

The department is committed to ensuring all young people across England can access a wide range of enrichment opportunities at school and college, as part of our mission to break down barriers to opportunity.

In the ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’ White Paper, we set out our ambition to introduce an enrichment entitlement for every pupil, underpinned by a core enrichment offer that every school and college should aim to provide.

This is supported by a new Enrichment Framework, published on Monday 15 June, setting out benchmarks, case studies and practical tools to help schools plan high-quality enrichment more strategically. The ‘Every Child Can’ programme, funded through the Dormant Assets Scheme, will deliver £132.5 million for new activities programmes delivered through schools, community programmes, weekend activities and holiday provision. It is structured around the same five categories as the Enrichment Framework.

We are also putting in place support for wider provision, including through PE and School Sport Partnerships, Music Hubs, and the £22.5 million Enrichment Expansion Programme, delivered with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, supporting up to 400 schools in the most deprived areas of England to meet these benchmarks.

The Prime Ministe has announced a generational funding commitment to Welsh rail and a pipeline of projects worth up to £14 billion. That long-term plan will transform connectivity across Wales. We will deliver that at pace, building on the strong start of the £445 million of investment already secured at the spending review.

We have set an ambitious but essential target to halve knife crime in a decade, and we are already seeing results. Since the start of this Parliament, knife crime has fallen by 8% and knife homicides are down 27% to their lowest level in a decade, but we must and will go further. We are working on the final plans for our cross-Government plan to halve knife crime, which we will publish soon.

The Department and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) recognise that there are risks to pregnant women caused by exposure to extreme high temperatures, which are set out in the Adverse weather and health plan equity review and impact assessment 2024. This includes an assessment on stillbirth, pre-term birth, and maternal health complications.

The UKHSA provides a weather-health alerting system for England, which alerts the public, including specific vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, and public sector organisations to prepare for impacts of adverse weather, including high temperatures. Risks to health are communicated via heat-health alerts.

Children and young people’s hospices and integrated care boards will be informed of their children and young people’s hospice grant allocations for 2026/27 imminently. Communication regarding future allocations, for 2027/28 and 2028/29, will be sent once the 2026/27 process is complete.

My hon. Friend is a great champion for Huddersfield’s high street, and I am pleased to be able to tell her that tackling money laundering is key to delivering on this Government’s mission to make our streets safer and to deliver economic growth. The new high streets illegality taskforce will bring together Departments and agencies to systemically disrupt money laundering and related crime on the high street, while new funding will boost trading standards capabilities and fund an increase in law enforcement officers.

The taskforce considered proposals related to subsidising motor insurance for households on low incomes but the consequences of direct market intervention are often hard to predict and could result in increased costs for others. The government has no plans to take these proposals forward at this time.

Instead, the taskforce has focused on driving down the cost of claims – rooting out inefficiencies, increasing safety, and reducing opportunities for fraud and theft – to stabilise and ultimately reduce the premiums that all motorists pay, including those on lower incomes.

The last Government created a perfect storm for our charitable organisations, cutting their funding and attacking their right to speak, all while demand soared. This Government have reset that relationship through the civil society covenant, and we are currently working on ways to leverage more investment into local organisations.

The Equitable Life Payment Scheme has been fully wound down and closed since 2016. The only remaining part of the Payment Scheme in operation is the annual payments made to eligible With-Profit-Annuitants and the Scheme is on track to distribute the remainder of the £1.5 billion as planned.