Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the environmental impact of the 1,450 kilo-tons of ethylene that will be produced by the Ineos company's 'Project One' each year; what assurances they have received from Ineos about its claim only 10 per cent of the ethylene produced will be used for single-use products; what steps they are taking to ensure that the 10-per-cent limit is not exceeded; and what penalties will be applied if the 10-per-cent limit is exceeded.

Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

UKEF undertakes due diligence to ensure that all projects it supports align with robust international Environmental, Social and Human Rights standards. This includes ongoing monitoring to ensure this remains the case throughout the duration of UKEF’s support. UKEF does not attach specific conditions on the end-use of products. Further details about this individual project can be found online at: Category A project supported: INEOS Project One, Belgium - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the protection of the titles “physician associate” and “anaesthesia associate” under the Anaesthesia Associates and Physician Associates Order 2024, when they plan to provide protection for other medical titles which are not already protected.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

All healthcare professional regulators have protected titles relating to the professions they regulate. There are currently 64 protected titles across 10 professional health and care regulators. The Government’s regulatory reform programme, which is already underway, will consider protected titles more broadly.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government why the NHS England’s Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service specifies that physician associates employed under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme have key responsibility for providing first point of contact care for patients presenting with undifferentiated, undiagnosed problems.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Physician Associates have been part of the National Health Service workforce for a number of years. They are an important part of clinical teams across the NHS, providing support to thousands of patients every day, under the supervision of doctors.

The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme provides funding for a number of additional roles, including Physician Associates, to help create bespoke, multi-disciplinary teams. All these roles are in place to assist general practice (GP) doctors in reducing their workload and assisting patients directly with their needs, allowing doctors to focus on more complex patients and other priorities, including continuity of care. Physician Associates work alongside GPs and the wider practice team to provide care as part of the multidisciplinary team.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings of the SHOT-SWITCH research project, published in Conservation Evidence, about the voluntary transition from hunting with lead to non-lead ammunition in Great Britain; and what plans they have to ban the use of lead shot in hunting in England.

Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The use of lead shot in England and Wales is already prohibited in specific circumstances by existing legislation – including on all foreshores, and in or over specified sites of special scientific interest, predominantly wetlands.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is currently preparing recommendations on further action to restrict the use of lead in ammunition. This work has included looking at information submitted to them with regard to possible options to control the use of lead ammunition. The previous SHOT-SWITCH study has been considered and is referenced in the background document of evidence (attached to this answer) which was put out with the public consultation last year.

HSE expects to issue its final restriction opinions later this year. The decision to apply any UK REACH restrictions as a further regulatory measure, or not to do so, will subsequently be made by the Defra Secretary of State, with the consent of the Scottish and Welsh Ministers.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the systemic impact from the Financial Conduct Authority’s crackdown on wealth management services under the Consumer Duty; what estimate they have made of the likely total compensation that will need to be paid by wealth management firms; and what other areas of the financial sector they expect to be impacted by the Consumer Duty.

Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Requirements regarding financial adviser ongoing services started in 2013 following the Retail Distribution Review, with additional requirements resulting from the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in 2018.

In February, the FCA wrote to a number of financial adviser firms requesting information about their delivery of ongoing services, for which their clients continue to be charged. The FCA is collecting this information to assess what, if any, further regulatory work it may undertake in this area.

The FCA’s new Consumer Duty seeks to set a higher and clearer standard of care that firms owe their customers. The FCA is an independent non-governmental body and is responsible for determining the application of the relevant rules. The Government will continue to monitor the effectiveness of Consumer Duty rules, as they bed in and as industry becomes more familiar with them.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 25 March (HL2978), why they have specified how physician associates (PAs) are to be used, specifically with undifferentiated patients, rather than allowing GP practices to make their own decisions about the use of PAs.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Physician Associates (PAs) work within a defined scope of practice and limits of competence. NHS England has provided recent guidance on the use of PAs in general practice (GP) teams. As set out in the Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service, PAs should be adequately supervised by a GP when providing care for undifferentiated patients.

In terms of employment choices, GPs are self-employed contractors to the National Health Service, and it is largely up to employers to determine how best to staff their primary care network or GP, to best meet the needs of their population.

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by Global Witness on 8 November 2023 that BP and its project partners had transferred $35 billion-worth of oil and gas production to the government of Azerbaijan since 2020, the year that war broke out in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and whether they plan to take any action in response.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government has made no such assessment.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the case for incorporating into pharmaceutical, pesticide and other chemical regulation consideration of impacts on human, animal, plant and soil microbiomes.

Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) operates a robust programme of regulating and monitoring medicines to ensure patients have access to safe and effective medicines. While the microbiome is still an evolving field, the MHRA is working to further our understanding on the impact of pharmaceuticals on the microbiome. Experts in MHRA are leading on international efforts to improve understanding of this area, for example through the development of World Health Organisation reference reagents for the microbiome.

The potential impact of a chemical on plant health, including soil microbiomes is already considered, as appropriate, as part of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)’s robust risk assessment process for pesticides and for biocides.

The legislation around veterinary medicines makes it clear that when considering the authorisation of antimicrobial substances for use in animals, there should be consideration of the impacts on the human, target animal, and environmental microbiomes, including plants and soils.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what contracts NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care have with The Phoenix Partnership and for what services; and what assessment they have made of the appropriateness of it providing such services.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department is the contracting authority for two consecutive framework agreements on which The Phoenix Partnership (TPP) has been appointed as a supplier, and awarded call-off contracts. These frameworks are the GP Systems of Choice (GPSoC), from 2014, and the GP IT Futures framework agreement (GPITF FA), which succeeded the GPSoC in 2020. The GPITF FA is the main contractual framework to supply IT systems and services to general practices (GPs) and associated organisations in England. The GPITF FA is operationally managed by NHS England, and the relevant contracting authorities under the call-off contracts are the individual integrated care boards, who contract on behalf of GPs.

In addition to managing the GPITF FA on behalf of the Department, NHS England is the contracting authority on three active contracts with TPP for: GP IT development and compliance; provision of Point of Care services to the NHS England Vaccination Programme; and provision of IT services to residential places of detention under the Health and Justice Information Systems contract.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has a statutory requirement to report on the performance of the national immunisation programmes, and in June 2022, TPP was awarded a contract to extract this data directly from GPs' systems for the UKHSA, with a successor contract being awarded for the same work in October 2023. All Government contracts are awarded fairly and transparently, in line with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. All decisions on contracts are rigorously scrutinised to assess a company’s ability to perform and deliver the best value for money for the taxpayer.

Found: Data Protection and Digital Information Bill 70 Clause 85 BARONESS BENNETT OF MANOR CASTLE

Found: Data Protection and Digital Information Bill 70 Clause 85 BARONESS BENNETT OF MANOR CASTLE