Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are providing to assist women and girls subjected to sexual violence in Darfur in Sudan.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Since the outbreak of conflict in April 2023, there has been a significant escalation of gender-based violence (GBV) in Sudan. The UK has pivoted our programme delivery to focus on GBV prevention, and protection and care for rape survivors. We have also integrated consideration of conflict-related sexual violence into the humanitarian system, making use of Women's Centres, mobile clinics and internally displaced persons' gathering points, for community engagement and service provision. In 2023, UK support provided for the delivery of 83,399 consultations offering sexual and reproductive health services, and delivered mental health and psychological support to over 104,225 people.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government why no Minister attended the meeting on 21 March of the Interparliamentary Finance Committee Forum with members of the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru.
Answered by Lord Roborough - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government recognises the importance of the devolved legislature finance committees’ roles in providing rigorous scrutiny to devolved administration budgets and holding devolved administration ministers to account for their policy and budgetary decisions. As the previous Chief Secretary to the Treasury set out in his letters to the Senedd Finance Committee and the Finance and Public Administration Committee last year, we are mindful of parliamentary accountabilities where UK Government is accountable to the UK Parliament for its tax and spending decisions.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to the regulation, or other oversight, of the sale of plant biostimulants, including consideration of their efficacy, safety and ecological impacts.
Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The existing UK regulatory regime for the manufacture and placing of fertilisers on the market in the UK is fragmented and in need of modernisation. There are currently no specific requirements for plant biostimulants in domestic fertilisers legislation. However, Defra intends to improve on this by consolidating and streamlining the statute book and putting in place a conformity assessment framework for fertilisers. The framework will smooth the route to market for new and innovative products which are less polluting to the environment or are less resource intensive in their creation.
To support reform of fertilisers legislation Defra has funded a review of the evidence for the safe and effective use of plant biostimulants and a review of methods for evaluating methods for verifying the efficacy of plant biostimulants.
The potential impact of a chemical on plant health, including soil microbiomes is already considered, as appropriate, as part of HSE’s robust risk assessment process for pesticides and for biocides. In our regulatory programmes we do not assess the impacts of chemicals specifically on human and animal microbiomes and are not currently considering the introduction of such measures.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)
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.