Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made since the UK–France Joint Leaders' Declaration on 10 March 2023 regarding the simplification of travel arrangements for French schoolchildren visiting the UK.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
UK Border Force was not involved in the decision to refuse boarding to this group and is in touch with the relevant carrier about this case and who did not grant them permission to travel.
Anyone wishing to travel to the UK on an ID card must submit accurate information in advance for approval and present the same identity documentation on the day to comply with UK immigration checks, and to ensure the safeguarding of children
The UK will continue to work with partners in the UK and France to ensure this process is fully understood, and that travel between our countries for school groups can be as smooth as possible.
In addition, the government agreed that children aged 18 and under travelling as part of a French school group will be temporarily exempted from the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) requirement until a group solution is developed. This will allow EU, EEA and Swiss children to continue to use their identity cards on organised French school trips to the UK as long as they meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the decision by Border Force to deny a group of French schoolchildren entry into the UK due to an administrative error on the France–UK School Trip Travel Information Form.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
UK Border Force was not involved in the decision to refuse boarding to this group and is in touch with the relevant carrier about this case and who did not grant them permission to travel.
Anyone wishing to travel to the UK on an ID card must submit accurate information in advance for approval and present the same identity documentation on the day to comply with UK immigration checks, and to ensure the safeguarding of children
The UK will continue to work with partners in the UK and France to ensure this process is fully understood, and that travel between our countries for school groups can be as smooth as possible.
In addition, the government agreed that children aged 18 and under travelling as part of a French school group will be temporarily exempted from the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) requirement until a group solution is developed. This will allow EU, EEA and Swiss children to continue to use their identity cards on organised French school trips to the UK as long as they meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Merron on 2 December (HL Deb col 905), what specific plans are or will be put in place to consult public service interpreters about the NHS 10-Year Health Plan given that they are not employed as NHS staff but work on a freelance basis.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
On 21 October, we launched a national conversation on the future of the National Health Service, inviting views from across the country on how to reform the NHS and make it fit for the future. This includes the Change NHS portal, which is open to everyone, and is available on the change.NHS.UK website. Public service interpreters can respond to the surveys on the website, including on the dedicated workforce section. We want a wide range of health and care staff to share their views, irrespective of whether they are NHS employees. We would welcome public service interpreters sharing their experience. We have been in touch with the National Register of Public Service Interpreters to ensure interpreters are aware of the engagement exercise.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask His Majesty's Government how any Afghan former interpreters who worked with UK armed forces in Afghanistan have been relocated to the UK; how many are eligible for relocation but are awaiting security clearance before travel; and how long it is expected to take to relocate all eligible interpreters to the UK.
Answered by Lord Coaker - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
It is not possible to provide a breakdown of relocation figures by job role at this time.
As of 25 November 2024, we have relocated over 19,000 eligible individuals (including applicants and their families) to safety in the UK. The Government is committed to delivering on the commitments made under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme, with multiple Government Departments playing a key role to deliver this service.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to issue guidance to the Office for Students and institutions of higher education that modern foreign languages should be classified as strategically vulnerable subjects and fall within category C1 of the Strategic Priorities Grant.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
In the 2024/25 academic year, over half of the £1.4 billion recurrent funding to higher education providers allocated through the Strategic Priorities Grant is supporting the provision of strategically important high-cost subjects that support the NHS and wider healthcare policy and high-cost science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects, for example medicine and dentistry, science, engineering. This is in recognition of the higher costs of teaching those subjects.
The department will continue to work with the Office for Students (OfS) to ensure that costs of provision are assessed. My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, will issue guidance to the OfS in due course setting out her funding priorities for 2025/26.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reduction in the number of university degree courses on modern foreign languages.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), now part of Jisc, collects and publishes data on student enrolments across all UK higher education (HE) providers. This includes data on full person equivalents enrolled in different subject areas, categorised using the HE coding of subjects system. Counts of enrolments across all subjects from 2019/20 to 2022/23 are published in Table 52 of HESA’s Student Data, which can be found here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-52.
Table 52 can be used to determine that there were 34,840 entrants to a HE course in ‘language and area studies’ in the 2022/23 academic year and of these, 11,245 were studying a language or culture other than English, down by 12% from 2020/21. In the absence of a clear definition of ‘modern foreign languages’, all non-English languages have been included for completeness.
Analysing the HESA student record, the department estimates that there were 4,845 courses in ‘languages and area studies’, excluding English studies, with at least one enrolment in 2022/23, down from 5,590 in 2020/21. The HESA data only includes courses where students have enrolled, so it is not possible to quantify the number of courses being offered with no enrolments.
HE providers are autonomous and independent institutions. This means they are ultimately responsible for the decisions that they make with regards to which courses they choose to deliver.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to conduct a consultation on the proposed amendments to the Victims’ Code which were agreed during the passage of the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
We aim to consult on the revised Victims’ Code early next year as part of our commitment to ensure that victims and survivors of crime have the information and support they need.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether their sector-specific approach to developing regulation on artificial intelligence will include consideration of the challenges of machine translation, which cuts across all sectors.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Whilst it is true that machine translation has applications across many sectors, the risks posed by machine translation will be driven by the context of where, how and why it is used.
Under our context specific approach, we recognise that our existing expert regulators are best placed to apply rules to the use of AI – including machine translation - in the contexts they know better than anyone else.
We are also committed to ensuring that regulators have the right expertise and resources to make proportionate and informed regulatory decisions about AI in their sectors.
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they will be participating in the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in Colombia.
Answered by Baroness Hayman of Ullock - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State for Defra, The Rt Hon Steve Reed OBE MP, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Nature), Mary Creagh CBE MP, will be taking part in the official High-Level Segment of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16) in Colombia. Minister Creagh is also scheduled to remain in Colombia after the conclusion of this segment to support the final negotiations. The UK will also be represented at CBD COP16 by a team of negotiators from Defra and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).
Asked by: Baroness Coussins (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have held any discussions with the government of Colombia about the increased conflict in Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria; and, if so, what was the outcome.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We are working with the Colombian Government and others on implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement, including the Ethnic Chapter. Through funding to civil society organisations and the OHCHR (UN Human Rights Office), the UK is supporting the protection of the Wiwa indigenous peoples in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta with strategic litigation and self-protection mechanisms. Embassy officials visited the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in October and raised their concern about the security situation with local authorities.