Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of delays experienced by children’s hospices in receiving the £25 million annual NHS England funding, which is now distributed by Integrated Care Boards, and what steps they are taking to ensure timely access to this funding in future years.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

While 2023/24 marked the final year of the Children’s Hospice Grant in its previous format, in 2024/25, NHS England continued to provide an additional £25 million of funding for children and young people’s hospices, maintaining the level of grant funding from 2023/24. For the first time, this funding was transacted by integrated care boards (ICBs), on behalf of NHS England, rather than being centrally administered as before.

The Department and NHS England are aware that the shift to the dissemination of funding via ICBs in 2024/25 has not been as smooth a transition as we would have hoped. However, we are working closely with NHS England to resolve any remaining issues to the 2024/25 funding, and we are also jointly considering the future of this important funding stream beyond 2024/25.

The Minister of State for Care recently met NHS England, Together for Short Lives, and one of the co-chairs of the Children Who Need Palliative Care All-Party Parliamentary Group, Lord Balfe, to discuss children’s palliative and end of life care, and this funding stream was discussed at length at that meeting.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which children’s hospices rely on the annual £25 million funding from NHS England; and what plans they have to secure this funding beyond 2024–25 to prevent a shortfall in services.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

While 2023/24 marked the final year of the Children’s Hospice Grant in its previous format, in 2024/25, NHS England continued to provide an additional £25 million of funding for children and young people’s hospices, maintaining the level of grant funding from 2023/24. For the first time, this funding was transacted by integrated care boards (ICBs), on behalf of NHS England, rather than being centrally administered as before.

The Department and NHS England are aware that the shift to the dissemination of funding via ICBs in 2024/25 has not been as smooth a transition as we would have hoped. However, we are working closely with NHS England to resolve any remaining issues to the 2024/25 funding, and we are also jointly considering the future of this important funding stream beyond 2024/25.

The Minister of State for Care recently met NHS England, Together for Short Lives, and one of the co-chairs of the Children Who Need Palliative Care All-Party Parliamentary Group, Lord Balfe, to discuss children’s palliative and end of life care, and this funding stream was discussed at length at that meeting.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to ensure that children's hospices can continue to provide lifeline care if the £25 million annual funding from NHS England is not extended beyond 2024–25.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

While 2023/24 marked the final year of the Children’s Hospice Grant in its previous format, in 2024/25, NHS England continued to provide an additional £25 million of funding for children and young people’s hospices, maintaining the level of grant funding from 2023/24. For the first time, this funding was transacted by integrated care boards (ICBs), on behalf of NHS England, rather than being centrally administered as before.

The Department and NHS England are aware that the shift to the dissemination of funding via ICBs in 2024/25 has not been as smooth a transition as we would have hoped. However, we are working closely with NHS England to resolve any remaining issues to the 2024/25 funding, and we are also jointly considering the future of this important funding stream beyond 2024/25.

The Minister of State for Care recently met NHS England, Together for Short Lives, and one of the co-chairs of the Children Who Need Palliative Care All-Party Parliamentary Group, Lord Balfe, to discuss children’s palliative and end of life care, and this funding stream was discussed at length at that meeting.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to implement a robust system to track the school nurse workforce to enable informed decision-making and resource allocation.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are committed to creating the healthiest generation of children ever. The child health workforce, including school nurses, who lead the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme is central to how we support children, young people, and families.

We are also committed to training the staff we need to ensure everyone receives care from the right professional, when and where they need it. We will want to assure ourselves, and the National Health Service, that the current workforce plan will deliver the reform needed. We will also need to do this in light of the 10-Year Health Plan.

Local authorities are best placed to determine local workforce needs, as they know their communities best. Determining the skills and workforce requirements should be underpinned by a local plan and led by the area’s identified health needs.

The Chief Public Health Nurse Office has established a programme of work which aims to improve the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme, which includes school nursing. This will include a review of the school nursing workforce data in England.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to end the geographical disparity in care by ensuring equitable distribution of school nurses on the basis of need.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are committed to creating the healthiest generation of children ever. The child health workforce, including school nurses, who lead the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme is central to how we support children, young people, and families.

We are also committed to training the staff we need to ensure everyone receives care from the right professional, when and where they need it. We will want to assure ourselves, and the National Health Service, that the current workforce plan will deliver the reform needed. We will also need to do this in light of the 10-Year Health Plan.

Local authorities are best placed to determine local workforce needs, as they know their communities best. Determining the skills and workforce requirements should be underpinned by a local plan and led by the area’s identified health needs.

The Chief Public Health Nurse Office has established a programme of work which aims to improve the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme, which includes school nursing. This will include a review of the school nursing workforce data in England.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase the number of school nurses to ensure adequate coverage across the country.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are committed to creating the healthiest generation of children ever. The child health workforce, including school nurses, who lead the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme is central to how we support children, young people, and families.

We are also committed to training the staff we need to ensure everyone receives care from the right professional, when and where they need it. We will want to assure ourselves, and the National Health Service, that the current workforce plan will deliver the reform needed. We will also need to do this in light of the 10-Year Health Plan.

Local authorities are best placed to determine local workforce needs, as they know their communities best. Determining the skills and workforce requirements should be underpinned by a local plan and led by the area’s identified health needs.

The Chief Public Health Nurse Office has established a programme of work which aims to improve the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme, which includes school nursing. This will include a review of the school nursing workforce data in England.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the perspectives of women are considered when making any foreign policy decisions, especially in relation to Afghanistan and the conflict in the Middle East.

Answered by Lord Collins of Highbury - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Ministers and officials regularly engage with women stakeholders, including from across the Middle East and Afghanistan, to ensure our policy and programming reflect their views and needs.

The Minister for the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan has hosted Afghan women leaders to hear their perspectives and discuss women's inclusion in Afghanistan's future.

We are aware that the specific needs of marginalised groups, including women, will need to be integrated into planning for recovery in Gaza. Officials engage with both Palestinian and Israeli women-led organisations to seek their views. The UK is steadfast in its commitment to women's participation in conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to support refugees from Afghanistan who have been deported from Pakistan.

Answered by Lord Collins of Highbury - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)

Since September 2023, we have committed £18.5 million to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to provide emergency assistance to vulnerable returnees in Afghanistan. This support forms part of a broader package of £161 million in assistance to the Afghan people this year. The UK is closely monitoring Pakistan's policy on the deportation of Afghans and has raised the issue on many occasions with the Government of Pakistan. We are working with international partners, including the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), IOM and the World Bank to ensure Pakistan adheres to its international human rights obligations with respect to those affected.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the findings of the Afghan Pro Bono Initiative, in their report Still Waiting: the Afghans Abandoned by the UK, published in August, regarding the delays and decision-making processes for resettlement schemes for refugees from Afghanistan.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

We are determined to honour our commitments to bring eligible Afghans to the UK. The UK has made an ambitious commitment to help at-risk people in Afghanistan and, so far, we have brought around 32,600 people to safety, including thousands of people eligible for our Afghan resettlement schemes.

Our priority right now is the relocation of those identified as eligible for resettlement under our resettlement schemes, and fixing the gaps in existing routes. That is why we affirmed our ongoing commitment to Afghans and their families by launching the ACRS Separated Families route, which provides a pathway to reunite those families who were unintentionally separated during Operation Pitting.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the interim report Infant formula and follow-on formula market study by the Competition and Markets Authority published on 8 November.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Infant feeding is critical to a baby’s healthy growth and development. The Government is committed to giving every child the best start in life, and that includes helping families to access support to feed their baby.

We welcome the Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) infant formula and follow-on formula market study interim report, and will carefully consider its findings and options. We will continue to engage with the CMA ahead of the publication of its final report in February 2025.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce demand for trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation is a truly horrific crime. This Government has set out an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and we will use all the levers available to us to deliver this.

We continue to work closely with law enforcement to ensure there is a relentless pursuit of prolific perpetrators, including through operational intensification initiatives.

We are also clear that online platforms are a significant enabler of sexual exploitation and must be responsible and accountable for content on their sites, including taking proactive steps to prevent their sites being used by criminals. The Online Safety Act 2023 sets out priority offences, including sexual exploitation and human trafficking offences, and companies will need to adopt measures and put in place systems and processes to identify, assess and address these offences based on a risk assessment, or face significant penalties.

Home Office Ministers regularly meet with stakeholders, including NGOs and law enforcement partners, to promote the better identification and prosecution of perpetrators, and to enhance support for victims who are trapped within commercial sexual exploitation.

Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent organised crime groups from advertising victims of trafficking and other sexual exploitation offences on websites advertising sexual services.

Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)

The trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation is a truly horrific crime. This Government has set out an unprecedented mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and we will use all the levers available to us to deliver this.

We continue to work closely with law enforcement to ensure there is a relentless pursuit of prolific perpetrators, including through operational intensification initiatives.

We are also clear that online platforms are a significant enabler of sexual exploitation and must be responsible and accountable for content on their sites, including taking proactive steps to prevent their sites being used by criminals. The Online Safety Act 2023 sets out priority offences, including sexual exploitation and human trafficking offences, and companies will need to adopt measures and put in place systems and processes to identify, assess and address these offences based on a risk assessment, or face significant penalties.

Home Office Ministers regularly meet with stakeholders, including NGOs and law enforcement partners, to promote the better identification and prosecution of perpetrators, and to enhance support for victims who are trapped within commercial sexual exploitation.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will take steps to protect working parents eligible for free early education and childcare from charging for consumables by some nurseries.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)

The department is taking steps to protect parents from unfair charging practices by some nurseries, as we announced last month, as part of our wider effort to ensure that parents can access and afford the hours they are entitled to. More information about the announcement can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/school-based-nurseries-plan-kicks-off-with-15-million-funding.

The department is currently looking at updating the early years statutory guidance as part of its regular review, in order to ensure that the guidance around charging is both clear and fair for local authorities, early years providers and parents and that the hours are accessible and affordable for all families that need them.

The department will be seeking to engage with providers, local authorities and other relevant stakeholder groups, including those representing parents, to discuss its proposed updates to the statutory guidance for local authorities and to seek feedback on how the guidance can be improved.

If parents believe they are experiencing unfair consumable charges, they should raise this with their local authority, who will be able to offer the appropriate support and next steps on clarifying appropriate charging with providers.

Found: Present: Lord Morse (Chair) Baroness Blake of Leeds Baroness Buscombe Earl of Courtown Baroness Goudie