Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town

The House of Lords Administration collects personal data from all employees which is recorded on the HR system and provided to HMRC. Employees must provide the sex recorded on their birth certificate or Gender Recognition Certificate (female or male).

The House of Lords Administration is not within the scope of the independent review commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). However, the absence of a single source of authoritative guidance on data collection on sex and gender and the need for attention to maintain impartiality on issues including gender noted in the review are as relevant to the Administration as they are to public bodies within the report’s scope.

The way in which data about sex and gender is collected by the House of Lords Administration is subject to periodic review. Work is currently underway to consider how we approach these issues in survey and data collection undertaken by the Administration, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology review will be a helpful contribution.

The Government is committed to transparency and has already taken a number of steps to restore trust in politics. The Government currently has no plans to bring Special Advisers within the scope of the Lobbying Act, although it continues to keep transparency and lobbying under review.

In addition to steps this Government has already taken to improve transparency, in particular through the introduction of the monthly register of ministers' gifts and hospitality, the Government continues to develop its broader work on ethics and standards and will provide an update in due course.

I refer the noble Baroness to the answer given to PQ HL8292 on 23 June 2025.

Written question from Lord Booth, tabled on 10 June 2025: To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent on 10 April (HL6032), what estimate they have made of the annual cost of the Ethics and Integrity Commission.

Answer by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, on 23 June: We are restoring confidence in government and the highest standards in public life and have already taken steps to improve probity and transparency, including through issuing a new Ministerial Code which highlights the importance of the principles of public life, by strengthening the terms of reference for the Independent Adviser, and by introducing a new monthly Register of Gifts and Hospitality.

In addition to steps this Government has already taken to improve transparency, in particular through the introduction of the monthly register of ministers' gifts and hospitality, the Government continues to develop its broader work on ethics and standards and will provide an update in due course.

In addition to steps this Government has already taken to improve transparency, in particular through the introduction of the monthly register of ministers' gifts and hospitality, the Government continues to develop its broader work on ethics and standards and will provide an update in due course.

Directors were not required to verify their identities by 18 November 2025. This date marked the start of a 12-month transition period during which existing directors must verify their identities by providing their personal code with the relevant companies' confirmation statement. This could only be done after the start of the transition period. The deadline for filing the confirmation statement determines the deadline for verification for existing directors. No significant decrease in the timeliness of confirmation statement filings has been observed.

Companies House continuously seeks feedback from its customers and is providing focussed support to those required to verify.

Companies House have invested in expansion and training of our customer service team to assist users in their identity verification journey. This includes establishing a specialist team to support customers who have accessibility requirements.

Users can ask someone they know to help them prove their identity: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/help-someone-use-govuk-one-login. Where identity cannot be verified online, users may be directed to complete the process in person at a participating Post Office. The invitation to initiate this journey can be issued via post.

Authorised Company Service Providers may also offer non-digital identity verification services.

Sex and gender in data, statistics and research is an important area of discussion, and this review contributes to this ongoing dialogue. Given the wide breadth of recommendations, the government has ensured that the review has been shared with all the relevant departments and policy teams, who will consider the findings in light of their ongoing policy work.

The Government regularly discusses approaches to surveying with Sport England but has not held discussions on this topic specifically.

Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a duty on maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units in England to make arrangements for supporting pupils with medical conditions. The accompanying statutory guidance makes clear to schools what is expected of them in taking reasonable steps to fulfil their legal obligations and to meet the individual needs of pupils with medical conditions, including allergies.

We intend to consult later this year on revised statutory guidance on ‘Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions’. This will seek views from schools, parents, health professionals, and other stakeholders on proposals to strengthen how schools meet their duties, including improvements to allergy safety and broader medical condition management. Our aim is to ensure that every child can access education safely and confidently, regardless of their health needs or allergy.

Published data and statistics on road collisions involving injury are based on data reported to the Department by police forces via the STATS19 system, which includes details of factors contributing to collisions as recorded by the attending officer based on their judgement at the time of the collision.

Up to 2023, these contributory factors included ‘vision affected by dazzling headlights’, but following a review of STATS19, in the new specification in place from the start of 2024, a wider category ‘distraction to driver or rider from inside or outside the vehicle’ has been introduced. This is part of a wider change to rationalise the contributory factors into fewer ‘road safety factors’ which aims to make the data easier for officers to report consistently.

Statistics based on both the previous system of contributory factors and the new road safety factors are published on the gov.uk website as soon as they are available. The latest published figures relate to 2024, with 2025 data scheduled for publication in September 2026.

The Department has commissioned ground-breaking research into headlamp glare, and the Department’s road safety strategy includes a commitment to undertake further research aimed at identifying what vehicle design factors may be responsible for increased headlamp glare.

Under the new Road Safety Strategy, the Government has announced firm action to tackle non-compliant or ‘ghost’ numberplates. This includes consulting on tougher penalties, including penalty points and vehicle seizure, more robust checks on number plate suppliers, and higher industry standards for numberplates. We also intend to commission targeted research to explore the potential use of AI to identify illegal plates.

Once the Motoring Offences Consultation concludes, any changes the Government brings forward will be set out in the response.

The timelines for bringing forward any changes, including on the fixed penalty for uninsured driving, will then depend on legislative time.

The Government is consulting on motoring offences, as part of the recently published road safety strategy. This includes exploring the minimum penalties for the offence of uninsured driving and whether they should be increased.

This is to ensure that the minimum penalties act as a suitable deterrent and reflect the seriousness of the offence of driving uninsured.

To qualify for their full share of this year’s £500m uplift in highways maintenance funding, local authorities had to publish transparency reports and set out how they comply with best practice, including in relation to preventative maintenance which is more cost effective than the reactive patching of potholes. The findings from the transparency reports enable the department to identify where extra support may be needed to ensure compliance with best practice. The department will set out more detail on the further support and training it will make available to local authorities in due course.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring medicines, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion meet applicable standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The MHRA rigorously assesses the available data, including from the Yellow Card scheme, and seeks advice from the Commission on Human Medicines, the MHRA’s independent advisory committee, where appropriate, to inform regulatory decisions, including amending the product information.

Puberty blockers are also known as gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogues or ‘GnRH analogues’. These medicines are licenced for conditions such as young children who enter puberty too early, also known as precocious puberty, prostate cancer, and endometriosis. The GnRH analogues included in this search were buserelin, leuprorelin, goserelin, gonadorelin, nafarelin, and triptorelin. Please note it is not mandatory to provide information on indication when submitting an adverse drug reaction report.

The MHRA has received a total of 17 serious United Kingdom suspected adverse drug reaction reports in the past 15 years of GnRH analogues in children aged between zero to nine years old, with 16 reports, and 10 to 16 years, with one report, between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2025, where the indication for use was reported as precocious puberty. Of these 17 reports, two included an adverse effect on bone health, namely bone marrow failure and epiphysiolysis, or growth plate fracture.

It is important to note that a reaction reported to the Yellow Card scheme does not necessarily mean it has been caused by the medicine, only that the reporter had a suspicion it may have. Underlying or concurrent illnesses may be responsible, or the events could be coincidental.

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the regulator of all medical doctors, physician assistants and physician assistants in anaesthesia, still legally known as anaesthesia associates and physician associates, practising in the United Kingdom. The GMC is independent of Government, directly accountable to Parliament and is responsible for operational matters concerning the discharge of its statutory duties.

The Government has had discussions with the GMC on this issue. The GMC’s Good Medical Practice states that professionals must act with honesty and integrity and ensure their conduct justifies patient’s trust in them and the public’s trust in the profession. They must also recognise a patient’s right to choose whether to accept their advice. It is up to individual healthcare providers, rather than the GMC, to consider patient requests for care based on sex.

The General Medical Council (GMC) is the regulator of all medical doctors, physician assistants and physician assistants in anaesthesia, still legally known as anaesthesia associates and physician associates, practising in the United Kingdom. The GMC is independent of Government, directly accountable to Parliament and is responsible for operational matters concerning the discharge of its statutory duties.

The GMC maintains the official register of registered medical practitioners. Under the Form and Content of the Register Regulations, the GMC records a doctor's gender rather than sex.

The Government has had some discussions with the GMC about this topic. In light of the Supreme Court ruling in the case of For Women Scotland v. The Scottish Ministers regarding the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010, the GMC is in the process of reviewing its policy position regarding the recording of a doctor’s gender or biological sex on its registers.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring that medicines, medical devices, and blood components for transfusions on the market in the United Kingdom are safe, effective, and manufactured to the highest standards of quality. The Medical Devices Regulations 2002 establish the statutory framework that medical devices must meet in order to comply with these standards.

Optical appliances as medical devices must comply with requirements set out in the regulatuons, which include bearing the UKCA or CE marking on the packaging or labelling of the device. Manufacturers based outside of the United Kingdom must have a UK responsible person, and all devices must be registered with the MHRA prior to being placed on the market. Manufacturers or their UK representatives must also monitor use of these devices when used in the UK and report serious incidents to the MHRA.

The MHRA ensure that medical devices placed on the market and put into service in the UK meet these regulatory requirements by: assessing all allegations of non-compliance brought to us, using a risk-based system; monitoring the activity of UK approved bodies we designate to assess the compliance of manufacturers; and investigating medical devices as a result of adverse incident reports or intelligence indicating a potential problem.

If the MHRA considers that a product is breaching the medical devices regulations, typically, the MHRA Devices Compliance Unit will contact the manufacturer or, if the manufacturer is based outside of the UK, the UK Responsible Person, outlining the agency’s concerns and requesting further information with a view to bringing them into compliance.

If a manufacturer fails to co-operate with our requests and continues to place a non-compliant product on the market, or there is a serious risk to public health, the MHRA may consider using our enforcement powers. Guidance on how we enforce medical device regulations is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-a-non-compliant-medical-device-enforcement-process/how-mhra-ensures-the-safety-and-quality-of-medical-devices

In addition to our investigatory and enforcement activities, the MHRA maintain ongoing relationships with external stakeholders including major online selling platforms to address non-compliant listings of medical devices available on the UK market, including those listed on overseas websites. This collaboration typically involves reporting mechanisms and proactive engagement with external online platforms to identify, address and prevent non-compliant listings.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) ensures that medical devices placed on the market and put into service in the United Kingdom meet these regulatory requirements by:

- assessing all allegations of non-compliance brought to us, using a risk-based system;

- monitoring the activity of the UK approved bodies we designated to assess the compliance of manufacturers; and

- investigating medical devices as a result of adverse incident reports or intelligence indicating a potential problem.

If the MHRA considers a product to be breaching the medical devices regulations, typically, the MHRA’s Devices Compliance Unit will contact the manufacturer or, if the manufacturer is based outside of the UK, The UK Responsible Person, outlining our concerns and requesting further information with a view to bringing them into compliance.

If a manufacturer fails to co-operate with our requests and continues to place a non-compliant product on the market, or there is a serious risk to public health, the MHRA may consider using our enforcement powers. Guidance on how we enforce medical device regulations can be accessed on the GOV.UK website, in an online only format.

In addition to our investigatory and enforcement activities, the MHRA maintains ongoing relationships with external stakeholders, including other Government enforcement agencies and major online selling platforms to address non-compliant listings of medical devices available on the UK market, including those listed on overseas websites. This collaboration typically involves reporting mechanisms and proactive engagement with external online platforms to identify, address, and prevent non-compliant listings.

The Cabinet Office is continuing to review this matter, given the wider implications beyond former Foreign & Commonwealth Office staff, and they will update Parliament on the outcome in due course.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) officials have continued looking into this and I am eager to bring this to a resolution further to the apology for the ban from Sir Philip Barton (then Permanent Under-Secretary) in 2021. We continue to learn the lessons of the MOD's Etherton Review but it has become apparent how different the circumstances of the ban were, therefore requiring a different response. The FCDO are currently looking at the best way to address this, engaging with Cabinet Office and other relevant Government departments to find the best solution. Specifically, the new Permanent Under-Secretary is engaged on this issue and we are talking to officials and Ministers across Government to find the most appropriate solution.

The UK, alongside partners, continues to urge all stakeholders and regional actors to avoid escalation and any action that threatens stability in the wider Horn of Africa. We hear downstream nations' concerns about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), and we continue to urge all parties to reach a mutually acceptable agreement through negotiation and dialogue. To further address the rising tensions in the Horn of Africa, we have tabled a debate on 29th October in the House of Lords.

The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2023 came into force on 10 January 2024. All businesses within scope of the Money Laundering Regulations are now required to ensure that their starting point for assessing the risk posed by domestic politically exposed persons (PEPs), and the extent of the enhanced customer due diligence measures to be applied in relation to that customer, is that they present a lower level of risk than a non-domestic PEP.

The Government has been working closely with the FCA to follow up on the findings of its review into the treatment of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) by financial institutions and to ensure firms improve their practices where necessary. Following a consultation, the FCA published updated guidance on PEPs on 7 July 2025. It is available here: https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/finalised-guidance/fg25-3-treatment-politically-exposed-persons

The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2023 came into force on 10 January 2024. All businesses within scope of the Money Laundering Regulations are now required to ensure that their starting point for assessing the risk posed by domestic politically exposed persons (PEPs), and the extent of the enhanced customer due diligence measures to be applied in relation to that customer, is that they present a lower level of risk than a non-domestic PEP.

The Government has been working closely with the FCA to follow up on the findings of its review into the treatment of Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs by financial institutions) and to ensure firms improve their practices where necessary. The FCA is in the process of updating its guidance on PEPs to reflect the findings of its review and the changes made by The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2023. The FCA’s revised guidance will be published in due course.

The Financial Conduct Authority is currently consulting on changes to its guidance on the treatment of politically exposed persons (PEPs) for anti-money laundering purposes, following a review of the treatment of domestic PEPs by financial institutions. The consultation closes on 18 October 2024. The FCA expects that the revised guidance will be published and brought into effect in the first half of 2025.

The Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) is a statutory duty set out in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, which applies to public authorities and other bodies who exercise public functions.

The monitoring and reporting criteria for funding programmes is determined by the awarding body based on an overall assessment of the fund objectives. If the funded organisation is a public authority or a body that exercises a public function, then that organisation will be legally obliged to comply with the PSED as a result of section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.

Parkrun does not provide participation data by sex or gender to Sport England.

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (FSO) places a range of legal duties on Responsible Persons (the person in control of a premises), chief among which are the need to undertake a fire risk assessment to identify any general fire safety precautions that need to be taken to ensure that the premises, and people within it, are safe from fire.

In order to help Responsible Persons discharge their duties we publish a range of guides that include an explanation of their legal duties, how to complete a fire risk assessment in specific types of premises including purpose-built blocks of flats and guidance on specific issues such as how to undertake checks on fire doors. Responsible Persons have a duty under Article 18 of the FSO to appoint a competent person to assist them in implementing any preventative and protective measures identified in the fire risk assessment and our guidance provides advice on when and how to do this.

We have no plans at present to commence these provisions. Overseas electors have the right to participate in UK parliamentary elections, and this includes the right to donate to parties or candidates they support. Political parties and other donees can only accept donations from registered electors. Overseas electors are subject to the same counter-fraud measures as domestic electors, including having their identity confirmed as part of the registration process.

The government has commissioned the Rycroft Review to consider whether political finance laws could be strengthened. We look forward to the findings of this independent review, due in late March, and we anticipate that they will inform the Representation of the People Bill.