Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to regulate housing associations with regard to obligations regarding their leaseholders, to ensure multi-occupancy buildings are properly managed in regard to fire safety, transparency of service charges, and compliance with lease requirements.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
As set out on 21 November, the Government intends to consult next year on implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 on service charges and on legal costs, bringing these measures into force as quickly as possible thereafter. These include measures to drive up transparency and will apply to housing associations who charge leaseholders service charges unless specifically exempted.
With regard to the question about the regulation of managing agents, I refer the Noble Lady to the answer I gave to HL2579 which was answered on 28 November 2024. The Government has committed to introducing a Competence and Conduct Standard for registered providers of social housing and will set out next steps for implementing the standard in the coming months.
Registered providers of social housing are required to deliver the outcomes set out in the Regulator of Social Housing's regulatory standards, including the requirement to take all reasonable steps to ensure the health and safety of tenants in their homes and associated communal areas.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what meetings the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has had with (1) the General Medical Council, (2) the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, (3) other health regulators, since 5 July.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Central Government Corporate Transparency Commitments require Government departments to publish details of ministers’ and senior officials’ meetings with external individuals or organisations on a quarterly basis. We will be publishing the meetings that my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care attended, in accordance with the transparency guidelines.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to Written answer by Baroness Merron on 28 November (HL1675), why on page 9 of the Child Death Reporting Form, under the heading "Domain B", there is a column to be completed asking for the gender of the mother, if this does not need to be specified.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Child Death Notification Form and the Child Death Reporting Form are part of the National Child Mortality Database. These continue to capture the sex of the child for under 18-year-olds, in line with sex being a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act.
The Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) has a statutory obligation to notify the National Child Mortality Database within 48 hours of a child’s death, and they do so through A Child Death Notification Form. There is no reference to the mother’s gender in this form.
Following this, the Child Death Reporting Form and relevant supplementary reporting forms are sent out by the CDOP to every professional who has had contact with the child during life, or who has been involved in the investigation after death, to gather information when a child dies. In the Child Death Reporting Form, there is space for the professional to provide information on the gender of the mother. This is not a mandatory requirement to supply this information. This question has existed on the reporting form since at least 2010, and pre-dates the National Child Mortality Database.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government for how long they have required the notice of deaths of children between 10 and 18 to include details of their “sex registered at birth” and “by which gender did the child identify at time of death”; why this categorization was introduced; for how long they have required the gender of the mother to be specified; and what were the reasons for that inclusion.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Notification of Child Death Form, part of the National Child Mortality Database, continues to capture the sex of the child for anyone under the age of 18 years old, in line with sex being a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010.
Although questions relating to gender identity already existed within one part of the National Child Mortality Database collection, specifically for suicide and self-harm, the change in October expanded these questions to all deaths. This was to capture the language used by young people and their families to improve system learning and to support the prevention of future deaths.
The Child Death Notification Form does not require the gender of the mother to be specified.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress has been made in implementing the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2023 and FCA guidance with regard to politically exposed persons.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 10 September (HL616), when they will publish the outcome of their consultation which included a section on sex and gender and made commitments relating to same-sex accommodation, intimate care, and gendered language.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Analysis of the responses to the consultation is currently still in progress, and a decision on the outcome of this process will be made at the earliest opportunity.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the NHS recruitment requirement for new psychologists working with children with gender dysphoria to “practice in a gender affirming manner in line with WPATH SOC 8”, that is, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's standards of care, is in line with its endorsement of the Cass Review.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
All of the National Health Service’s new Children and Young People’s gender services are being established closely in line with recommendations from the Cass Review, which the Government and NHS England are committed to implementing in full.
The recruitment campaign referred to relates to a temporary service which was set up solely to provide psychosocial support for the relatively small number of children and young people already referred to endocrine clinics by the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service clinic, prior to the closure of that service in March 2024. The trust has acknowledged that old terminology was used in the job advertisement, including the references to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's standards of care, and is amending it.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the endorsement of the presidents of Somalia, Egypt and Eritrea, on 10 October, of the deployment of Egyptian troops to Somalia, (2) the threat that such a deployment would pose to Ethiopia’s dam on the Blue Nile, and (3) the concomitant risk of conflict between Egyptian and Ethiopian troops.
Answered by Lord Collins of Highbury - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
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.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the qualifications that private property managers must hold before taking on the management of (1) private residential buildings and (1) mixed-tenure residential buildings.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Managing agents perform a critical role in managing and maintaining buildings, so it is vital that they provide a good service and are accountable to leaseholders for their actions. Many agents do so and with a high level of professionalism. The Government has not undertaken a specific assessment of the qualifications that managing agents must hold but we welcome the work of the industry itself to drive up standards across the sector. This includes ongoing efforts to encourage greater take up of professional qualifications and the development of Codes of Practice.
The Government will act quickly to provide homeowners with greater rights, powers, and protections over their homes by implementing the provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, including those designed to increase service charge transparency.
Over the course of this Parliament, the Government will further reform the leasehold system. We will enact remaining Law Commission recommendations relating to enfranchisement and the Right to Manage, tackle unregulated and unaffordable ground rents, reinvigorate commonhold through a comprehensive new legal framework, and ban the sale of new leasehold flats so commonhold becomes the default tenure.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to ensure that property managers of private or mixed tenure high-rise residential buildings are sufficiently competent to manage fire safety risk.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
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.