Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government when NHS England plan to update the version of the Core Information Standard on its website to reflect changes made by the Professional Record Standards Body which make the recording of sex mandatory in electronic patient records.

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

The Professional Record Standards Body’s (PRSB) updates to the sex and gender data item representation for clinical use in the Core Information Standard have not yet been updated in the NHS England Standards Directory repository. Although these changes leave the PRSB specification and the NHS England Standards Directory out of step, it is proposed that the work to update the Standards Directory will commence this week.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 26 February (HCWS1369), when they expect the data linkage study research approvals to be granted.

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

In common with other publicly funded research, the Data Linkage Study is subject to the formal approval of the Health Research Authority (HRA) before the study can begin. For the Data Linkage Study, this requires the consideration of an ethics committee and the Confidentiality Advisory Group.

As the study application remains in active progress with the HRA, and it remains important for the approvals process to be undertaken independently, it is unfortunately not possible to provide an expected date for the HRA approval process to be concluded.

The Department continues to support NHS England in progressing the study.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 26 February (HCWS1369), what steps (1) the Department for Health and Social Care, and (2) NHS England, are taking to ensure that all relevant clinics share data to facilitate the data linkage study.

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

NHS England has undertaken further due diligence on the data sources that will underpin the study, and taken time to re-engage with data-sharing organisations, on which the study will be dependent, including refining the study design and data sharing requirement following discussion with adult gender clinics.

We now expect all commissioned adult gender services to collaborate with the study to enable its successful completion.

The Department continues to support NHS England in progressing the study.

No disciplinary action has been taken.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Statement by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on 26 February (HCWS1369), whether disciplinary action has been taken within the NHS in relation to those clinics which refused to share data.

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

NHS England has undertaken further due diligence on the data sources that will underpin the study, and taken time to re-engage with data-sharing organisations, on which the study will be dependent, including refining the study design and data sharing requirement following discussion with adult gender clinics.

We now expect all commissioned adult gender services to collaborate with the study to enable its successful completion.

The Department continues to support NHS England in progressing the study.

No disciplinary action has been taken.

Question

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to amend section 104 of the Equality Act 2010 to allow political parties to exclude men from standing in their leadership elections.

Answered by Lord Collins of Highbury - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)

Under section 104 of the Equality Act 2010, registered political parties in the UK are permitted to use positive action, including reserved places on shortlists, where proportionate to address the under representation of candidates with certain protected characteristics.

Section 104(7) currently provides a specific exception allowing for this to include single-sex shortlists commonly all-women shortlists) if it is proportionate to reduce unequal representation.

Political parties can reserve all the places on their shortlist for one sex if this will reduce unequal representation. If a political party had an under-representation of women, there could be a ‘women-only’ shortlist.

Positive action is voluntary and political parties cannot be forced to do it.

Found: Williams – on behalf of Lord Young of Norwood Green • Caroline Ffiske – on behalf of Baroness Jenkin of Kennington