Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address the disproportionate impact of climate change, such as flooding, disease, drought and famine, on developing and poorer countries; and what funding they have allocated to address this in collaboration with other international governments.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Lord Chamberlain (HM Household)
Increasing ambition and action on adaptation and loss and damage is a priority for the UK. From April 2011 to March 2023, it is estimated that UK International Climate Finance programmes have directly supported over 100 million people to adapt to the effects of climate change. At COP26, the UK COP Presidency secured a commitment from developed countries to at least double adaptation finance for developing countries by 2025. As the UK, we will triple our funding for adaptation from £500 million in 2019 to £1.5 billion in 2025. In September, the Prime Minister announced a pledge of $2billion (£1.62 billion) to the Green Climate Fund.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the overall budget of NHS England, how many staff it has, and how it measures its own performance in driving the delivery of services in primary and secondary care.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
The overall budget for NHS England in 2023/24 is £172.1 billion. NHS England publishes quarterly data on the number of staff working in National Health Service Support Organisations and Central Bodies. The latest data for June 2023 shows there are 16,328 full time equivalent staff employed by NHS England.
In May 2023, NHS England published a delivery plan for primary care. Integrated care boards (ICBs) will lead the change for their local health systems as commissioners of primary care. The plan sets out how ICBs are expected to report progress, including though their public board reporting, with national and regional support being offered to any ICBs that are falling behind. A copy of the plan is attached.
On elective care, the NHS published a delivery plan in January 2022 setting out a clear vision for how the NHS will recover and expand elective services over three years. This includes targets to reduce maximum waiting times, so that waits of longer than a year for elective care are eliminated by March 2025, prioritising diagnosis and treatment so that 95% of patients needing a diagnostic test will receive it within six weeks by March 2025 and transforming the way the NHS provides elective care. A copy of the plan is attached.
On urgent and emergency care, performance measures include meeting the ambitions set out in our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services, published in January 2023, including improving accident and emergency and ambulance performance to 76% of patients being admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours by March 2024, and improved ambulance response times for Category 2 incidents to 30 minutes on average over 2023 to 2024, with further improvement against both of these measures towards pre-pandemic levels in 2024 to 2025. A copy of the plan is attached.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what (1) humanitarian, and (2) financial, assistance they are providing to Pakistan in relation to the floods in the Sindh province and related areas.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with Pakistan as it faces the consequences of the recent devastating flooding. The UK was one of the first countries to announce funding (£1.5 million) to respond to the humanitarian need. We have now increased this to £16.5 million to support flood relief efforts. UK aid will be targeted towards the hardest hit areas of Sindh and other provinces. The UK contribution is also now over 10 per cent of the joint UN and Government of Pakistan emergency appeal ($160 million). This flooding demonstrates how climate change is making extreme weather events both more intense and more frequent.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether Ukrainians entering the country through the proposed Local Sponsorship Scheme for Ukraine will (1) be protected by existing refugee safeguarding policies, (2) have the right to seek employment, and (3) be eligible to claim free healthcare, dentistry and social security benefits.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Further to the answer given by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, details of the sponsorship scheme for Ukraine will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any plans (1) unilaterally, or (2) in conjunction with the government of Azerbaijan, to commemorate or mark on 26 February the 30th anniversary of the killings in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly; and whether they have (a) held bilateral discussions, or (b) supported action, to ensure that such hostilities to do not take place again and that there is no escalation of violence in Azerbaijan, in the light of emerging issues in Armenia and Russia.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The events of February 1992 were a tragic episode in Azerbaijan's history, and were strongly condemned by the UK Government at the time. Such hostilities should never take place again. The UK Government has not yet made plans to mark this anniversary of the date.
The UK Government remains deeply committed to stability and security across the South Caucasus region and continues to work through bilateral channels and multilateral fora in pursuit of those goals. This includes our continuing support for the efforts of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group Co-Chairs to facilitate discussions to secure a sustainable, peaceful resolution to ongoing tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the health inequalities that have arisen as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in cardiovascular diseases; and what steps they are taking to rectify this issue.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government has made no assessment of the health inequalities from the COVID-19 pandemic for cardiovascular diseases. However, NHS England is collating audits data and feedback from NHS services. The NHS has made clear that a central part of responding to COVID-19 and restoring services must be to increase the scale and pace of system-wide action to tackle inequalities, with a particular focus on the issues exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The most recent NHS England and NHS Improvement planning guidance outlined the health inequalities delivery strategy from a national and local perspective which prioritised eight key urgent actions to address inequalities in NHS provision and outcomes. Action four emphasises the need to accelerate preventative programmes which proactively engages those at greatest risk of poor health outcomes, which includes prioritising and addressing cardiovascular disease.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, if any, to change the self-isolation period before 16 August for key workers who have received two COVID-19 vaccines so that they do not have to self-isolate if contacted by Test and Trace; and whether they will list those professions which fall under the key worker category.
Answered by Lord Bethell
To protect the delivery of public services before the self-isolation rules change on 16 August, a very limited number of named critical workers will be informed that they are considered to have a reasonable excuse to leave self-isolation to attend work if they are contacts. This will only apply to workers who are fully vaccinated (defined as someone who is 14 days post-second dose) and is solely for the purpose of going to work. To mitigate the risk of increased transmission, certain conditions must be followed. This is a short-term and highly focused measure intended to apply only in exceptional circumstances with the core purpose of preventing significant harm to public welfare as a result of disruption to critical services.
The list of sectors that are currently eligible for consideration are as follows: Border Control; Clinical Consumable Supplies; Digital Infrastructure; Emergency Services; Energy (including Civil and Nuclear); Essential Chemicals; Essential Defence; Essential Transport; Food Production and Supply; Health and Social Care; Local Government; Medicine; Medical Devices; Waste; Water & Veterinary Medicine.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to close the skills gap to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of qualified mechanics capable of maintaining and repairing electric vehicles before the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars takes effect in 2030.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government recognises that training and re-skilling of the current automotive workforce will be vital as we end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030. According to the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI), of the 182,000 vehicle technicians in the UK, only 21,000 are electrical vehicle (EV) qualified, and only 5% overall have a level 3 or 4 EV qualification. The government is taking a number of steps to support the sector and its workforce transition to net zero.
As part of my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan for a green industrial revolution, nearly £500 million of funding for the Automotive Transformation Fund will be made available in the next 4 years to build an internationally competitive EV supply chain. This will help to secure the transformation of the automotive sector at pace, by developing and embedding the next generation of cutting-edge automotive technologies in the UK.
We are also investing £16 million over 3 years to March 2022 in the industry led National Manufacturing Competitiveness Levels (NMCL) skills programme. NMCL is open to automotive suppliers across the UK, and is designed to improve their competitiveness, raise workforce capability, and improve productivity through the completion of a tailored business improvement plan.
On top of this, the government is committed to working with the IMI to ensure the UK’s workforce of mechanics are well trained and have the skills they need to repair EVs safely.
The IMI’s TechSafe scheme provides EV technicians with an easy and voluntary way to certify their competence. EV users will be able to access the register to check the EV competencies of technicians at their garage, supporting consumer confidence in this growing market.
More widely, the Green Jobs Taskforce was launched last November, working in partnership with business, skills providers and unions to help the UK build back greener and deliver the skilled workforce needed to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Through the taskforce, we are engaging with industry experts, including those from the automotive sector such as Nissan, and the Automotive Council Skills Working Group, to help identify future skills needs. With help from the taskforce, we will ensure that our existing skills programmes (such as those set out in the recent Skills for Jobs White Paper and the Prime Minister’s recent Lifetime Skills Guarantee) can be directed to support the net zero agenda and help to identify where the evidence tells us we might need to go further or faster.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has convened a Green Apprenticeships Advisory Panel (GAAP) to guide the continued alignment of apprenticeships with net zero and wider sustainability objectives. The GAAP is employer-led and includes stakeholders with automotive experience, including in electric vehicles. It aims to help identify which apprenticeships directly support the green agenda and which may need to be refocused. The panel will also crucially identify where there are potential opportunities to create new green apprenticeships and identify employers to help take this work forward.
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether tech companies hosting advertisements for financial products from rogue or scam operators are responsible for those advertisements; and what plans they have to ensure that such companies are held accountable for any such advertisements.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The Government takes fraud very seriously. We continue to work closely with industry to close down the vulnerabilities that fraudsters exploit and ensure members of the public have the information they need to spot a scam and stand up to fraudsters.
My department continues to work closely with other government departments, including the Home Office as the government department responsible for tackling fraud, to develop a coherent approach to online advertising that supports competition and protects consumers. We are working with industry, regulators and consumer groups to understand the specific harms that are being linked to advertising, including online fraud and scams.
Following a call for evidence in 2020, the Online Advertising Programme will launch a public consultation later this year to examine how best to strengthen standards around the placement and content of online advertising to minimise these types of financial harm, and to ensure they can be effectively enforced.
More information about the Programme can be found here:
Asked by: Baroness Manzoor (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that tech companies providing advertising space for financial products do not host advertisements from rogue or scam operators, in order to ensure that consumers are protected.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The Government takes fraud very seriously. We continue to work closely with industry to close down the vulnerabilities that fraudsters exploit and ensure members of the public have the information they need to spot a scam and stand up to fraudsters.
My department continues to work closely with other government departments, including the Home Office as the government department responsible for tackling fraud, to develop a coherent approach to online advertising that supports competition and protects consumers. We are working with industry, regulators and consumer groups to understand the specific harms that are being linked to advertising, including online fraud and scams.
Following a call for evidence in 2020, the Online Advertising Programme will launch a public consultation later this year to examine how best to strengthen standards around the placement and content of online advertising to minimise these types of financial harm, and to ensure they can be effectively enforced.
More information about the Programme can be found here: