Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether their ongoing pension reviews will assess the pension gender gap for women living with a terminal diagnosis.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government recognises that disparities exist between the private pension wealth of men and women.

The Pensions Commission will explore steps to improve pension outcomes, especially for groups at the greatest risk of under saving, including women. The Commission published their interim report on 19 May 2026, setting out key challenges facing the pension system and where it will focus its work, and will publish their final report early next year.

For those living with terminal illness, the Government believes it is compassionate and appropriate to allow access to private pension savings. Individuals with a life expectancy of less than 12 months may take a serious ill-health lump sum at any age, subject to medical evidence and scheme rules. This is tax-free below age 75 up to an allowance of £1.073 million, and otherwise taxed as income.

While the current rules intend to provide flexibility while keeping in place important safeguards to avoid risk of error and misuse, the Government recognises that the permissive nature of these rules means individuals may experience different hurdles to access depending on their scheme. The government wishes to ensure a fair and compassionate approach and will therefore be considering this issue in further detail.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what role they intend Best Start Family Hubs to play in identifying and supporting mothers experiencing perinatal and postnatal mental health difficulties.

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

Supporting perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships are vital to the health and wellbeing of babies and their caregivers.

The Department is investing £200 million for Healthy Babies services in 75 local authority areas with high levels of deprivation, including £109 million to provide enhanced parent-infant relationship and perinatal mental health support. This forms part of a £900 million package in Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies to create a more integrated, accessible system of support for families.

All Best Start Family Hubs should provide safe and inclusive perinatal mental health support, identifying needs early, offering emotional support and help families to access appropriate support and services within their local area. Healthy Babies funded areas are expected to deliver an enhanced perinatal mental health service, with proactive identification, accessible support, and clear referral pathways. These services complement National Health Service provision for parents with moderate to severe perinatal mental health needs.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what safeguards are in place to prevent potential structural bias in healthcare datasets and to address gaps in health data relating to Black, Asian and minority ethnic individuals.

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

Our 10-Year Health Plan for England sets out a reimagined service designed to tackle health inequalities in both access and outcomes. This includes tackling conditions where there are the greatest disparities for ethnic groups.

We remain committed to reducing the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest, an ambitious commitment that shows the Government is serious about tackling health inequalities and addressing the social determinants of health. Indicators to monitor progress in health inequalities are measured in key data outcomes, such as the life expectancy estimates for England and sub-national areas, produced by the Office for National Statistics.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed gaps in available data, including the quality of ethnicity data held to support the identification of health inequalities among ethnic minority communities.

There are a number of barriers to the consistent and accurate collection and recording of ethnicity data in the National Health Service, such as outdated ethnicity codes as a result of the need for the NHS to migrate from the 2001 to the 2021 Census ethnicity classification. There is also a need for a single point of collection of ethnicity data which multiple systems could speak to. Ethnicity needing to be recorded multiple times currently increases the likelihood of inconsistencies between data collected in different settings, as does inconsistency in how staff approach ethnicity data collection and recording, and there are particular challenges in some settings such as the ambulance services and accident and emergency. These inconsistencies can mean some individual patients having multiple ethnic codes from different settings and contacts with the healthcare system. In addition, the overuse of ‘Not stated’ and ‘Unknown’ ethnicity codes leads to gaps in data, undermining robust analysis of healthcare inequalities between ethnic groups

In October 2025, NHS England published an Ethnicity Recording Improvement Plan, which includes actions to address structural and practical barriers to high quality ethnicity recording at a system level, as well as guidance to support providers and systems to implement best practice ethnicity recording, including training staff and supporting patients to understand why and how this data is used. Data quality is a feature of the NHS Oversight Framework 2026/27 via inclusion of the data quality maturity index, meaning that NHS trusts are scored on the quality of their data overall. The completeness of their ethnicity data forms part of this overall index. Work is also underway within to address some of the barriers to high quality ethnicity data, including work to support the NHS’s migration to modernised ethnicity codes.

More generally, Department will look to improve data quality and timeliness, and fill data gaps around equalities in partnership with stakeholders.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what support they plan to provide for young women entering the workforce in relation to the rise of artificial intelligence, lack of job security, and skills confidence.

Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

With over one million young people not in education, employment and training, this Government will not leave an entire generation of young people behind. The Government is investing an additional £2.5 billion over the next three years into the Youth Guarantee and the Growth and Skills Levy.

This investment will support almost one million young people and create up to 500,000 opportunities to earn and learn, including through expanded network of Youth Hubs, earlier intensive support in Jobs Centres through a new Youth Guarantee Gateway, additional work experience and training opportunities, a £3,000 Youth Jobs Grant and £2,000 apprenticeship hiring payment for employers, and a fully funded six month job for long-term unemployed 18–24-year-olds.

We also recognise the crisis of participation that Alan Milburn has so clearly laid out in his interim report. We will use this interim report to continue to build our reforms and look forward to final recommendations in the Autumn.

AI has potentially transformative benefits for the economy and wider society, and the Government is doing all it can to ensure that the United Kingdom is at the forefront of this technological transition. That’s why the government is taking action now to shape this transition in a way that benefits workers, including young women, and the economy. This includes:

• Establishing the AI Economics Institute to provide world-leading research on AI’s economic impacts so government can respond to labour market shocks,
• Increasing access to AI upskilling through: TechFirst’s AI training focused on supporting 400,000 young people access AI training, and AI Skills Boost through which every UK adult can access free AI upskilling.
• Improving routes into AI jobs through AI apprenticeships schemes creating opportunities for the next generation.