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Written Question
Developing Countries: Genito-urinary Medicine
Thursday 15th February 2024

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to achieve universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights as per Sustainable Development Goal target 5.6.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The White Paper on International Development reaffirmed the UK's commitment to deploy policy and investment to advance and strongly defend universal access to comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in line with Sustainable Development Goal target 5.6.

The UK Government is committed to driving progress and demonstrating leadership on SRHR globally as a major donor, through our diplomatic network and in collaboration with partners. For example, the UNFPA Supplies Partnership averted 8 million unintended pregnancies, 2.2 million unsafe abortion and 170,000 maternal and child deaths in 2022, with the UK as their largest donor. The Women's Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) Programme supported 9.5 million women to use modern methods of contraception and averted over 45,000 maternal deaths, 5 million unsafe abortions and over 16 million unintended pregnancies from the programme's inception to 2021. In May 2023, the UK joined other G7 leaders in re-asserting the critical role of comprehensive SRHR in our efforts to achieve gender equality, explicitly recognising the need for access to safe and legal abortion as well as post abortion care.


Written Question
Contraceptives: Taxation
Thursday 1st February 2024

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their policy paper 2024 voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth: summary of the heads of agreement, published on 20 November 2023, what assessment they have made of any potential detrimental impact on women's health if the tax on the contraceptive implant Nexplanon is increased to 35 per cent.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The 2024 voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing, access and growth (VPAG) introduces a new way of controlling the cost of older medicines that is explicitly pro-innovation and pro-competition. We do not anticipate this resulting in a detrimental impact on women's health or, given the available mitigations, on the supply of medicines.

Medicines for women’s health will be subject to the VPAG in the same way that all other medicines are. They will be subject to the top up payment percentage only when they have not seen a sufficient price decline since the active substance lost market exclusivity.

In exceptional circumstances, where a product would otherwise be uneconomic to supply, companies can apply to the Department for a price increase or for an adjustment to the top up payment percentage that applies.


Written Question
Genito-urinary Medicine
Tuesday 12th December 2023

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, ahead of the 30-year review of the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action, what progress they have made since 1994 on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the UK.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

We are proud of the United Kingdom’s progress regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the last thirty years and of our country’s leadership as the top performing country in SRHR policies according to the European Combined SRHR Ranking Atlas 2020-2023.

In Great Britain, women have access to safe, regulated National Health Service-funded termination of pregnancy services under the Abortion Act 1967. Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland through the introduction of the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc.) Act 2019. Health is devolved in the UK, and progress on SRHR in England has included several areas of SRHR.

Contraception plays a vital role in preventing unintended pregnancy and a wide range of contraceptive choices are available free of charge in a range of primary and community care venues in England, including through the NHS Pharmacy Contraception Service since April 2023. The conception rate amongst women under 18 years old in England is now lower than it was twenty years ago and has more than halved between 2011 and 2021. The conception rate for those aged under 16 years old is approximately a third of what it was 10 years ago.

The 2022 Women’s Health Strategy for England sets out our plans for boosting the health and wellbeing of women and girls, and for improving how the health and care system engages and listens to all women. This includes investing £25 million in women’s health hubs to improve women’s access to essential services for menstrual problems, contraception, menopause care and more.

Local authorities in England are responsible for commissioning comprehensive open access to most sexual health services (SHSs) through the public health grant funded at £3.5 billion in 2023/24. Individual local authorities are well placed to make funding and commissioning decisions about the SHSs that best meet the needs of their local populations. This includes oral HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, which has been routinely available in specialist SHSs since 2020.

The National Chlamydia Screening Programme focuses on reducing reproductive harm of untreated infection in young women aged 15 to 24 years old. The programme has the secondary aims of reducing re-infections and onward transmission of chlamydia and raising awareness of good sexual health.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a very common sexually transmitted infection, and some types can cause genital warts or cervical cancer. The national HPV vaccination programme was introduced for girls in September 2008 and extended to eligible boys in September 2019. In 2022, genital warts diagnoses among young women aged between 15 and 17 years old attending SHSs were 67.9% lower than in 2018.

The HIV Action Plan is the cornerstone of our approach in England to drive forward progress and achieve our goal to end new HIV transmissions, AIDS and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030 backed by almost £45m over 2020-2025. We continue to celebrate the progress made from 2019 when the Government first made its HIV commitments, with approximately 4,500 people living with undiagnosed HIV and extremely high levels of antiretroviral therapy coverage and viral suppression.


Written Question
International Conference on Population and Development
Monday 11th December 2023

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, ahead of the 30-year review of the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action, what progress they have made since 1994 on sexual and reproductive health and rights in their international work.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The UK Government continues to use its diplomatic and development levers to drive progress and demonstrate leadership on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) globally and the recently released White Paper on International Development reaffirmed the UK's commitment to deploy policy and investment to advance and strongly defend universal access to comprehensive SRHR.

As the largest donor to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Supplies Programme, the Partnership averted 8 million unintended pregnancies, 2.2 million unsafe abortion and 170,000 maternal and child deaths in 2022 alone. Since 2018, UK aid support to the Women's Integrated Sexual Health Programme has supported 9.5 million women to use modern methods of contraception and, in 2021, over 12,000 maternal deaths and 1.8 million unsafe abortions were averted.

This year, the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights ranked the UK highest in the region (91.3 per cent) for our commitment to achieving SRHR for all, including our domestic laws and policies, and our overseas development assistance dedicated to progressing comprehensive SRHR for all.


Written Question
Development Aid: Genito-urinary Medicine
Thursday 1st June 2023

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will restore the four per cent of UK official development assistance for sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is central to achieving FCDO commitments in the International Development Strategy, our approach to end the preventable deaths of mothers, new-borns and children by 2030 and the International Women and Girls Strategy.

The FCDO ensures the aid budget is directed towards our priorities, delivers value for the taxpayer and meets the UK Government's commitment to spend 0.5 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) on Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) until the fiscal situation allows a return to 0.7 per cent. The International Development Strategy, which includes comprehensive SRHR, will guide aid prioritisation decisions, alongside the International Women and Girls Strategy. We will update on planned allocations for this spending review period in due course.


Written Question
Development Aid: Genito-urinary Medicine
Thursday 1st June 2023

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prioritise (1) sexual and reproductive health, and (2) the rights of women and girls, in the allocation of official development assistance to developing countries.

Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

The UK is proud to defend and promote universal and comprehensive sexual and reproductive rights (SRHR). We are committed to working with our partners to drive progress and demonstrate leadership on SRHR on the global stage and in our programmes. This includes the recent announcement that up to £200 million will be delivered towards the Women's Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) Dividend programme focussed between 2024-29 on sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest rates of maternal mortality, neonatal deaths and unmet need for family planning in the world.

In March 2023, the FCDO published the UK's International Women and Girls Strategy which sets out our plan to promote and defend the rights of women and girls. In this, we committed to ensure that at least 80% of FCDO's bilateral aid programmes should have a focus on gender equality, using OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) markers, by 2030.


Written Question
Energy: Billing
Tuesday 30th May 2023

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent energy companies from increasing direct debit payments from customers over the summer while global energy prices are falling.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

A customer’s direct debit payment arrangement should avoid large credit or debit balance at the end of 12-month period. Energy suppliers are required to ensure a customer’s direct debit payments are set on the best available information. For existing customers, the payment level should be based on energy consumption over the previous year with adjustments for price changes. With Ofgem now setting the energy price cap on a quarterly basis, regular adequacy reviews on customers’ accounts by suppliers should mean when the cost of energy falls, they will see this reflected in their direct debit payment sooner.


Written Question
South Sudan: Land Mines
Monday 20th March 2023

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park on 7 March (HL5764), whether they will now answer the question put; namely, what assistance they will provide to the government of South Sudan to enable that country to meet its international obligations under the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention to become free of landmines.

Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

The Global Mine Action Programme (GMAP), the FCDO's main vehicle for clearing landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW), has a long-standing commitment to funding demining in South Sudan. Between 2018 and 2022, GMAP provided funding for UK NGO the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) to clear 1,829,632 square metres of land in South Sudan. GMAP signed a new contract with MAG for Financial Year 22/23, which, as of end December 2022, had cleared an additional 168,563 square metres of land there. We are currently negotiating with MAG a new contract for South Sudan to run from April 2023.


Written Question
Minerals
Tuesday 14th March 2023

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government which department the minister with responsibility for critical minerals will be based in; and when the Critical Minerals Strategy announced in 2022 will be updated as planned.

Answered by Lord Johnson of Lainston - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

The Department with lead responsibility for critical minerals is the Department for Business and Trade. The Government is planning to publish a refreshed approach to the Critical Minerals Strategy in Spring this year to reinforce the 2022 Strategy, highlight delivery progress to date, and set out upcoming delivery milestones.


Written Question
South Sudan: Land Mines
Tuesday 7th March 2023

Asked by: Baroness Northover (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assistance they will provide to the government of South Sudan to enable that country to meet its international obligations under the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention to become free of landmines.

Answered by Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

The UK is supporting efforts to clear landmines and other explosive hazards in Sudan through the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS). Clearing contaminated land in regional areas across Sudan has provided safe access for humanitarian personnel and enabled civilians to access basic services, such as water supplies and healthcare.