Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what guidance they issue to schools in England on preventing, recognising, and responding to anaphylaxis.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Schools are required under Section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 to make arrangements to support pupils with medical conditions, including allergies. They must have regard to the 'Supporting pupils with medical conditions at school' statutory guidance which sets expectations for training and emergency procedures. The guidance can be read in full here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-pupils-at-school-with-medical-conditions--3.
Governing bodies should ensure that staff receive suitable training to identify and respond to severe allergic reactions, such as anaphylaxis, and that policies and systems are effectively implemented. Ofsted assesses the effectiveness of these arrangements as part of school inspections.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they plan to introduce legislation to replace the Financial Reporting Council with the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority and to place that body on a statutory footing.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The government recognises the importance of having an effective and proportionate regulator of the audit sector and the significance of having a regulator that has the right legislative set-up to do the job. At present, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) will not transition to become the Audit Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA). The name of the regulator is less important than its effectiveness. The FRC has already undergone a substantial transformation since 2018, and we intend to put it on a proper statutory footing as soon as there is availability within the parliamentary schedule.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to mitigate the risk of further avoidable corporate failures pending the introduction of strengthened audit and governance regulations.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The quality of audit regulation and audit itself has seen considerable improvement in the last eight years following the collapse of Carillion; however, we will continue to work closely with the Financial Reporting Council to keep improving the audit market. The government is committed to good governance, and the UK is a world leader in corporate governance. We will take a further step in this direction by launching a consultation to modernise, simplify and streamline the UK’s corporate reporting framework, with the ambition to make the UK’s reporting regime the most proportionate in the world.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on jobs, growth and investment of major corporate collapses linked to audit and governance deficiencies over the past decade.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government has not made such an assessment. At one level, almost all corporate collapses can be linked to governance deficiencies, since company directors have a duty to promote the success of the company. Audit deficiencies tend to exacerbate problems rather than being the cause of a company’s collapse. As an example of the impact of a major corporate collapse over the past decade, the failure of Carillion left approximately £4.5bn of debt, affecting around 7,000 first-tier suppliers and contractors, and displacing 19,000 UK jobs.