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 intend to publish their proposals for a modernised corporate reporting framework.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
On 21 October 2025, the government announced its intention to launch a consultation to modernise, simplify and streamline the UK’s corporate reporting framework, delivering the most proportionate framework in the world. The consultation will be issued shortly.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will provide a timeline for their engagement with technology companies on preventing nude image sharing among children, as referenced in Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls, published on 18 December 2025.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
We committed in the Violence Against Women and Girls strategy ‘to make it impossible for children in the UK to take, share or view a nude image’, and that ‘we are working constructively with companies to make this a reality’. This engagement will be targeted and carried out with the urgency that the issue deserves.
We want device operating systems to be doing more to protect their child users. Applying nudity detection technology more comprehensively across the operating system can prevent nude imagery from being taken, shared or viewed on the phone at all. This intervention is about preventing the harm from happening by blocking the imagery entirely. Preventing the creation and sharing of self-generated indecent imagery (SGII) would undermine grooming and sextortion models, where imagery is extorted out of the child by offenders.
This intervention will also prevent children from being exposed to harmful content, building on similar protections already enacted through the Online Safety Act. Exposure to harmful content – especially pornography – at such an impressionable age can feed misogynistic views and give distorted views of healthy relationships.
We will provide an update on this work as soon as possible. If voluntary action from industry is not sufficient, we will not hesitate to consider other means.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 5 January (HL12579), whether they will review the evaluation framework used to inform advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to ensure that it systematically captures the wider economic and societal benefits of vaccination, including impacts on productivity, education, and health inequalities.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
When advising the Government on matters relating to vaccination and immunisation, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) considers information on cost-effectiveness alongside evidence of the burden of disease, of vaccine safety and efficacy, and of the impact of immunisation strategies. Broader socio-economic impacts of vaccination may be highlighted by the JCVI or by officials who provide advice to ministers. However, these wider impacts are not formally included with the cost-effectiveness methodology.
A key reason for this is that these wider benefits cannot be quantified consistently across all vaccination programmes, due to the lack of high-quality data on socio-economic benefits currently available. Robust data may be available for very few programmes, but basing decisions on these wider benefits, rather than health benefits, would create disparities whereby vaccination programmes with high-quality data on wider benefits are considered more valuable.
Additionally, by maintaining a formal approach focused on health benefits, we are able to assess vaccines consistently with other health interventions in receipt of health spending, which are similarly focused on health benefits under the guidance of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
By ensuring vaccine policymaking is informed by comparable and measurable health benefits and rigorous cost-effectiveness analysis, we ensure that public funds are spent responsibly and directed to programmes that deliver health benefits and savings to the health and social care system.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following the implementation of the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism on 1 January, what steps they are taking to mitigate the £200 million annual cost to Northern Ireland and risk to 1,100 jobs estimated in Energy UK’s report Borderline confusion - Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms in Northern Ireland, published in January 2025.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Energy UK report referred to assumes that the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) would apply in Northern Ireland. The EU CBAM does not apply in Northern Ireland. From 1 January 2027, the UK CBAM will apply across the whole of the UK, including Northern Ireland.
To reduce barriers to trade, the UK and EU are also negotiating a deal to link respective emissions trading schemes, which will create the conditions for mutual CBAM exemptions. Those talks have begun and the Government is working to negotiate a good deal in line with UK interests as quickly as is feasible.
The Government also welcomes the European Commission’s proposed amendments, published December 2025, which would mean electricity exports from the UK will not face an EU CBAM charge.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they will take to publish national guidance on the proportion of families accessing specialist dementia support within a defined period following diagnosis.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government wants a society where every person with dementia receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to the end of life.
We will deliver the first ever Frailty and Dementia Modern Service Framework to deliver rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity. This will be informed by phase one of the independent commission into adult social care, which is expected this year.
The Frailty and Dementia Modern Service Framework will seek to reduce unwarranted variation and narrow inequality for those living with dementia and will set national standards for dementia care and redirect National Health Service priorities to provide the best possible care and support.
In developing the Frailty and Dementia Modern Service Framework, we are engaging with a wide group of partners to understand what should be included, to ensure the best outcomes for people living with dementia and their families and carers. As part of this exercise, we are considering all options to help reduce variation, including reviewing metrics and targets.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Dementia and Frailty Modern Service Framework will establish a single national dementia care pathway, including end of life care and clear minimum service standards.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We will deliver the first ever Frailty and Dementia Modern Service Framework to deliver rapid and significant improvements in the quality of care and productivity. This will be informed by phase one of the independent commission into adult social care, which is expected this year.
The Frailty and Dementia Modern Service Framework will seek to reduce unwarranted variation and narrow inequality for those living with dementia and will set national standards for dementia care and redirect National Health Service priorities to provide the best possible care and support.
In developing the Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia, we will be considering existing guidance, including the D100 Pathway Assessment tool, which continues the work of the Dementia Care Pathway and covers all elements of the Well Pathway from prevention through to dying well.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to ensure that dementia is explicitly designed into the neighbourhood health model at a national level and to prevent local discretion and variable commissioning decisions in relation to such services.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
This Government is empowering local leaders with the autonomy they need to provide the best services to their local community, including those with dementia. This is why we have published the D100: Assessment Tool Pathway programme, which brings together multiple resources into a single, consolidated tool. This will help simplify best practice for system leaders and help create communities and services where the best possible care and support is available to those with dementia.
We will deliver the first ever Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia to deliver rapid and significant improvements in quality of care and productivity, informed by phase one of the independent commission into adult social care, which is expected this year. The framework will seek to reduce unwarranted variation and narrow inequality for those living with dementia.
Neighbourhood Health provides the unifying framework that brings together what is already underway across primary care, community services, urgent care, prevention, digital, estates and population health into a single, coherent model focused on improved access, experience and outcomes.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to ensure that every neighbourhood health service in England includes dementia specialism within multidisciplinary teams, with dementia specialist nursing as a core component.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Neighbourhood Health Services will bring together integrated neighbourhood teams of professionals and partners closer to people’s home, including nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, health visitors, employment support, children’s services, and more, to work together to support people and places to improve their health and wellbeing.
Neighbourhood Health provides the unifying framework that brings together what is already underway across primary care, community services, urgent care, prevention, digital, estates and population health into a single, coherent model focused on improved access, experience and outcomes.
The provision of dementia health care services is the responsibility of local integrated care boards (ICBs) and may include specialist nurses. We expect ICBs to commission services based on local population needs, taking account of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish national dementia outcomes for neighbourhood health services requiring integrated care boards to demonstrate timely access to specialist, community-based dementia support.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In developing the Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia, we are engaging with a wide group of partners to understand what should be included to ensure the best outcomes for people living with dementia. As part of this exercise, we are considering all options to help reduce variation, including reviewing metrics and targets.
The Neighbourhood Health Service will be the driving force behind our new Genomics Population Health Service; and data will increasingly allow Neighbourhood Health Services to deliver genuinely predictive and pre-emptive care, transforming our care model entirely.
NHS England already collect and publish data about people with dementia at each general practice in England, to enable National Health Service general practitioners and commissioners to make informed choices about how to plan their dementia services around patients’ needs.
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities Dementia Intelligence Network has also developed a tool for local systems, which includes an assessment of population characteristics such as rurality and socio-economic deprivation. This enables systems to investigate local variation in diagnosis and take informed action to enhance their diagnosis rates. The tool is available via the NHS Futures Collaboration platform.