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These initiatives were driven by Lord Bailey of Paddington, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
Lord Bailey of Paddington has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
Lord Bailey of Paddington has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
It is hugely disappointing that students, many of whom have already suffered during the pandemic, are facing further disruption and uncertainty. It is imperative that higher education (HE) institutions continue to do everything within their powers to protect the interests of their students.
While the department plays no formal role in such disputes, we are concerned about the potential impact of the marking and assessment boycott on students, particularly those who are graduating and looking to enter the jobs market or progress to further study.
The department understands that the vast majority of students will remain unaffected by the industrial action and, in most cases, will receive their full results on time and progress and/or graduate as normal.
My right hon. Friend, the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education has held discussions with the Russell Group, Universities UK and the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) to better understand the boycott’s impact on students and the actions institutions are taking to minimise disruption. He has also written to the Russell Group and Universities UK, encouraging them to continue to do everything within their powers to protect the interests of students during this phase of industrial action.
HE institutions are working on minimising the disruption to their students in a variety of ways, including reallocating marking to other staff members and hiring external markers. Many HE institutions can award degrees when they have enough evidence of a student’s prior attainment to do so. Others will be able to assign provisional grades to students to allow them to progress, and, once all papers have been marked, most institutions will award degree classifications that either remain as provisionally assigned or are uplifted to reflect the student’s achievements.
On 12 June 2023, the Office for Students (OfS) wrote to institutions affected by the boycott to reiterate its expectations in relation to its conditions of registration. The OfS will continue to monitor this ongoing situation through their normal regulatory mechanisms and have published guidance to students on their rights during industrial action. This guidance is available at: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/for-students/student-rights-and-welfare/student-guide-to-industrial-action/.
Students who have complaints about their HE experience should contact their institution in the first instance. Students in England and Wales may also raise a complaint with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA), which was set up to provide an alternative to the courts and is free of charge to students. Depending on the complaint, the OIA may recommend that compensation be awarded. Whilst compensating students for disruption is the responsibility of HE institutions, the OIA expects institutions to comply with their recommendations. Further information is available at: https://www.oiahe.org.uk/.
The department will continue to engage with the HE sector over the coming weeks to help better understand the boycott’s impact on students and we hope an agreement between UCEA and University and College Union can be reached that delivers good value for students, staff and universities.
The number of cancer patients that met the 62-day treatment target between urgent general practitioner referral and first definitive treatment in 2020 was 113,704; in 2021 was 119,302; in 2022 was 111,649 and in 2023 to date where most recent data is available till September 2023 is 83,129.
The Department is taking steps to reduce cancer treatment waiting times across England, including the time between diagnosis and commencement of treatment for cancer. The Government is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity.
In the 2023/24 Operational Planning Guidance, NHS England announced it is providing over £390 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances in each of the next two years to support delivery of the strategy and the operational priorities for cancer which includes increasing and prioritising diagnostic and treatment capacity for cancer.
Additionally, the Government recently published the Major Conditions Strategy Case for Change and Our Strategic Framework on 14 August 2023 which sets out our approach to making the choices over the next five years that will deliver the most value in facing the health challenges of today and of the decades ahead, including for cancer.
Since 2016, there has been significant investment in radiotherapy equipment so that every radiotherapy provider had access to modern, cutting-edge radiotherapy equipment, enabling the rollout of new techniques like stereotactic ablative radiotherapy. The total central investment made between 2016 and 2021 was £162 million and enabled the replacement or upgrade of approximately 100 radiotherapy treatment machines, equal to around a third of all radiotherapy treatment machines. This is investment on top of that committed by National Health Service trusts, either from their own capital budgets or via donations.
Since April 2022, the responsibility for investing in new radiotherapy machines has sat with local systems. This is supported by the 2021 Spending Review, which set aside £12 billion in operational capital for the NHS from 2022 to 2025.
The Government worked with NHS England to publish the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care in February 2022, and plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer treatments like radiotherapy. This will further be supported by the additional £3.3 billion of funding in each of the next two years announced at the Autumn Statement to support the NHS.
The Home Office Professional Enablers Taskforce was created in March 2023 to investigate the activities of all Professional Enablers, who may be using their expertise or position to abuse the immigration system. This includes legal professionals and immigration advisers.
Where unethical and illegal practices are identified and evidence exists that obligations have been breached, the taskforce may refer legal practitioners to the relevant regulatory body or to law enforcement partners, where criminality is evident for consideration of sanctions or penalties.
Where a person has been refused asylum and makes further submissions, there will only be a right of appeal if the further submissions amount to a fresh claim. There will be a fresh claim only if the further submissions have not previously been considered and, taken together with the previously considered material, created a realistic prospect of success. In the vast majority of cases where there is a right of appeal, the Home Office is represented by Presenting Officers who are specially trained on immigration law and practice, including cross-examination, to ensure any credibility issues are raised before the tribunal, and that decisions are robustly defended at appeal where it is right to do so.
The Home Office is currently working with the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to review the extent to which existing criminal law provides coverage of AI-enabled offending and harmful behaviour, including the production and distribution of deepfake material using generative AI.
With respect to material concerning public figures, the new Online Safety Act introduces ‘false communications’ and ‘threatening communications’ offences that could cover the sending of deepfake content produced via AI, so long as the conditions are met. Other offences may also apply, such as impersonating a police officer.
If the review suggests alterations to the criminal law are required to clarify its application to AI-generated synthetic and manipulated material then amendments will be considered in the usual way.
The Home Office is currently working with the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to review the extent to which existing criminal law provides coverage of AI-enabled offending and harmful behaviour, including the production and distribution of deepfake material using generative AI.
With respect to material concerning public figures, the new Online Safety Act introduces ‘false communications’ and ‘threatening communications’ offences that could cover the sending of deepfake content produced via AI, so long as the conditions are met. Other offences may also apply, such as impersonating a police officer.
If the review suggests alterations to the criminal law are required to clarify its application to AI-generated synthetic and manipulated material then amendments will be considered in the usual way.
The Government remains firmly committed to tackling all forms of child sexual abuse online and in our communities across the UK and internationally. Our approach is underpinned by the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy which sets out firm commitments to drive action across the whole system.
The law in the UK is very clear with regards to production of child sexual abuse material. It is an offence to produce, store, share or search for any material that contains or depicts child sexual abuse, regardless of whether the material depicts a ‘real’ child or not. This prohibition also includes pseudo-imagery that may have been computer-generated.
Possession of indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of children carries a maximum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment. In addition, the offence of taking, making, distribution and possession with a view to distribution of any indecent photograph or pseudo-photograph of a child under 18 carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment.
Home Office investment supports the National Crime Agency to use its unique capabilities to disrupt the highest harm offenders, safeguard children and remove the most horrific child sexual abuse material from the internet, including on the dark web.
The Home Office has recently rolled out new tools linked to our world-leading Child Abuse Image Database to support law enforcement to identify offenders and safeguard victims more quickly. This includes Fast Forensic Triage – a tool that enables police officers to identify known indecent images of children on suspects’ devices up to 100 times faster than before.
In October, the Home Office, in partnership with the Internet Watch Foundation, hosted an AI Safety Summit side event to discuss the growing threat of generative artificial intelligence in tackling online child sexual abuse. As part of the event, the Home Office issued a joint statement on tackling the proliferation of AI-generated child sexual abuse material, with 33 signatories, including tech companies such as Snapchat, TikTok and Stability AI.