Lord Hain

I have noted the questions referenced, as well as the Noble Lord’s three further questions submitted to the department in question (HL5696, HL5697, HL5698). I would refer the Noble Lord to the recently issued answers to these from the department.

As Leader of the House I take very seriously the responsibility incumbent on all Ministers to provide full, timely and comprehensive answers to Questions for Written Answers.

Ministers are reminded regularly of the importance of their obligations to the House and under the ministerial code. My office works closely with all departmental Parliamentary teams and Private Offices to help provide advice on what is expected of them in providing such answers.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.

Please see the letter attached from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.

The Rt Hon. the Lord Hain

House of Lords

London

SW1A 0PW

20 October 2023

Dear Lord Hain,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking how many deaths occurred in each of the last 12 months where the cause of death was listed as COVID-19 (HL10538).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for publishing statistics on deaths registered in England and Wales [1]. Figures for Scotland [2] and Northern Ireland [3] are the responsibility of National Records for Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, respectively.

Causes mentioned on the death certificate are converted to International Classification of Diseases 10th edition (ICD-10) codes, with the underlying cause of death defined as the disease or injury that initiated the events that directly lead to the death. The ICD-10 codes for COVID-19 are U07.1, U07.2, U10.9, U09.9.

Table 1 shows the number of deaths due to COVID-19 registered in England and Wales by month registered between October 2022 and September 2023.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

Table 1: Deaths due to COVID-19 by month and year of registration, England and Wales, registered October 2022 and September 2023 [4,5,6,7,8].

Source: Office for National Statistics

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/

[2] https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/deaths

[3] https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/births-deaths-and-marriages/deaths

[4] Figures are for deaths registered, rather than deaths occurring in each period.

[5] Figures are based on provisional data.

[6] Figures include the deaths of usual residents of England and Wales as well as those of nonresidents.

[7] Figures are based on deaths where COVID-19 (ICD-10 codes U07.1, U07.2, U10.9, U09.9) was the underlying cause of death.

[8] Deaths due to COVID-19 refers to deaths where COVID-19 was the underlying cause of death. The underlying cause of death is defined by WHO as the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death.

This question relates to two contracts with BAIN and Company (BAIN): CCCC18A29 and CCCC20A01. These contracts formed part of a portfolio of contracts managed by Cabinet Office in order to support Brexit and Transition Period work across government. The former contract was varied to include COVID-19 response work and was part of the cross-government response. Both contracts are now closed.

The below information is publicly available.

CCCC18A29 was a call-off contract, awarded following a further competition via a framework agreement. The contract was awarded for a total value of £20m and commenced in April 2018; this included a one year £10m extension option, which was exercised. Additionally, the contract was varied for an additional £5m in March 2019. In March 2020, this contract was extended for four additional months and varied to include COVID-19 response work. The contract ended in August 2019, with a total spend of £12.9m.

This contract was used to provide strategic advisory and analytical services to Departments, in regards to the planning and development of policies and programmes. The scope was limited to Brexit and Covid-19 response work.

Work was evaluated on a project by project basis at the business unit level to assess quality of outcomes. This fed into the Cabinet Office’s regular supplier performance reviews.

CCCC20A01 was a call-off contract, awarded following a further competition via a framework agreement. The contract was awarded for a total value of £30m and commenced in September 2020. This included a one year £10m extension option, which was not exercised. The contract was closed in August 2021, with a total spend of £1m.

This contract was used to provide strategic advisory and analytical services to Departments, in regards to the planning and development of policies and programmes. The scope was limited to Transition Period work.

Work was evaluated on a project by project basis at the business unit level to assess quality of outcomes. This fed into the Cabinet Office’s regular supplier performance reviews.

This question relates to two contracts with BAIN and Company (BAIN): CCCC18A29 and CCCC20A01. These contracts formed part of a portfolio of contracts managed by Cabinet Office in order to support Brexit and Transition Period work across government. The former contract was varied to include COVID-19 response work and was part of the cross-government response. Both contracts are now closed.

The below information is publicly available.

CCCC18A29 was a call-off contract, awarded following a further competition via a framework agreement. The contract was awarded for a total value of £20m and commenced in April 2018; this included a one year £10m extension option, which was exercised. Additionally, the contract was varied for an additional £5m in March 2019. In March 2020, this contract was extended for four additional months and varied to include COVID-19 response work. The contract ended in August 2019, with a total spend of £12.9m.

This contract was used to provide strategic advisory and analytical services to Departments, in regards to the planning and development of policies and programmes. The scope was limited to Brexit and Covid-19 response work.

Work was evaluated on a project by project basis at the business unit level to assess quality of outcomes. This fed into the Cabinet Office’s regular supplier performance reviews.

CCCC20A01 was a call-off contract, awarded following a further competition via a framework agreement. The contract was awarded for a total value of £30m and commenced in September 2020. This included a one year £10m extension option, which was not exercised. The contract was closed in August 2021, with a total spend of £1m.

This contract was used to provide strategic advisory and analytical services to Departments, in regards to the planning and development of policies and programmes. The scope was limited to Transition Period work.

Work was evaluated on a project by project basis at the business unit level to assess quality of outcomes. This fed into the Cabinet Office’s regular supplier performance reviews.

This question relates to two contracts with BAIN and Company (BAIN): CCCC18A29 and CCCC20A01. These contracts formed part of a portfolio of contracts managed by Cabinet Office in order to support Brexit and Transition Period work across government. The former contract was varied to include COVID-19 response work and was part of the cross-government response. Both contracts are now closed.

The below information is publicly available.

CCCC18A29 was a call-off contract, awarded following a further competition via a framework agreement. The contract was awarded for a total value of £20m and commenced in April 2018; this included a one year £10m extension option, which was exercised. Additionally, the contract was varied for an additional £5m in March 2019. In March 2020, this contract was extended for four additional months and varied to include COVID-19 response work. The contract ended in August 2019, with a total spend of £12.9m.

This contract was used to provide strategic advisory and analytical services to Departments, in regards to the planning and development of policies and programmes. The scope was limited to Brexit and Covid-19 response work.

Work was evaluated on a project by project basis at the business unit level to assess quality of outcomes. This fed into the Cabinet Office’s regular supplier performance reviews.

CCCC20A01 was a call-off contract, awarded following a further competition via a framework agreement. The contract was awarded for a total value of £30m and commenced in September 2020. This included a one year £10m extension option, which was not exercised. The contract was closed in August 2021, with a total spend of £1m.

This contract was used to provide strategic advisory and analytical services to Departments, in regards to the planning and development of policies and programmes. The scope was limited to Transition Period work.

Work was evaluated on a project by project basis at the business unit level to assess quality of outcomes. This fed into the Cabinet Office’s regular supplier performance reviews.

Cabinet Office does not hold a central record of contracts awarded by departments.

Details of Government contracts above £10,000 are published on Contracts Finder (https://www.gov.uk/contracts-finder). Accounting records are required to be kept for six years.

Cabinet Office is considering the report of the South African Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture: Part 1.

The Government’s engagement with businesses and organisations in the UK and internationally informed the decision to continue CE recognition of goods on the UK market for regulations owned by the Department for Business and Trade.

The government continues to engage with industry, both domestically and internationally. Businesses and trade associations repeatedly expressed significant concerns with the duplicative costs for placing goods on EU and UK markets, and the lack of business-readiness for compliance with mandatory UK Conformity Assessment, which potentially may have resulted in product shortages in GB or increased costs to GB consumers. Extending CE recognition will help in mitigating these challenges.

For most products being placed on the market in Great Britain (GB), products can comply with either GB or EU product regulations. UK Conformity Assessment Bodies can continue to certify goods for the UK market.

The EU does not recognise UK testing facilities for conformity assessment of products. Nevertheless, the UK is committed to exploring available avenues that could facilitate acceptance of EU-UK conformity assessment results and support British businesses.

The sale process continues to be run by Chelsea Football Club and it will be for them to decide the precise terms of a proposed sale. The Government will consider the merits of a licence application on its own terms and we expect any application to set out the proposed approach and specific transactions which need licensing in order to come to a decision.

The Government can only impose conditions on a licence which authorises the sale of the club if they are linked to the sanctions policy.

Participation in international sports events is a matter for the relevant international sports federations, and the national representatives to those federations. These bodies operate independently of government, and enshrine this political freedom in their rules and regulations.

Acquisitions of sporting assets in the UK by foreign investors are a matter for the sports businesses themselves. The Government does not stipulate assessment criteria to sports bodies on acquisitions.

The Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) has been developed following extensive engagement with the border industry and businesses across the UK. It incorporates feedback from the Draft BTOM which was published in April 2023. In response to this feedback, the Government has agreed a small delay of 3 months to the introduction of remaining sanitary and phytosanitary controls, which will now be introduced in January 2024. This has the benefit of giving stakeholders additional requested time to prepare for the model.

The Government remains committed to delivering the most effective border, and the BTOM is key to achieving this.

We are tackling COVID-19’s direct and wide-ranging secondary impacts, and to date have committed up to £764 million of UK aid to support the global response to COVID-19. This includes UK support for the implementation of the African Union’s COVID-19 Continental Strategy. UK aid funding of £20 million will help strengthen healthcare systems and save lives in the African Union’s 55 member states by providing training for healthcare workers, supporting the deployment of African experts, and helping to tackle misinformation around COVID-19.

The UK has provided public health experts to support Africa Centres for Disease Control through the Department of Health and Social Care International Health Regulations Strengthening Project and the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team. DFID is rapidly adapting its bilateral programmes across Africa to help counter the health, humanitarian, and economic impacts of COVID-19, in support of the poorest people.

We are seeking to ensure that the significant amounts of finance made available by International Financial Institutions targets the most vulnerable, especially women and girls, flexes to meet the short-term needs of governments, and is coordinated with the UN and other parts of the international response.

Medical devices are regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and are considered high-risk goods. The Government has put in place legislation to extend the acceptance of CE marked medical devices on the Great Britain market up to 2028 or 2030, depending on the type of CE certificate held.

In addition, the MHRA are currently developing proposals for an international recognition framework. This would reduce, where safe to do so, barriers to medical devices entering the Great Britain market where they have already demonstrated to other trusted regulators that they meet our essential requirements.

The Department will support the National Health Service to address the impacts of the pandemic by supporting and increasing the workforce. The monthly workforce statistics for January 2022 show that there are more than 1.2 million full time equivalent staff working in the NHS. Since January 2021, there are over 20,700 more professionally qualified clinical staff working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups, including over 4,200 additional doctors and 12,100 nurses. We are currently on schedule to deliver 50,000 more nurses and provide a sustainable long-term supply in future. We have established a programme to improve retention and support return to practice, invest in and diversify the training pipeline and ethically recruit internationally.

We have offered non-repayable grants of at least £5,000 per academic year to eligible students studying pre-registration programmes in nursing and midwifery and allied health professions. A further £3,000 is available to students with child dependents and those studying specialist subjects. At the end of the 2021 recruitment cycle, there are over 57,000 applications for nursing and midwifery courses – an increase of 21% compared to 2020. Over 30,000 nurses and midwives accepted places to study nursing and midwifery in 2021 and there are currently more than 72,000 people training to be nurses, approximately 9,000 midwifery trainees and 30,000 trainees for the allied health professions.

We have also funded an additional 1,500 undergraduate medical school places each year for domestic students and opened five new medical schools. In response to the pandemic, the Government temporarily lifted the cap on medical and dental school places for students who had completed A levels in 2020 and 2021. We are also investing in workforce skills, wellbeing and career development to help address the barriers to people taking up work in adult social care and make adult social care a more attractive offer. We have committed at least £500 million to develop and support the adult social care workforce, including training places and initiatives to improve wellbeing.

We are unable to provide the information requested as it is commercially sensitive. However, the payment rates are as per the Crown Commercial Service Framework rate card with discounts attained depending on value and length of role.

The care home tests are processed via the existing programme lab infrastructure, the lighthouse labs and Randox in Northern Ireland. Test turnaround times are consistent with the rest of the programme with over 97% of tests being returned within 48 hours. We continue to make progress on being able to return all results within 24 hours.

I [Lord Ahmad] do not have plans to meet with Judge Wolf during his visit due to prior commitments. As far as we are aware, there are no plans for Ministers from elsewhere in Government to meet with Judge Wolf either. The government outlined its position on this subject matter on 6 July 2023 in the House of Lords [https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2023-07-06/debates/DB0613A7-1D77-482D-A180-20745447DD92/InternationalAnti-CorruptionCourt#contribution-A203485E-C9F6-4E51-BFF6-25D39DBA3826].

On 28 February 2022, the UK updated its Overseas Business Risk Guidance https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/overseas-business-risk-myanmar-burma/overseas-business-risk-myanmar-burma to make it clear UK businesses should conduct thorough supply chain due diligence to ensure that commodities, such as aviation fuel do not reach the Myanmar military. Amnesty International's thorough report on the aviation fuel supply chain in Myanmar indicates that no British companies are involved in supplying aviation fuel to the armed forces. The UK has been clear that we oppose the provision of jet fuel, arms, military equipment, and dual use items to Myanmar which are used to facilitate human rights violations. We cannot speculate on future sanctions designations but we are looking at a range of further targets and other measures.

On 28 February 2022, the UK updated its Overseas Business Risk Guidance https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/overseas-business-risk-myanmar-burma/overseas-business-risk-myanmar-burma to make it clear UK businesses should conduct thorough supply chain due diligence to ensure that commodities, such as aviation fuel do not reach the Myanmar military. Amnesty International's thorough report on the aviation fuel supply chain in Myanmar indicates that no British companies are involved in supplying aviation fuel to the armed forces. The UK has been clear that we oppose the provision of jet fuel, arms, military equipment, and dual use items to Myanmar which are used to facilitate human rights violations. We cannot speculate on future sanctions designations but we are looking at a range of further targets and other measures.

The UK has had a comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar since 2013, which prohibits the supply of dual-use items, including technology and manufacturing equipment, to the Myanmar military. We take a rigorous approach to due diligence in relation to our arms embargo, including enhanced military end-use controls for items destined for the military and security forces. We have also established the Myanmar Witness programme, which monitors weapons exports to Myanmar using open-source intelligence. We have found no evidence of British companies selling weapons or dual use goods to Myanmar. We will continue to take coordinated action to halt the military's access to arms and lobby countries who sell weapons to the military.

Since the coup in Myanmar, the UK has led global efforts to reduce the flow of weapons to Myanmar through coordinating multilateral statements. The UK has kept the Myanmar issue on the G7 agenda, securing strong public commitments from G7 member states to tackle the flow of arms and equipment to Myanmar. We have also spearheaded efforts to impose sanctions on arms dealers and the military's own domestic production, in close coordination with the US, EU and Canada. We will continue to engage with our partners on how we can target the military's access to arms and to take coordinated action where appropriate.