Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how neurodiversity is recognised within the employment practices of the Civil Service.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Civil Service supports neurodivergent employees in all aspects of employment practices in accordance with the Equality Act 2010.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether neurodivergence can be treated medically.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Neurodivergent conditions are often life-long and cannot be cured. It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessments and support, in line with relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. NICE guidelines on autism cover the different ways that health and care professionals can provide support for autistic people and aim to improve access and engagement with interventions and services.
On 5 April 2023, NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance to help ICBs and the National Health Service to deliver improved outcomes for children, young people and adults referred to an autism assessment service. The guidance also sets out what support should be available before an assessment and what support should follow a recent diagnosis of autism based on the available evidence.
With respect to ADHD, the NICE guidelines for ADHD diagnosis and management explain the key considerations for clinicians when deciding whether to offer treatment, including in respect of medicine or therapy. NHS England has established an ADHD taskforce which is working to bring together those with lived experience with experts from the NHS, education, charity, and justice sectors. The taskforce is working to get a better understanding of the challenges affecting those with ADHD, including timely and equitable access to services and support, with the final report expected to make recommendations in the summer.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reoffending rates of those serving short community sentences of six months or less.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In 2022/23, the proven reoffending rate for adults serving immediate custodial sentences of six months or less was 59.6%. For further details, please see here: proven-reoffending-jan23-mar23-annual.ods. We do not have a published breakdown for community sentences by sentence length. To produce this data would incur disproportionate costs.
However, studies found that short custodial sentences of 12 months or less were associated with higher reoffending rates (approximately 4 percentage points higher) than court orders of any length (which includes both community orders and suspended sentence orders) had been given.
The Government has delivered on a manifesto commitment to bring sentencing up to date and ensure the framework is consistent by launching an Independent Review of Sentencing chaired by former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reoffending rates of those serving short custodial sentences of six months or less.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
In 2022/23, the proven reoffending rate for adults serving immediate custodial sentences of six months or less was 59.6%. For further details, please see here: proven-reoffending-jan23-mar23-annual.ods. We do not have a published breakdown for community sentences by sentence length. To produce this data would incur disproportionate costs.
However, studies found that short custodial sentences of 12 months or less were associated with higher reoffending rates (approximately 4 percentage points higher) than court orders of any length (which includes both community orders and suspended sentence orders) had been given.
The Government has delivered on a manifesto commitment to bring sentencing up to date and ensure the framework is consistent by launching an Independent Review of Sentencing chaired by former Lord Chancellor, David Gauke.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the work of the Infected Blood Compensation Authority.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) is an operationally independent body. My honourable friend in the other place, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who is the sponsoring Minister for IBCA, is committed to working with IBCA to monitor their performance and ensure compensation is delivered to everyone who is eligible as quickly as possible. The first payments to infected people have been made, totalling over £25 million, and in February the Government laid the second set of infected blood compensation regulations before Parliament. If approved by Parliament, these regulations will give IBCA the powers it needs to also begin payments to affected people eligible under the Scheme.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their estimate of the number of people infected by contaminated blood products since 1980 who are still alive.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made an estimate of the number of patients that became infected after the year 1980, although we have estimates for infections occurring in a wider timeframe. The Department used the principle number presented by the Infected Blood Inquiry, in its Statistics Expert Reports, which has identified the infected individuals for the period between 1970 and 1991; the number of those infected because of a bleeding disorder with hepatitis C is between 2,400 and 5,000, and those infected with HIV approximately 1,250. The inquiry further estimates that those infected with hepatitis C via blood transfusion ranges between 21,300 and 38,800, and between 80 and 100 with HIV.
Since November 2017, 3,553 individuals, who were infected because of contaminated blood, are currently registered with one of the United Kingdom Infected Blood Support Schemes. However, there may be others who were infected and are still alive but have not yet come forward.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the number of people who have been infected by contaminated blood since 1980.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made an estimate of the number of patients that became infected after the year 1980, although we have estimates for infections occurring in a wider timeframe. The Department used the principle number presented by the Infected Blood Inquiry, in its Statistics Expert Reports, which has identified the infected individuals for the period between 1970 and 1991; the number of those infected because of a bleeding disorder with hepatitis C is between 2,400 and 5,000, and those infected with HIV approximately 1,250. The inquiry further estimates that those infected with hepatitis C via blood transfusion ranges between 21,300 and 38,800, and between 80 and 100 with HIV.
Since November 2017, 3,553 individuals, who were infected because of contaminated blood, are currently registered with one of the United Kingdom Infected Blood Support Schemes. However, there may be others who were infected and are still alive but have not yet come forward.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of that low-cost, open source AI models could be used to launch the risk of malicious attacks on UK security.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government has established a Central AI Risk Function (CAIRF), which brings together policymakers and AI experts with a mission to continuously identify, assess and prepare for AI associated risks.
CAIRF develops and maintains the UK Government’s AI Risk Register. The register is actively maintained by CAIRF to identify individual risks associated with AI that could impact the UK spanning national security, the economy and society.
In addition, the AI Security Institute's (AISI) work is part of this Government's efforts to tackle security threats from AI. AISI evaluates both closed and open-sourced AI models to assess the risks AI poses to security and public safety.
We are also mindful that open source can boost transparency and support AI safety research. The UK Government will carefully balance these important benefits alongside risks as it develops its regulatory approach.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage on 23 January (HL3940), what "factors" they use to assess the productivity of HM Land Registry, and what evidence they have that the hybrid model of working from home and office has "continued to improve" its productivity.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The measure of productivity of HM Land Registry, to which the previous answer referred, is based primarily on the subset of applications to HMLR which request a change to the register, and require manual processing by a caseworker, weighted by their relative complexity, and divided by the number of caseworkers deployed to the task. From 2023 to 2024, a period throughout which hybrid working has been in place, HMLR’s productivity increased by 7.1% During this period, the processing time for the oldest, most complex cases was also reduced by over six months.
Asked by: Lord Patten (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reliability of South Western Railway Sunday services between Yeovil and London Waterloo.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
South Western Railway Sunday services between Yeovil and London Waterloo have been challenging. Over the past 13 rail periods, 79.04% of services have departed within three minutes of their advertised departure time, with 96.73% departing within fifteen minutes. I am meeting South Western Railway on performance issues, as is being done with all Operators, later this month.