Baroness D'Souza

My Honourable Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families at the Department for Education has a wide range of responsibilities for children's interests and that work is represented at Cabinet by the Secretary of State for Education.

It is for Ofcom, as the independent regulator of postal services, to set and monitor Royal Mail’s service standards and decide how to use its powers to investigate and take enforcement action should Royal Mail fail to achieve its obligations without good justification.

Ofcom is currently investigating Royal Mail’s service standards in 2023-24 following its failure to meet its delivery obligations.

Xylella fastidiosa is currently not present in the UK but we are taking a lead in the EU to tighten import and movement controls to protect the country against its introduction.

We supplement EU measures with national legislation requiring notification of certain imports, allowing the Animal and Plant Health Agency to build intelligence about such trades and carry out targeted inspections. The notification requirements were strengthened in 2018 through the inclusion of olive trees, following an interception in Belgium of Xylella on olive trees imported from Spain.

We have also successfully pressed the case for stronger requirements at an EU level against certain high risk hosts for this disease, with supplementary measures also now in place against Polygala myrtifolia. Under the leadership of Defra’s Chief Plant Health Officer, Nicola Spence, we are continuously reviewing new developments to determine whether additional measures are required.

We have a surveillance programme in place targeting imports and businesses trading in hosts from within the EU, as well as inspections in the wider environment.

We are also taking action with UK industry to raise awareness, resulting in nurseries and garden centres committing not to bring Xylella host plants into the UK from EU regions where the disease is present, and employing careful sourcing, traceability and good hygiene measures.

The UK has been monitoring the situation in Mozambique since last week. The situation is extremely concerning. Beira – a city of half a million people in central Mozambique has been cut off since the weekend with no water or electricity. Other areas are under water.

The Government of Mozambique is leading the response. They are experts in disaster management but are overwhelmed. They are being supported by UN agencies, international and local NGOs.

The UK has responded quickly. The Secretary of State has approved up to £22 million to support the people affected by the cyclone. We will not be channelling funds through the Government of Mozambique but will work through UN agencies and non-Government partners.

The Department for Transport published a comprehensive three-year evaluation of the effect of 20mph limits, which are 20mph schemes relying only on signage, on 22 November 2018.

The evaluation looked at twelve case studies including two in city centres (Brighton and Winchester). No case studies were in London.

It found insufficient evidence to conclude that that there had been a significant change in collisions and casualties following the introduction of 20mph limits in residential areas.

The only case study area showing a significant change in collisions and casualties, relative to its 30mph comparator area, was Brighton City Centre. This scheme covered both major and minor roads, with a 19% reduction in overall casualties, a 29% reduction in pedestrian casualties and a 51% reduction in casualties aged 75 or over. No significant change in casualties of cyclists or under 16s was found.

The evaluation stated that the changes appeared to be a reflection of the city characteristics, and the blanket implementation of 20mph limits across all roads within the scheme area, including higher flow A and B roads which were typically excluded from the residential case study schemes. There was a significant reduction in collisions across all road types, but the change was most pronounced on major strategic roads. The evaluation stressed that this represented just one case study, and the extent to which the findings were transferable to other locations was unclear.

The Senior Deputy Speaker has asked me, as Chair of the Services Committee, to respond on his behalf. In 2019 there were 184 events serving 3,289 guests in the Home Room. This accounted for 37% of all venue bookings for House of Lords hospitality in the Attlee, Home and Chomondeley Rooms.

The events generated an income of £180,720, of which £20,208 was for facility fees.

The Government is committed to preventing self-harm among children and young people of all ages. In 2017 Public Health England introduced the Rise Above programme that offers advice to young people on dealing with difficult emotions and situations that can lead to problems such as stress, bullying and self-harm.

The current Healthy Child Programme (from 0-5 years old) aims to support early identification of problems with an emphasis on support for mothers and fathers or partners to provide sensitive and attuned parenting.

On 17 June 2019, it was announced that tailored advice will be provided to parents on supporting their children’s mental health and well-being by 2020 through the ‘Every Mind Matters’ campaign. This will include information on subjects such as stress, screen time, online bullying, body image and self-harm.

Ministers wrote to social media and internet providers on 26 January to express concern about suicide and self-harm content. The companies have committed to increasing their efforts by establishing and funding a strategic partnership with the Samaritans to tackle this content and support vulnerable users of their platforms.

The Prime Minister has set out a new strategic vision for government spending on defence and security and Official Development Assistance (ODA). Detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be used will be worked through as part of the ongoing Spending Review based on various factors including impact assessments.

This question is about an individual's situation. I have written to the Noble Lady.

We must prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a haven for terrorism, including from Al-Qaida and ISIS, and an exporter of instability.

We will continue to convene partners both bilaterally and through the G7, the UN Security Council, and NATO and we expect that NATO will continue to have a role in fighting terrorism. We will work with our partners to use all levers at our disposal to disrupt terrorist groups' access to resources. This will include leading an international approach to prevent and deter Foreign Terrorist Fighters travelling to Afghanistan and effective implementation of counter-terrorism focused sanctions against terrorists in Afghanistan.

We will engage regional governments, in particular India and Pakistan, to work to prevent Afghanistan becoming a haven for terrorism. I visited Uzbekistan on 14 September, after visiting Uzbekistan and Tajikistan the week of 30 August for discussions on Afghanistan. The former Foreign Secretary also visited Islamabad to address the issue of terrorism and discussed it with the Pakistani and Indian foreign ministers. We will build regional resilience to prevent any spread of instability/extremist and to counter radicalising narratives.

We are gravely concerned by the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Idlib where nearly one million people have been displaced as a result of regime and Russian military action since 1 December 2019. During his visit to Turkey on 3-4 March, the Foreign Secretary discussed the situation and the need for an immediate and lasting ceasefire. The UK is a member of the Syria Small Group, together with the US and key European and Arab states, and the UK Special Envoy for Syria, Martin Longden, has been in close contact with his counterparts on the crisis in Idlib. We currently have no plans to create a further position or grouping to address the situation in Idlib.

We remain concerned by the arrests and trial of 16 civil society figures in June 2019 over the 2013 Gezi Park protests, including Ms Gokce Tuyluoglu, and have been following the cases closely, including the latest hearing on 19 February, which a British Embassy official attended. We have raised their cases at ministerial level with the Turkish Government on several occasions, most recently in January this year. We hope that the outstanding charges against them can be brought to a timely and equitable conclusion.

We have long encouraged Turkey to work towards the full protection of fundamental rights, particularly in the area of freedom of expression. On 28 January at the 35th Universal Periodic Review on Human Rights, one of the recommendations that the United Kingdom put forward for Turkey was protecting freedom of expression, including for journalists and human rights defenders, by decriminalising defamation. We will continue to engage the Turkish Government on these issues and be clear in our expectation that Turkey live up to its human rights obligations, which is essential to the long-term health of Turkish democracy.

The sustainability and transparency of debts held by low income developing countries is currently a G20 priority. Given the complex nature of sovereign debt, we continue to believe that internationally-agreed approaches are the most effective way to achieve progress in this area.

The UK recognizes that creditors, including private creditors, have an important role to play in promoting sustainable lending. The G20 is currently supporting the Institute of International Finance’s efforts to increase the transparency of lending to developing countries, which we hope will support sustainability and drive up standards.

Separately, in the UK, there are already prudential requirements for firms to hold sufficient capital against their exposures and have adequate risk controls in place. These are supervised by the Prudential Regulation Authority.

The Ministry of Defence does not routinely publish readouts after individual bilateral meetings. The Chief of the Defence Staff met with General Liu Zhenli, Chief of Staff of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, and they discussed a range of security issues reflecting the importance of military-to-military communications.

We have a clear interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. We consider the Taiwan issues one to be settled peacefully by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait through constructive dialogue, without the threat or use of force or coercion. We do not support any unilateral attempts to change the status quo.