Baroness Manzoor

Ofcom has duty to promote media literacy to help the public understand the nature and impact of where harmful content and online behaviour affects certain groups.

The Online Safety Act also requires user-to-user and search services likely to be accessed by children to risk assess their service and provide safety measures for child users of all age groups, including early years. In its draft child safety risk assessment guidance, Ofcom has identified age as a risk factor, listing 0-5 years as an age group for which it expects services to consider the age-related risks based on the developmental stage of the children.

We want a society where every person receives high-quality, compassionate care from diagnosis through to the end of life. We know there are inequalities in access to high-quality palliative and end of life care, and we, alongside NHS England, are looking at how best to reduce these.

NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications, which outline areas for consideration when commissioning palliative and end of life care services and, within this, there is reference to improving equity of access and reducing inequity in outcomes and experiences. Additionally, NHS England has developed a palliative and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling integrated care boards to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities, and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.

The Government has no plans to restrict international travel for surrogacy. We recognise that surrogacy is a complex and sensitive issue, but we do not support arrangements in which any party may be at risk of exploitation. We have issued guidance for those considering surrogacy overseas, clearly outlining the possible risks for individuals returning to the United Kingdom with a child born through an international arrangement.

The Care Quality Commission’s 2024 Maternity Survey indicates that women’s experiences of maternity services have mostly either remained similar to 2023, or have shown small levels of decline. Whilst there have been improvements to some areas of maternity and neonatal care provision, such as mental health support during pregnancy, we recognise that the survey shows that women are not always receiving the standard of care they should expect.

NHS England’s three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services continues to make progress in delivering important improvements for services. For example, all women who have given birth now receive a six-to-eight-week postnatal check-up, and Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Services now have full population coverage to support women with, or at risk of, mental health issues, with a range of treatments including support clinics, talking therapies, and pre-conception advice.

The Government recognises the need to go further to ensure that women get the maternity care they deserve, and will use the results of this survey to help inform its next steps on improving maternity and neonatal care.

The Government is dedicated to building a fairer, more equal society by addressing the structural inequalities that drive poor health outcomes, especially for disadvantaged groups.

Our Health Mission in England will focus on addressing the social determinants of health, with the goal of halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions.

We are committed to prioritising women’s health as we build a National Health Service fit for the future. We are also taking action on the range of conditions that particularly affect men, including heart disease, liver disease, and cancer.

The Government is also committed to closing the black and Asian maternal mortality gap. Recognising the need for health inequalities to be central to all policy making, our health inequalities work has a renewed focus to bring together policy experts to reduce racial inequalities across health.

We are putting in place a robust package of reforms to help tackle the National Health Service crisis. There will be no more rewards for failure. This includes a comprehensive review of NHS performance across the entire country, with providers to be placed into a league table. This will be made public and regularly updated to ensure transparency for the public, and a clear basis for addressing failure. We expect this will include a range of metrics looking at both providers and systems, and further detail will be set out at the earliest opportunity.

The UK does not support international surrogacy involving any form of exploitation and is committed to eradicating all forms of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking in line with Sustainable Development Goal 8.7. Globally the UK is proud to defend and promote universal and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights. At the multilateral level, and through our diplomatic and Official Development Assistance partnerships, we advocate that all people have the right to make informed decisions about childbearing, including if, whether and when to have children. Family planning interventions, including surrogacy, must always be voluntary and rooted in a human rights-based approach.