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Debates during the 2024 Parliament
Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
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Lord Wasserman has not made any spoken contributions to legislative debateLords initiatives
These initiatives were driven by Lord Wasserman, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
Lord Wasserman has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
Lord Wasserman has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
Latest 34 Written Questions
(View all written questions)The Department is committed to reducing the harm from all illicit drugs. Any illegal drug use, including cannabis, can be harmful, both from immediate side-effects and long-term physical and mental health problems. It can, for some, have a negative impact on their fertility. Cannabis use can contribute to and exacerbate existing mental health problems or can accelerate their development in people predisposed to mental health problems. We are aware of the book, ‘Epidemiology of Cannabis: Genotoxicity, Neurotoxicity, Epigenomics and Aging by A.S. Reece and G.K. Hulse’. No conclusions have been drawn from the evidence set out within it.
Information on the impact cannabis has on health can be found on the National Health Service website and Talk to FRANK, the Government’s drugs information and advice service. The Frank website also has basic harm reduction advice and details of drug treatment services and support organisations.
We know that drug treatment is protective and the number of places in treatment for people who use non-opiate drugs including cannabis is being increased by 30,000 compared to 2021/22, including 5,000 more places for young people in treatment.
The number of people in England receiving treatment for problems with cannabis use increased from 63,854 in 2021/22 to 74,931 people in 2023/24.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England undertakes a mandatory data collection from all general practices (GPs) in England, which they must complete every year, by way of an annual survey called the electronic practice self-declaration (eDEC). Within that survey, questions cover the practice’s premises and equipment with regards to service provision, compliance with health and safety regulations, and infection control, as defined in the contract, specifically as per Regulations 12(2)(d-f) and (h) and 15 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) and Regulations 2014 (as amended) and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974). The survey asks GPs to confirm that at least one consulting room in the practice premises is accessible to wheelchair users. NHS England holds this data at a national level.
NHS England also publishes data on the accessibility of practice buildings, which is already within the public domain on the NHS.UK website, although this may not specifically include the eDec data return.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to disaggregate NHS Outcomes Framework indicators in terms of disability status and impairment type.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England routinely collects data on both cancelled and missed hospital appointments, although data is not collected on the reasons why, and cannot be disaggregated to explain causes.
All National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of people with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, including people using British Sign Language.
On 30 June 2025, a refreshed AIS was published. NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication and engagement, and a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not held centrally. Integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for commissioning services to meet the needs of their local population, which includes responsibility for ensuring that there is adequate provision of British Sign Language interpreters to support deaf patients in the community.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not collected or held centrally.
It is the responsibility of individual employers and providers to provide reasonable adjustments. Under the Equality Act 2010, health and social care organisations have a legal duty to make changes in their approach or provision to ensure that services are as accessible to disabled people as they are for everybody else.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Home Office is funding the police-led Digital Public Contact Programme to deliver pilots which enable a member of the public to have a secure log-in and saved details when reporting crimes.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Between 2020/21 and 2024/25 BlueLight Commercial has been funded by the Home Office to provide commercial expertise and assistance to policing to identify and make efficiency savings. The Home Office has provided up to £26.4m in funding to Bluelight Commercial during that time.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Further to the answer I gave on 6 November (HL1962), of the £287 million of estimated financial benefits BlueLight Commercial have worked to deliver within policing in England and Wales since 2020/21, an estimated £168 million are attributable to goods and £93m are attributable to services.
Minister of State (Home Office)
At 14 November 2024, Lancashire Constabulary is currently being onboarded to the Single Online Home platform. Avon and Somerset Police and West Yorkshire Police are not currently using the platform. Future onboarding plans are under consideration.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Members of the public can report suspicious behaviour to local forces through the ‘Tell us about’ tab within Police.UK websites on the Single Online Home platform.
Additionally, the StreetSafe tool, also accessed via Police.uk force websites, allows the public to report where they do not feel safe for environmental or behavioural reasons. This enables forces to build an evidence base of where communities have suspicions or feel unsafe for a variety of reasons.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.
Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.
The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.
Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.
The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Tony Eastaugh CBE was appointed on 19 August 2024 as Interim Chief Executive Officer of the Police Digital Service (PDS). Any changes to these arrangements will be a matter for the PDS. More information about the leadership of the PDS is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/about-us/.
Appointments to PDS roles, the required skills of PDS employees and what professional memberships they should hold are a matter for the PDS.
The governance arrangements of the PDS Board, including the Articles of Association and Board Membership is available on the PDS website: https://pds.police.uk/governance/. Details of current and former directorships can be found on the on Companies House Website.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Single Online Home services for the public are kept under review and the Home Office funds the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to deliver enhancements to the platform as determined by Policing’s requirements.
The Single Online Home is a national web-based platform and digital police station where the public can report incidents, apply for licences, and provide and discover information about crime in their area.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Single Online Home services for the public are kept under review and the Home Office funds the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to deliver enhancements to the platform as determined by Policing’s requirements.
The Single Online Home is a national web-based platform and digital police station where the public can report incidents, apply for licences, and provide and discover information about crime in their area.
Minister of State (Home Office)
The National Enabling Programme (NEP) rolled out the Microsoft 365 (M365) suites and the Identity and Access Management capability to 40 forces. In the last year, the capability saw significantly increased use which further facilitated police collaboration.
The Police Digital Service completed the roll out to the remaining forces in 2022-23 and is facilitating the growth of these services. The Home Office is working with the Police Digital Service and policing to identify opportunities to improve the business-as-usual service and enable greater exploitation through the M365 Productivity Project.
Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office fully understands the capabilities needed by the emergency services to transition safely to ESN, and is considering a number of options for off-network comms Airwave will only be shut down when the conditions for a safe and timely transition to ESN have been met.
Minister of State (Home Office)
The ESMCP 2021 Full Business Case estimated the total cost of providing critical emergency services communications between 2015/16 and 2036/37 was £11.3bn. This is the combined Airwave and legacy contracts and costs of the replacement ESN service. It assumed Airwave and legacy system costs of approximately £450m annually compared with ESN at around £250m. The annual running cost of ESN compared to Airwave and legacy costs is expected to save over £200m a year.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Since BlueLight Commercial’s foundation in the 2020/21 financial year they have worked to deliver financial benefits within policing in England and Wales of £287 million. This includes cashable savings, efficiency savings, cost avoidance and revenue generation activity.
Minister of State (Home Office)
999 performance data, including time taken to answer calls, is available for forces in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland on the police.uk website.
Data is available per force from November 2021 and new data is published monthly, one month in arrears. Members of the public can order the data to show average response times by each force, and the number and percentage of calls answered under 10 seconds, between 10 and (under) 60 seconds, and at 60 seconds or longer.
Unlike 999, there has been no national, consistent dataset for 101 performance data. Officials have worked closely with Policing to obtain agreement on definitions for the key metric of ‘Average Wait Time to Answer’ for 101 calls.
The Home Office will continue to work with Policing towards enabling consistent 101 performance data to be published.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Since 2016, the Home Office has invested £103m in the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to create greater choice for the public and support police in managing contact volume more efficiently. During this time, the DPC Programme has delivered the Single Online Home, a national web-based platform and digital police station where the public can report incidents, apply for licences, and provide and discover information about crime in their area. Single Online Home functionality is also available through the Police.uk mobile phone app.
At October 2024, 40 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales plus British Transport Police have been onboarded onto the platform and one further force is currently onboarding. Discussions are ongoing with the remaining two forces. DPC continues to support onboarded forces in making use of the wide range of Single Online Home services available. There are currently no plans to mandate all forces to make full use of the platform.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Since 2016, the Home Office has invested £103m in the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to create greater choice for the public and support police in managing contact volume more efficiently. During this time, the DPC Programme has delivered the Single Online Home, a national web-based platform and digital police station where the public can report incidents, apply for licences, and provide and discover information about crime in their area. Single Online Home functionality is also available through the Police.uk mobile phone app.
At October 2024, 40 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales plus British Transport Police have been onboarded onto the platform and one further force is currently onboarding. Discussions are ongoing with the remaining two forces. DPC continues to support onboarded forces in making use of the wide range of Single Online Home services available. There are currently no plans to mandate all forces to make full use of the platform.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Since 2016, the Home Office has invested £103m in the police-led Digital Public Contact (DPC) Programme to create greater choice for the public and support police in managing contact volume more efficiently. During this time, the DPC Programme has delivered the Single Online Home, a national web-based platform and digital police station where the public can report incidents, apply for licences, and provide and discover information about crime in their area. Single Online Home functionality is also available through the Police.uk mobile phone app.
At October 2024, 40 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales plus British Transport Police have been onboarded onto the platform and one further force is currently onboarding. Discussions are ongoing with the remaining two forces. DPC continues to support onboarded forces in making use of the wide range of Single Online Home services available. There are currently no plans to mandate all forces to make full use of the platform.
Minister of State (Home Office)
All relevant information regarding the progress and cost of this project will be published in the Accounting Officer Assessments, published routinely on the Home Office website.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Any relevant information concerning this procurement process will be met in due course via the government commercial disclosure portal Contracts Finder and in the Accounting Officer Assessments published routinely on the Home Office website.
With respect to the estimated shutdown date of Airwave, the current National Shutdown Target Date is 31 December 2029.
Minister of State (Home Office)
The Law Enforcement Data Service (LEDS) is being delivered to enable the retirement of the legacy Police National Computer (PNC). The priority is to ensure that LEDS delivers full parity with all current PNC capabilities, using a modern technology foundation which enables the further evolution and modernisation of UK policing. The programme plan is to achieve this by March 2026 to align with the end of the current PNC support contract.
Minister of State (Home Office)
Since the launch of the Birmingham Intensive Supervision Court in June 2023 through to February 2025, 96 women have been sentenced under the Birmingham Intensive Supervision Court. 77 women (80%) were sentenced to a Community Order and 19 women (20%) were sentenced to a Suspended Sentence Order.
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Since the launch of the Birmingham Intensive Supervision Court in June 2023 through to the end of February 2025, a total of 77 women have been sentenced to a community order. The breakdown of the attached requirements are as follows:
(1) a drug rehabilitation requirement – 38 (49%)
(2) a mental health treatment requirement – 62 (81%)
(3) an alcohol treatment requirement – 17 (22%)
(4) an unpaid work requirement – less that 5 (less than 6%)
(5) a curfew requirement – less than 5 (less than 6%)
Note: counts of less than 5 have been suppressed for privacy reasons.
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Since the launch of the Birmingham Intensive Supervision Court in June 2023 through to the end of February 2025, the average number of requirements attached to a community order under the Birmingham Women’s Intensive Supervision Court has been three requirements per order.
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We do not hold the information in the format requested. To produce and quality assure the information requested would be of disproportionate cost.
The average cost to the Probation Service in 2023-24 of an additional person on the probation licence caseload (including probation pre-release costs) was estimated at c.£4,500 compared with c.£3,150 for an additional person on the probation court order caseload (community orders and suspended sentence orders). This can be found at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65537c7d50475b000dc5b590/Sentencing_Bill_-_IA_-_HDC.pdf.
These costs cover requirements such as unpaid work as well as sentence management time. They do not, however, include treatment costs for drug rehabilitation requirements, mental health requirements, alcohol treatment requirements and do not include curfew costs. Note that the costs presented exclude some costs to the Ministry of Justice, such as costs not directly tied to changes in probation caseload and Ministry of Justice HQ costs. Costs of individuals will vary considerably based on a number of factors including risk levels, requirements and needs.
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
We do not hold the requested information on the annual cost of post sentence supervision.
The average cost to the Probation Service in 2023-24 of an additional person on the probation licence caseload (including probation pre-release costs) was estimated at c.£4,500 compared with c.£3,150 for an additional person on the probation court order caseload (community orders and suspended sentence orders). This can be found through the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65537c7d50475b000dc5b590/Sentencing_Bill_-_IA_-_HDC.pdf.
Note that the costs presented exclude some costs to the Ministry of Justice, such as costs not directly tied to changes in probation caseload and Ministry of Justice HQ costs. Costs of individuals will vary considerably based on a number of factors including risk levels, requirements and needs
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)