Lyn Brown

We are clear that a person’s sexuality and gender identity is a personal issue, and fully support people’s right to privacy.

In certain circumstances, maliciously revealing a person’s sexual orientation or gender reassignment status without their consent could be found to be harassment under the Equality Act 2010.

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 also provides robust protection for trans people with a Gender Recognition Certificate from unwanted disclosure of their gender history, making it a criminal offence for anyone who has acquired information about a Gender Recognition Certificate holder’s gender history in an official capacity to disclose that information to anyone else, save for in a small number of exempted contexts.

We recognise that appropriately supporting all children in schools can involve balancing complex and sensitive matters. The Government continues to work across departments and with the LGBT sector to better understand these issues and how best we can support schools. The Secretary of State for Education has recently written to the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission to accept her offer of advice as they determine their next steps in this area and other equalities issues for schools.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is the independent regulator for equality law and regularly issues guidance on areas of equality law that span across several sectors.

It is not unusual for regulators and the Government to engage on relevant issues nor for Government departments to issue guidance relevant to their specific briefs. In this specific instance, that approach will enable Department for Education sectoral expertise, on safeguarding for example, to be taken fully into account in any next steps.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission is an independent public body, and makes its own decisions on how it exercises its functions and its relations with its stakeholders. All public appointments to the EHRC are made in line with the Governance Code on Public Appointments through fair and open competition.

The Equality Hub is engaging with a wide range of stakeholders who hold different views in relation to conversion therapy. The Core Issues Trust wrote to the Equality Hub asking a Minister to meet to discuss our efforts to ban conversion therapy, an invitation which was declined. Instead, Equality Hub officials met briefly with the group as part of their routine stakeholder engagement around the proposed ban.

The Government launched its consultation into how – not whether – to ban conversion therapy on Friday 29 October. This will close on Friday 10 December. I would encourage everyone with an interest in this area to submit a response.

The Government is working at pace to deliver on our commitment to ban conversion therapy. We will also ensure there is support available for victims of conversion therapy, the first time the UK Government has offered this. The support will be available to whoever considers themselves to be at risk of - or has undergone - conversion therapy, whatever the circumstances.

The importance of developing a quality service is of central importance and we are working at pace to explore delivery options available to realise this commitment. An announcement with more details on the service and how it will be delivered will be made in due course.

The exploitation, grooming, and trafficking of children and young people is abhorrent. The CPS takes great care to ensure the right people are prosecuted for the right offences in county lines cases, by training prosecutors to have an increased awareness of gang-associated exploitation and to scrutinise the evidence. This builds on clear CPS guidance which recognises the principle of non-prosecution of victims of trafficking or slavery.

Early identification by investigators is essential, in order to avoid the criminalisation of victims. On 1 October 2019, the Home Secretary announced a surge of activity to crack down on county lines drugs gangs. The package of measures, underpinned by £20 million of Home Office investment, will intensify law enforcement efforts to disrupt the county lines model, including the provision of specialist support to victims and families in order to help children and young people exit their involvement in county lines.

The Law Officers superintend the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS is the principal prosecuting authority in England and Wales with responsibility for charging decisions in criminal cases.

The CPS has published clear legal guidance which recognises the principle of non-prosecution of victims of trafficking or slavery. It has delivered training on the steps to be taken, where there is a reason to believe that a suspect or defendant in a criminal case might be a victim. In those circumstances, the prosecutor will consider what further evidence or information might be required and will review whether the prosecution should proceed or not. The guidance sets out that where there is sufficient evidence that the accused is a victim and the conditions provided for in section 45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 are met, the case should not be charged or proceeded with.

No criminal charges can be brought for any offence unless they satisfy the two stage test contained in the Code for Crown Prosecutors: there must be sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and a prosecution must be in the public interest.

Where a child is awaiting a National Referral Mechanism (NRM) decision, a prosecutor may at that stage decide not to bring a prosecution if there is other independent evidence of their trafficked status and if the offence is not so serious as to require a prosecution. If there is no other independent evidence of their trafficked status, the prosecutor will await the NRM decision and re-review the evidence in light of the decision. If the case is awaiting hearing at court, an adjournment will be requested until the NRM decision has been made.

Where a child has an NRM decision in their favour, a prosecutor will consider this to be persuasive evidence of their trafficked status and will not bring a prosecution unless there is other strong evidence to the contrary and the offence is so serious as to require prosecution.

The Law Officers have the use of one day and one evening car provided by the Government Car Service. The Attorney General's Office do not keep a record of the number of car journeys undertaken by the Law Officers, or of the number of journeys made specifically for transporting a red box.

All honours are awarded on the basis of merit. Donations to any political party should not be regarded as a reason for disqualification from receiving an honour.

There are clear procedures in place to protect the honours system and to ensure the integrity of the selection process. There are specialist honours committees which provide recommendations to the Prime Minister. Each committee is chaired by an independent chair and comprising a majority of independent members.

More broadly, fundraising by political parties is a legitimate part of the democratic process. The alternative is taxpayer-funding of political campaigning, which would mean less money for frontline services like schools, police and hospitals.

A response to the hon. Member’s Parliamentary Question of 18 July is attached.

Officials are engaging with Bain & Company better to understand the status of the findings in the recently published Zondo Commission reports and to seek appropriate assurances to the Government that Bain has taken steps to remedy any shortcomings identified therein.

The grounds for exclusion of organisations from bidding for Government contracts are set out in The Public Contracts Regulations 2015. These rules set out the circumstances in which bidders must, or may, be excluded from a public procurement process for a variety of criminal offences and in other specific situations. In all cases, individual departments and other public sector bodies are responsible for their own decisions on these matters, which apply only to the award of new contracts.

The Government recognises the need to commemorate those who have died during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to mark and remember this period as one of immense struggle.

The Prime Minister announced on 12 May the establishment of a UK Commission on Covid Commemoration. The Government will set out the Commission membership and terms of reference in due course.

We are aware of the call for the Memorial Wall to become a permanent national memorial. The UK Commission on Covid Commemoration, once established, will consider the appropriate way to remember those who have lost their lives during the pandemic.

Discussions on the future of the Memorial Wall are being led by Lambeth London Borough Council.

The entitlement of resident Commonwealth and Irish citizens to vote reflects our close historical ties with Commonwealth countries and the reciprocal arrangements UK has with Ireland. The Government has no plans to alter these rights.

In relation to relevant citizens of the Union, I refer the Hon member to the answer which I gave to PQ 1802 on 29 January 2020.

The Scottish Parliament is responsible for the franchise for local elections in Scotland. The Welsh Assembly is responsible for the franchise for local elections in Wales.

The United Kingdom is one of the leading countries confronting the scourge of modern-day slavery, including forced labour. The UK is committed to working in partnership with producing countries to achieve sustainability in our supply chains, including for products such as palm oil, and supporting better outcomes for nature, climate, and people.

The Modern Slavery Act requires businesses with a turnover of £36m or more to publish modern slavery statements annually to report on the steps taken to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains.

The Government also supports voluntary due diligence approaches by UK businesses as steered by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises.

In 2021, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spent £32,039,053 in Official Development Assistance (ODA) on technical assistance delivered by UK-based organisations. This spend was through our International Climate Finance programming, from a UK wide ODA spend of £11.4bn that year. BEIS’s technical assistance aims to support developing countries to raise their climate ambition to help limit global temperature rises to less than 1.5 degrees, in order to reduce the devasting impact of climate change on the world’s poorest communities.

For non-Official Development Assistance spend, this information is not held centrally and it would not be proportionate to obtain this information.

HM Treasury is currently conducting a review of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme and evidence regarding the impact of energy costs on post offices is included in that. However, the Government cannot confirm details on further support after 31st March 2023 until the end of the review, which will report in January 2023.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave the Hon. Member for Norwich South on 1st November 2022 to Question 69713.

Decisions concerning pricing and availability of mortgages are commercial decisions for lenders. The Government does not seek to intervene in these.

Spray foam is acceptable under Publicly Available Specifications 2030/2035 standards which are a pre-requisite for many Government schemes. This provides the customer with security and guarantees against work delivered.

Under the Voucher Scheme, it was the responsibility of a certified installer to recommend an appropriate product that meets standards, with homeowner’s responsible to decide measures they want to install.

In order to be eligible as an installer for the scheme, tradespeople must be registered with TrustMark, which has a robust framework of operating requirements, including dispute management.

Legislation will provide Ofgem regulatory powers to investigate and intervene on networks where prices for consumers appear to be disproportionate, if prices are significantly higher than those consumers would expect to pay if they were served by an alternative heating system.

All energy users are having to deal with rising energy costs, which have been caused by global factors. To help consumers, including those on heat networks, government have introduced support worth more than £9bn for vulnerable households, through initiatives such as the Energy Bill Rebate and the Household Support Fund adding to the help provided throughout winter 2021.

There is no national database for smart electricity or gas meter billing information. Billing is the responsibility of individual energy suppliers. Energy consumption is recorded and securely held by the meter whether smart or traditional. Energy suppliers access this data remotely or via manual meters reads for billing purposes.