Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to require schools to educate Year 6 pupils on county lines.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

Within the relationships, sex and health education statutory guidance, pupils in secondary education are taught about county lines and exploitation. This includes developing pupils’ understanding of how to determine whether other children, adults, or sources of information are trustworthy, and how to recognise when a relationship may be unsafe, both for themselves and for others.

Where relevant topics are taught, pupils are made aware of the legal provisions that protect children and young people. This includes laws relating to grooming or exploiting children into criminal activity, such as gang involvement and county lines drug running.

Schools have the flexibility to tailor their curriculum to meet local needs, introducing topics earlier in an age-appropriate way while drawing on high-quality, evidence-based resources.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Open Dialogue approach to mental health care; and whether he plans to support its wider adoption within the NHS.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

NHS England's Culture of Care Standards reference Open Dialogue as an evidence-based approach for use in inpatient mental health, learning disability, and autism settings. NHS England is currently evaluating the national Culture of Care Programme, which is based on these standards, to understand the programme’s impact and to inform future improvement. The standards remain and are expected to be maintained, and are available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/culture-of-care-standards-for-mental-health-inpatient-services/#core-commitments-and-standards-for-the-culture-of-inpatient-care

Additionally, Open Dialogue: Development and Evaluation of a Social Network Intervention for Severe Mental Illness (ODDESSI) is a large-scale programme of research into crisis and continuing mental health care within the National Health Service. It is evaluating whether Open Dialogue can be developed and delivered within NHS services in a way that is acceptable to staff, including peers, and service users, and whether it can be effectively integrated into existing services. The trial is also assessing whether Open Dialogue leads to improved clinical outcomes and represents value for money, as well as examining the experiences of service users, carers, and staff. Further information on ODDESSI is available at the following link:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/brain-sciences/pals/research/clinical-educational-and-health-psychology/research-groups/oddessi/oddessi-trial?__cf_chl_f_tk=LqTELNtUicWc7eZEBO_Q5S6Hzak9g0RT00eIA4LWmto-1782982530-1.0.1.1-y6sBxJzGpuB1v30bw67yXMurhKbjuVH6GivWhF3F_7Q

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what metrics his Department is using to measure progress in improving mental health outcomes, and how these compare with those used for physical health.

Answered by Preet Kaur Gill

The NHS Oversight Framework sets out how NHS England will assess and oversee providers and integrated care boards against a range of metrics, promoting improvement while helping to identify where organisations need support, as well as those that are performing well. This ensures public accountability for performance and provides a foundation for how NHS England works with systems and providers to support improvement.

In addition, the NHS Mental Health Services Data Set, which is internationally recognised, provides numerous metrics to track mental health outcomes. This includes the standards for NHS Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP), that at least 60% of people with first episode psychosis have started treatment with a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended package of care with a specialist EIP service within two weeks of referral, and that 95% of children with an eating disorder receive treatment within one week for urgent cases and four weeks for routine cases.

The NHS Talking Therapies Data Set also provides key metrics, including progress against the current standards that 75% of people completing talking therapies treatment waited less than six weeks for their first appointment, and 95% waited less than 18 weeks, and the target that at least 50% of people who complete treatment should move to recovery.

The Department also publishes a range of public health profiles at the following link:

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/

These contain information on population health. The indicators in these profiles are presented at national, regional, and local levels. The presentation on the Fingertips platform supports the ability to track trends over time, to monitor inequalities in health outcomes for different population subgroups, and supports local benchmarking of performance. Data is organised into themed profiles. There are three on mental health, including suicide prevention, and a larger number on various aspects of physical health.

But the Government recognises we need to go further. That is why, in our new Mental Health Strategy call for evidence, we have explicitly asked for examples of how data could be used more innovatively to improve mental health and wider societal outcomes. The call for evidence closes on 10 July.

We have also commissioned an Independent Review into the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism, the final recommendations from which will shed further light on how we can better measure progress in improving mental health outcomes.

Found: Beales MP (Labour, Uxbridge and South Ruislip) • Rosie Duffield MP (Independent, Canterbury) • Tom Hayes

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, whether her Department has issued any guidance to the Serious Fraud Office following the Supreme Court’s judgment in R (Respondent) v Hayes (Appellant) UKSC/2024/0087.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General

The judgement made in Tom Hayes’ and Carlo Palombo’s appeal to the Supreme Court regarding their convictions for manipulating Libor and Euribor was not based on flaws in the SFO’s procedures and the need for internal guidance, but that the directions given by the judge at their trials were incorrect in law. The court ruled that trial judges had misdirected juries by treating the question of whether a bank submission is "dishonest" as a matter of law, rather than leaving it to the jury.

The defences contention was that was that this removed from the jury an essential consideration of fact which ought to have been for them to determine. In quashing the convictions, the Supreme Court has indicated agreement with that view.

The SFO was not criticised in the judgment and carefully considers judgments of this nature, as part of its ongoing commitment to delivering effective and fair prosecutions

Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Solicitor General, whether she plans to review the Serious Fraud Office’s internal procedures following the quashing of Mr Tom Hayes’ conviction by the Supreme Court.

Answered by Ellie Reeves - Attorney General

The judgement made in Tom Hayes’ and Carlo Palombo’s appeal to the Supreme Court regarding their convictions for manipulating Libor and Euribor was not based on flaws in the SFO’s procedures, but that the directions given by the judge at their trials were incorrect in law. The court ruled that trial judges had misdirected juries by treating the question of whether a bank submission is "dishonest" as a matter of law, rather than leaving it to the jury.

The defence’s contention was that was that this removed from the jury an essential consideration of fact which ought to have been for them to determine. In quashing the convictions, the Supreme Court has indicated agreement with that view.

The SFO was not criticised in the judgment and carefully considers judgments of this nature, as part of its ongoing commitment to delivering effective and fair prosecutions.

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether regulatory changes have been implemented following the quashing of Mr Tom Hayes’ conviction by the Supreme Court.

Answered by Rachel Blake

The Government commissioned the independent Wheatley Review in July 2012 to identify and recommend changes to the regulatory framework in light of the LIBOR scandal. The Government accepted the Review’s recommendations and implemented associated reforms to the regulation and oversight of benchmarks.

Since then, LIBOR has been wound down, reflecting concerns about its reliability. This has been supported by coordinated action across government and regulators, alongside the transition to alternative benchmarks. The Treasury engaged closely with regulators throughout the programme to support the transition away from LIBOR. The transition was successfully completed, with all LIBOR settings having now ceased and no significant market disruption arising as a result.

The investigations and subsequent prosecutions relating to the LIBOR scandal were led by the operationally independent Serious Fraud Office. The Government is not able to comment on the specifics of any individual case, but the Government’s position on financial market abuse is clear: it undermines the integrity of public markets, impairs the effectiveness of financial markets, and reduces public confidence in them.

Found: ) v Palombo (Appellant) [2025] UKSC 29 (appeal from [2024] EWCA Crim 304). 101 Ticehurst, B., ‘Tom Hayes

Found: v Palombo (Appellant) [2025] UKSC 29 (appeal from [2024] EWCA Crim 304). 101 Ticehurst, B., ‘Tom Hayes