Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what targeted interventions are in place to help reduce inequalities in maternal outcomes .
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
The Government is working closely with NHS England, and the wider sector, to identify the right actions and interventions to tackle the stark inequalities that exist for women and babies. We are ensuring that we take an evidence-based approach, and that any targets set are women and baby-centred.
On 30 June, Baroness Amos published her national independent report into National Health Service maternity and neonatal care. Her investigation found that women and families are not being listened to, accountability is not being delivered when things go wrong, and that racism and discrimination are driving inequalities in outcomes. We will take further action to tackle unacceptable inequalities affecting Black, Asian, and disadvantaged women from all backgrounds. The National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce, which is comprised of family representatives, clinicians, and other experts, and chaired by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will translate the recommendations from Baroness Amos’ investigation into a single, national action plan to drive systemic and sustained improvement across maternity and neonatal care.
We are already taking a range of immediate actions to address inequalities in maternal outcomes, including an inequalities dashboard, which brings together a range of inequalities metrics to allow NHS trusts to see data relating to disparities in one place to identify, understand, and eliminate disparities, rolling out the Perinatal Equity and Anti-Discrimination Programme to every maternity and neonatal service in England to tackle discrimination and racism, and we have launched a Maternal Care Bundle which includes best practice for clinical conditions that are the leading causes of death for women from Black and Asian backgrounds.
Asked by: Baroness Whitaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what actions they are taking to prevent a recurrence of the riots in Ballymena in which members of the Roma community were targeted.
Answered by Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent - Captain of the King's Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard (HM Household) (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The disorder in Ballymena last year was shocking and unacceptable. There is no place for racism or violence of any kind in Northern Ireland. One of the characteristics of this country is that we treat people with equality, respect and dignity, regardless of where they come from.
Following the disorder in Ballymena, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland spoke with community organisations supporting the Roma community and the Romanian Ambassador to the UK to ensure those impacted were receiving appropriate support. Following the disorder in June of this year, he has also spoken directly with Northern Ireland Party Leaders, and Northern Ireland Office officials engaged with the Consulate General of Romania. I have also visited Ballymena since the riots and met with community groups.
Northern Ireland Office officials remain active in cross-Government forums to prevent the recurrence of unrest. The UK Government is committed to supporting the Northern Ireland Executive to develop strategies to strengthen community cohesion and prevent disorder in future.
Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help improve (a) maternity workplace cultures and (b) relationships between maternity staff and mothers.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
Maternity and neonatal services have been supported to improve workplace culture through the Perinatal Culture and Leadership Programme (PCLP), which all 152 perinatal sites participated in between October 2022 and March 2025. The programme promoted compassionate, inclusive, and collective leadership, and strengthened multidisciplinary working across obstetrics, midwifery, neonatology, and anaesthetics. An external evaluation demonstrated a meaningful contribution to strengthening relational leadership, improving understanding of local cultures, and creating the conditions for cultural improvement, although its wider and sustained impact has been constrained by operational pressures, structural barriers, and variable local ownership. Further information on the external evaluation is available at the following link:
https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/projects/perinatal-culture-and-leadership-programme-pclp
To follow on from the delivery of the PCLP, NHS England commissioned the network of Patient Safety Collaboratives from 2024 to 2026 to support perinatal leadership teams with the development, progression, and sustainability of their work culture. This support was tailored to local context and encouraged peer collaboration and sharing of good practice.
NHS England is also rolling out the Perinatal Equity and Anti-Discrimination Programme to every maternity and neonatal service in England. This multi-disciplinary culture change programme aims to tackle racism and discrimination, support fair and psychologically safe working environments for staff, and improve the experience of care for women, babies, and families.
Baroness Amos’ national independent investigation into National Health Service maternity and neonatal care identified culture as a significant issue. The National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce, which is comprised of family representatives, clinicians, and other experts, and chaired by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, will translate the recommendations from Baroness Amos’ investigation into a single, national action plan to drive systemic and sustained improvement across maternity and neonatal care.
Asked by: Baroness Benjamin (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following their decision to mandate on-device nudity safeguards, what consideration they have given to requiring the use of the same technology to identify and block (1) hate speech, racism and other text-based harms, and (2) extreme gore, violence, self-harm and suicide ideation-based content, on mobile phones in real time.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Prime Minister announced on 8 June that the UK will be the first country in the world where it will be impossible for any child in the UK to take share or view nude images. We will work with tech companies for three months to ensure that comprehensive nudity detection is implemented at operating system level, with adults able to switch it off by proving they are over-18 through age assurance. If industry does not meet our high expectations, then we will legislate.
The primary aim of this intervention is to disrupt grooming and sextortion pathways, to prevent exploitation of children as early as possible; and as an additional safety intervention to ensure that children cannot access pornographic material.
It is important that each user of a smartphone uses the device with their own operating system account. Such an account should be set up with nudity detection default-on, and only deactivated through age assurance to prove the user is over-18. If a device is shared, parents/carers should make sure that default-on nudity detection protections are not deactivated if the device is likely to be used by a child. Parents/carers should also be mindful if their phone – which may have nudity detection deactivated – is picked up by a child. Risks such as this, amongst others, will rightly form part of the government's three-month engagement with tech companies to work through technical solutions to meet the government's objective.
While this intervention is specifically bounded to nudity detection which can be deactivated through age assurance to prove the user is over-18, the government will consider the benefits and risks of wider potential use cases for these technological innovations.
Device-level age assurance could have further applicability to other online age restrictions. The Prime Minister announced restrictions on social media services for under-16s, on 15 June - Social media to be banned for under-16s in landmark government move to give kids their childhood back - GOV.UK.
The government committed to learn lessons from Australia’s experience by introducing more highly effective age assurance (HEAA) measures to support compliance, making it far harder for children to bypass safeguards; and that Ofcom will conduct a rapid study on what is effective age assurance for verifying whether someone is over 16.
Device-level age assurance can be more effective, convenient and privacy preserving for the user – including making it harder for users to circumvent restrictions via VPNs as can be done with platform level age checks. The government will continue to actively consider the extent to which device-level age assurance could be used to restrict access to age-gated services, such as social media and VPN services. The government’s announcement on 15 June 2026 did not include any explicit proposal to restrict or ban VPNs for under-16s, or universal screen time proposals.
We welcome measures that tech companies have already brought forward in this area – such as nudity detection already implemented by both Apple and Google. Apple introduced device-level age assurance in its iOS26.4 operating system update in March 2026, and expanded Communication Safety features to intervene when gore or violent content is detected on child accounts. These are constructive and welcome developments, which will protect children from other types of harmful content as well as nudity. Key to the targeting of such interventions is the differentiation of a child user of a device, which can be achieved through device-level age assurance to activate other safety interventions. The government will continue to consider options to go further in this respect.
Regarding the use, and restricted use, of devices while children are at school, Department for Education guidance (updated February 2026) is explicit that all schools should be mobile phone free environments by default, and that schools prohibit the use of mobile phones throughout the school day. Furthermore, the government continually horizon scans to appraise new technological innovations which may enable better safeguarding of children online, and device usage in school. The government engages with industry regularly to stay abreast of promising products which could be applied to better safeguarding children.
Asked by: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)
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 potential impact of A&E infrastructure on (a) staff retention and (b) clinical safety at hospitals operating above design capacity.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has not made a specific assessment of the impact of accident and emergency infrastructure on staff retention at hospitals operating above design capacity.
The Government is committed to making the National Health Service the best place to work. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the forthcoming 10 Year Workforce Plan will set out how staff will be better supported through improved working environments, flexible working, enhanced wellbeing support, and action to address violence, racism, and harassment in the workplace.
Overcrowding and prolonged waits in emergency departments can affect patient and staff experience and create risks to the delivery of care. NHS organisations are responsible for ensuring that services are delivered safely and that appropriate clinical governance, escalation processes, and staffing arrangements are in place when pressures arise.
NHS England has published the Model Emergency Department and the Model Acute Pathway standards for the first 72 hours of care, providing a national framework to support earlier assessment, timely senior clinical review, faster clinical decision-making, and safer care for patients requiring urgent and emergency treatment.
In addition, the Government has announced £215.5 million of capital investment for 40 new and expanded urgent care facilities across England, increasing capacity across urgent and emergency care pathways and helping to reduce pressure on emergency departments.
Asked by: Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat - North Shropshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to address the increase in racial abuse towards NHS workers.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Any form of racism or discrimination is unacceptable and has no place in our National Health Service.
Action is being taken to address racism and discrimination in the NHS. This includes an urgent review by Lord John Mann into antisemitism and other forms of racism, which was published on 4 June 2026 and contains a programme of recommendations across the NHS and UK health regulatory system to help stamp out racism in the NHS.
The Government published its response alongside the review and is supportive of all recommendations in the Mann report. The Government will be taking forward action to implement the recommendations that are for the Department and NHS England, and we are committed to working closely with system partners ahead of implementation to ensure that they are supported in delivering meaningful changes in line with the review’s findings.
Furthermore, as set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will introduce a new set of staff standards for modern employment which will include reducing violence against staff and tackling racism and sexual harassment. They will underpin the NHS Oversight Framework and act as an early warning signal for the Care Quality Commission.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much was spent by the Ministry of Justice on anti-racism training in the financial years (a) 2024-25 and (b) 2025-26.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice can confirm standalone EDI roles are incorporated into HR, with delivery of EDI priorities embedded within broader HR responsibilities across the employee lifecycle. As a result, this information is not held centrally.
The Ministry of Justice also does not centrally hold information on training expenditure at the level of specific themes such as anti-racism. Training available through Civil Service Learning includes equality, diversity and inclusion content within broader programmes, rather than as standalone thematic course.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what was the total annual salary cost for those employed in diversity, equity, and inclusion roles within a) the Ministry of Justice, b) His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, c) His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, d) the Legal Aid Agency, and e) Office of the Public Guardian in 2025-26.
Answered by Jake Richards - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice can confirm standalone EDI roles are incorporated into HR, with delivery of EDI priorities embedded within broader HR responsibilities across the employee lifecycle. As a result, this information is not held centrally.
The Ministry of Justice also does not centrally hold information on training expenditure at the level of specific themes such as anti-racism. Training available through Civil Service Learning includes equality, diversity and inclusion content within broader programmes, rather than as standalone thematic course.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to Lord Mann's review of antisemitism and other forms of racism in the NHS, whether he plans to review other government institutions.
Answered by Nesil Caliskan
There are no plans at this stage to commission HMG’s independent adviser on antisemitism Lord Mann to review other government institutions.
There are other reviews in progress. The Department for Education has commissioned an independent review led by Sir David Bell into antisemitism in schools and colleges, and Lord Macdonald of River Glaven KC was commissioned by the Home Secretary to undertake an independent review of public order and hate crime legislation. Lord Macdonald submitted his report to the Home Secretary at the end of May which she is currently considering. It will be published shortly.
The Government remains committed to tackling antisemitism and all forms of racism across society and will continue to consider how best to address these issues across public services.
Asked by: Iqbal Mohamed (Independent - Dewsbury and Batley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has conducted an assessment on the impact of work-related stress on the life expectancy of health professionals (a) pre-COVID and (b) post-COVID.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There has been no assessment made on the impact of work-related stress on the life expectancy of health professionals pre-COVID and post-COVID.
We know that sickness absence relating to stress and mental health in the National Health Service workforce has increased and we are making the health and wellbeing of all NHS staff a top priority and improving the support available to staff.
NHS organisations have a responsibility to create supportive working environments for their staff, including access to high quality health and wellbeing support, occupational health provision, employee support programmes, and a focus on healthy working environments.
At a national level, NHS staff have access to the SHOUT helpline for crisis support alongside the National Staff Mental Health Treatment Service for more complex mental health and wellbeing support, including trauma and addiction. As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we will shortly introduce a set of staff standards for NHS Staff, covering issues such as working healthily and flexibly, and tackling violence, racism, and sexual harassment in the workplace.