Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of including ethnic breakdowns in all national statistics.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Government departments are responsible for the production of different national statistics. I have asked my officials to liaise with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to ascertain the feasibility of including ethnic breakdowns in all national statistics.
A large amount of ethnicity data is already published on the Equality Hub’s Ethnicity Facts and Figures website. It was the first of its kind in terms of scale, scope and transparency and has been welcomed as best practice internationally. It contains statistics covering topics such as health, education, employment and the criminal justice system.
Publishing more ethnicity data for some topic areas may not always be possible. Ethnicity data may not be collected in some surveys or data collections. Where it is collected, data for some ethnic groups with smaller populations may not be published for reasons of disclosure or statistical reliability.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether it is their policy for the NHS to refer to "people who have ovaries" rather than "women" and whether this phraseology has been market tested with women, including those for whom English is a second language, to ensure that it is fully understood.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is not Government policy for the National Health Service to refer to ‘people who have ovaries’ and this phraseology has not been market tested. We have been clear that biological sex matters and it is important to use language that recognises the separate health and biological needs of men and women.
For all sex-specific conditions, we expect the language used to put biological sex, for example “women”, front and centre, with biologically-relevant information relating to specific organs or hormones secondary.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to encourage pregnant women to undertake smoking cessation programmes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Smoking is the number one entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability, and death in this country. It is responsible for 80,000 yearly deaths in the United Kingdom, and one in four of all UK cancer deaths. Smoking in pregnancy increases the risk of stillbirth, miscarriage, and sudden infant death.
As set out in Stopping the Start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation, we are establishing a financially incentivised scheme to help pregnant smokers and their partners to quit smoking, with smoking cessation support. This evidence-based intervention will encourage pregnant women to give up smoking, and remain smokefree throughout pregnancy and beyond, helping to improve the health and wellbeing of both mother and baby.
The objective is to have all maternity trusts that wish to participate in the scheme signed up by the end of 2024, so that all pregnant women who smoke in participating areas will be offered the opportunity to join the incentive scheme by December 2024.
This financial incentive scheme builds upon the NHS Long Term Plan’s ambition to ensure that all pregnant smokers can access behavioural support to quit from within maternity services, as well as additional funding for mass marketing campaigns on stopping smoking.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of vaping on the health of pregnant women; and whether she plans to take steps to encourage pregnant women to stop vaping.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our health advice on vaping is clear, if you smoke, it is better to vape, but if you don’t smoke, you should never vape. Evidence to date suggests vaping is less harmful than smoking. Research funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research finds that pregnant women who vaped, when compared to women who used Nicotine Replacement Therapy, were twice as likely to quit, and that both approaches were safer than smoking. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01808-0
To help pregnant smokers quit smoking, the Government is providing up to £10 million of investment over 2023/24 and 2024/25 via a financial incentives scheme. This evidence-based intervention, supported by behavioural support, will encourage pregnant women to quit smoking, and remain smokefree throughout pregnancy and beyond, helping to improve the health and wellbeing of both mother and baby.
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what recent steps his Department has taken to help ensure women and girls in Gaza have access to sanitary products.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
We have provided £4.25 million to the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, to provide life-saving support to vulnerable women and girls in Gaza. This support is expected to reach about 111,500 women, around 1 in 5 of the adult women in Gaza. It will support up to 100 community midwives, the distribution of around 45,000 clean delivery kits and 20,000 menstrual hygiene management kits. These dignity kits include tampons, reusable pads and underwear. The Foreign Secretary met with the London representative of UNFPA on 28 March to discuss the needs of vulnerable women and girls in Gaza and I [the Deputy Foreign Secretary] met with UNFPA Executive Director, Natalia Kanem, on 16 April in Geneva.
Asked by: Fabian Hamilton (Labour - Leeds North East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of recent violence in Tripoli.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We are aware of the recent clashes in Tripoli, and continue to monitor the situation on the ground closely. The UK calls for all parties to exercise restraint, and to avoid escalation or retaliatory action. Libyan actors must press forward in fulfilling their responsibilities to uphold peace and security across the country, by engaging meaningfully with the political process to deliver a Libyan-led political settlement. We continue to work with international partners to improve stability in Libya at the national and local level, including engaging with communities across Libya to solve local conflicts and build peace.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question
To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, whether the Church plans to publicly acknowledge historic links with the chattel slave trade.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The Archbishop of Canterbury has been unequivocal on the theology of this issue, noting on his visit to Cape Coast Castle in Ghana in February 2023:
“It was a reminder that the abomination of African chattel enslavement was blasphemy: those who imprisoned men and women in those dungeons saw them as less than human. It is to the Church of England’s eternal shame that it did not always follow Christ’s teaching to give life. It is a stain on the wider church that some Christians did not see their brothers and sisters as created in the image of God, but as objects to be exploited.”
The Church Commissioners has been investigating its historic links to the chattel slave trade since 2019 and published a full, transparent report of the findings in January 2023. More information about the whole project is available here:
Church Commissioners Links to Historic Transatlantic Slavery | The Church of England
The Church Commissioners seek, through the research it has done and its response, to acknowledge the truth of the past, apologise for the wrongs that this research has highlighted, and to address these wrongs through repentance, remembrance, reconciliation, and renewal. The Church Commissioners believe that by addressing its past transparently, particularly this part of our past, the Church and its teachings will be more relevant to more people. The response is an important missional activity that will support the work and ministry of the Church of England in England.
The Church Commissioners are committed to setting up an Impact Investment Fund as part of its response to invest in a better and fairer future for all, particularly for communities affected by historic enslavement. It is hoped this fund will grow over time, reinvesting returns to enable it to have a positive and lasting legacy that will exist in perpetuity and with the potential for other institutions to participate, further enabling growth in the size and impact of the fund. This Fund will be seeded with a £100 million commitment from the Church Commissioners.
Despite recent press speculation, the Church Commissioners has no plans to increase its contribution to the Fund over the planned funding period. It is hoped that growth in the impact fund will also enable grant funding for projects focused on improving opportunities for communities impacted by historic African chattel enslavement.
The Church Commissioners have also committed to undertake further research, including into the Church Commissioners' history, supporting dioceses and parishes to research and address their historic links with African chattel enslavement, and sharing best practices with other organisations researching their enslavement legacies.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to (a) assess and (b) improve the effectiveness of existing legal measures designed to protect (a) minority ethnic women and (b) all people from domestic abuse.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The government has taken a number of measures to strengthen legislation and protections for victims of domestic abuse.
This includes the measures set out in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which is helping transform our response to victims and bring perpetrators to justice.
Controlling or Coercive Behaviour within an intimate or family relationship was made a criminal offence under the Serious Crime Act 2015. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 removed the requirement for the parties to be ‘living together’ for the offence to occur, meaning it applies to intimate partners, ex-partners or family members, regardless of whether the victim and perpetrator live together.
The Domestic Abuse statutory guidance contains detailed sections setting out specifically how victims from ethnic minority backgrounds may experience additional barriers to identifying, disclosing, seeking help or reporting abuse.
The government continues to offer migrant victims in the UK who have, or last had, permission to be in the UK under the family Immigration Rules to apply for access to the Migrant Victims of Domestic Abuse Concession (MVDAC).
The government will continue to work with the police and criminal justice agencies to ensure the law is used to maximum effect to protect victims of domestic abuse.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of lowering the State Pension age to 60.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government has no plans to make such an assessment.
Changes to State Pension age were made over a series of Acts by successive governments from 1995 onwards, following public consultations and extensive debates in both Houses of Parliament.
Further changes were introduced through the Pensions Acts 2011 and 2014 in order to protect public finances and maintain the sustainability of the State Pension over the long term. Under the 2011 Pensions Act the State Pension age for women and men rose to 66.
The rise in State Pension age to 67 has been planned since 2014. Since then, the Government has undertaken two statutory State Pension age reviews, one in 2017 and one in 2023. These reviews both considered whether the existing rules about the timetable for State Pension age rising to 67 remained appropriate.
Both reviews, including the Independent Reports that supported them, concluded that the rules concerning the increase in State Pension age from 66 to 67 should continue as planned.
Asked by: Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative - Spelthorne)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has had discussions with NHS England on ensuring that (a) reviews, (b) investigations and (c) complaints processes relating to maternity services include consideration of the (i) impact of ethnicity on the care received and (ii) potential role of (A) racism and (B) discrimination.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
NHS England, along with the devolved administrations and the Crown Dependencies, funds Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries to collate ethnicity data, in relation to all perinatal and maternal deaths across the United Kingdom. They publish annual surveillance reports which provide comparators of rates of mortality for women and babies from different ethnic groups. They also publish confidential enquiries, assessing care provision along the whole care pathway, to identify areas requiring improvement.
The Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations programme provides independent, standardised, and family focused investigations to provide learning to the health system. This includes analysis of data to identify key trends, and collaboration with system partners to escalate safety concerns.