Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many children in England are currently not attending school regularly due to unauthorised absences.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Schools are required to record in the register once in the morning session and once in the afternoon session whether or not a pupil is absent.
The attached table below shows the number of pupil enrolments in England with one or more sessions of unauthorised absence by academic year.
In the 2021/22 academic year, 366,042 pupil enrolments missed 10% or more of possible sessions due to unauthorised absence. This figure covers state-funded primary, state-funded secondary and special schools in England.
Unauthorised absence includes pupils who arrived late (after registration has closed), unauthorised holidays, reason for absence not yet provided, and other unauthorised absence.
The data used in this answer are published in the National Statistics release on pupil absence in schools in England, available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assistance they provide to migrants settling in the UK to obtain UK passports for UK-born babies.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
Where a foreign national settling in the UK wishes to obtain a passport for a UK-born child for whom they have parental responsibility, they may apply for a child passport through the normal range of available HMPO application processes.
His Majesty’s Passport Office will assess whether the child is a British citizen in accordance with the British Nationality Act 1981, which requires the parent to be settled in the United Kingdom when the child is born, and also provides an alternative mechanism for UK-born children to acquire British citizenship through registration. HMPO provides an enquiry service to assist customers making passport applications.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) the increase of cases of heart arrhythmia and death after the onset of heart arrhythmia in the last year, and (2) research linking the onset of heart arrhythmia to contracting COVID-19.
Answered by Lord Kamall
No specific assessment has been made. However, NHS England and Improvement’s ‘Help us help you’ campaign encourages patients to seek urgent medical help when unwell, including that patients with symptoms of a heart attack should call 999. In February 2022, NHS England and NHS Improvement launched a new campaign to raise awareness of heart attack symptoms.
We are currently not aware of evidence suggesting that arrhythmia increases the risk of contracting COVID-19. While infection increases the risk of developing an arrhythmia, particularly for patients with an underlying heart condition, there is evidence that this risk does not continue once the patient has recovered. The National Institute for Health and Care Research has not funded any specific research on a possible link between COVID-19 onset and arrythmia. However, it has supported a study investigating arrythmia as a consequence of COVID-19 disease.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many new migrants legally settled in the UK in the period January–April.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office publishes data on the number of grants of Settlement in the “How many people continue their stay in the UK or apply to stay permanently?” topic and underlying datasets of the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’.
The latest data relates to the year ending March 2022 and can be found in table se_D02, which is attached.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many migrants from Hong Kong have settled in the UK since June 2020.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Home Office publishes data on the number of applications and grants of leave of people from Hong Kong on the British National Overseas (BN(O)) route in the “How many people come to the UK each year (including visitors)?” topic and underlying datasets of the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release’.
The latest data for the BN(O) route relates to the year ending March 2022. These statistics include data on main applicants and dependants.
The Home Office publishes data on the number of grants of settlement, broken down by nationality in table Se_D01 in the Settlement datasets, which is attached. The latest data relates to the year 2020.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to return to Nigeria historic artefacts from the Kingdom of Benin which are housed in public institutions and museums in the UK.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Museums and galleries in the UK operate independently of Her Majesty’s Government. Decisions relating to their collections are a matter for the trustees of each museum.
Some national museums are prevented by law from disposing of objects in their collections unless, broadly, they are duplicates or unfit for retention. The two exceptions to this are when the objects are human remains that are less than 1,000 years old, and objects that were spoliated during the Nazi era. Her Majesty’s Government has no plans to change this law.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to their initiative on tackling the online abuse of footballers, what assessment they have made of the extent to which football clubs have taken up the opportunity of briefings from the police on systems for reporting and dealing with online abuse.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
We are aware that some clubs have responded to the offer made by the police of briefings on systems for reporting and dealing with online abuse. This is an operational matter for football clubs and their players to decide on. Police remain ready and willing to offer their support in tackling online abuse directed at footballers.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of any trends in the number of arrests made among football supporters attending matches in England.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
We are clear that law abiding fans should be able to enjoy football matches in safety and that any violent or disorderly behaviour at matches will not be tolerated.
In the 2020 to 2021 football season, there were 116 football-related arrests under Schedule 1 of the Football Spectators Act 1989 (as amended). Of these, the most common offence types were violent disorder (36%) and public disorder (34%). Arrests in the latest season are around 8% of the 2018 to 2019 football season (pre-Covid) level and will have been impacted by the fact that the vast majority of matches (93 %) were played without spectators.
In addition, there were 24 football-related arrests by British Transport Police and 29 other (non-Schedule 1) arrests at football matches in the 2020 to 2021 football season.
The trend in football-related arrests continues to fall and the number of football-related arrests have reduced steadily since 2000 and by 50% since 2010/11 season.
Arrest is just one of the powers the police have to deal with those intent on causing trouble. Preventative football banning orders, targeted and proportionate public order policing, stadium ejections, modern in-stadia security, and changes in supporter attitudes have all helped to marginalise the worst risk supporters.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the basis for requiring parts of sports stands to have a form of rail seating to improve safe standing and other adjoining seats, in the same seating area, not to be included.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA) has already set out the technical requirements needed for seats with barriers or independent barriers in the current (6th) edition of its Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds (Green Guide). Additionally, the SGSA’s current all-seater policy enforcement approach details, amongst other things, how to identify risks to spectator safety arising from persistent standing in seated areas, and potential mitigation for such risks.
It is for a football club to decide, in consultation with the relevant local authority and other partners, which parts of its ground would benefit from seats with barriers or seats with independent barriers to address the identified risks to spectator safety.
Asked by: Lord Mann (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the Sports Grounds Safety Authority regarding the requirement for a form of rail seating on spectator behaviour in the next football season; and when they will report on the requirement to move to the full rail seating required for safe standing.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA) has already set out the technical requirements needed for seats with barriers or independent barriers in the current (6th) edition of its Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds (Green Guide). Additionally, the SGSA’s current all-seater policy enforcement approach details, amongst other things, how to identify risks to spectator safety arising from persistent standing in seated areas, and potential mitigation for such risks.
It is for a football club to decide, in consultation with the relevant local authority and other partners, which parts of its ground would benefit from seats with barriers or seats with independent barriers to address the identified risks to spectator safety.