Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of the letter from the Chair of the Office for Environmental Protection to the Deputy Prime Minister on 2 May concerning the Planning and Infrastructure Bill which stated that “In our considered view, the bill would have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection provided for by existing environmental law”, on what basis they made a statement under section 20(3) rather than subsection (4) of the Environment Act 2021.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Part 3 of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill concerning development and nature recovery will not reduce overall levels of environmental protection.
Environmental Delivery Plans (EDPs) can only be put in place where the Secretary of State is satisfied the delivery of conservation measures are likely to outweigh the negative effects of development.
EDPs and the conservation measures they propose must be evidence-based and properly scrutinised before being put in place. EDPs may include back-up measures that can be deployed if monitoring shows the environmental outcomes are not being achieved.
Natural England will be empowered and given the tools to deliver the conservation measures needed to secure the aims of the EDP.
The government is confident that this more strategic approach to the assessment of negative effects, and delivery of conservation measures, strikes the right balance and will result in better environmental outcomes that go further than simply offsetting harm as required under current legislation.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government on which clauses and amendments the Department of Health and Social Care have provided advice on legal and practical workability to the promoters of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has worked with the sponsors of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on a range of workability issues and has provided legal and workability advice across the entire bill. Where the Government has provided technical or legal advice to the sponsor on specific amendments, ministers have referred to this within their remarks at the Committee and Report Stage in the House of Commons. Parliamentary Counsel has provided the technical drafting for the amendments tabled by the sponsors.
All advice provided to the sponsor in relation to the bill has been to ensure coherence of the statute book, and to help to ensure the bill is workable. The Government has remained neutral on the matter of assisted dying. The Government will continue to take this approach through the bill’s passage in the House of Lords.
The Department recognises the importance of promoting openness and transparency in Government. However, it is also in the public interest that the Government can engage confidentially with the sponsors of the bill, so that the advice the Department provides in relation to the operability and soundness of the bill can be free and frank, both in relation to this bill and any future private member’s bill where the Government engages closely with the sponsor.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 25 September (HL10725), whether abortion statistics for England and Wales for the years (1) 2023 and (2) 2024 will be published in 2025.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The publication dates of the Abortion Statistics for England and Wales publication for the years 2023 and 2024 have not yet been announced. Publication of the 2023 data is provisionally planned for winter 2025/26. We will announce the date of the 2024 data publication in due course.
The statistics have been delayed due to several operational issues. These include issues associated with moving to a new data processing system and an increase in the number of paper abortion notification forms to process.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will place the correspondence they have had with the Welsh Government regarding the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in the Library of the House.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government does not intend to place the requested advice or correspondence related to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill into the Library of the House.
Government advice and correspondence related to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is in line with Government policy to ensure coherence of the statute book, and to help to ensure the bill is workable, whilst remaining neutral on the matter of assisted dying. In relation to legislative consent motions, requesting legislative consent motions from Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland is a matter for the sponsor. The Government continues to offer technical advice to ensure the devolution settlement is respected.
The Department recognises the importance of promoting openness and transparency in Government. However, it is also in the public interest that the Government can engage confidentially with the sponsors of the bill, so that the advice the Department provides in relation to the operability and soundness of the bill can be free and frank, both in relation to this bill and any future private member’s bill where the Government engages closely with the sponsor.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 15 October (HL10682), whether they will publish the notes of the meetings with the promoters of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill and the actions taken as a result of those meetings in the Library of the House.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government does not intend to place the requested advice or correspondence related to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill into the Library of the House.
Government advice and correspondence related to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is in line with Government policy to ensure coherence of the statute book, and to help to ensure the bill is workable, whilst remaining neutral on the matter of assisted dying. In relation to legislative consent motions, requesting legislative consent motions from Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland is a matter for the sponsor. The Government continues to offer technical advice to ensure the devolution settlement is respected.
The Department recognises the importance of promoting openness and transparency in Government. However, it is also in the public interest that the Government can engage confidentially with the sponsors of the bill, so that the advice the Department provides in relation to the operability and soundness of the bill can be free and frank, both in relation to this bill and any future private member’s bill where the Government engages closely with the sponsor.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have requested a Legislative Consent Motion for the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill from (1) the Senedd, (2) the Northern Ireland Assembly, and (3) the Scottish Parliament; and if so, whether they will lay those letters of request in the Library of the House.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government does not intend to place the requested advice or correspondence related to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill into the Library of the House.
Government advice and correspondence related to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is in line with Government policy to ensure coherence of the statute book, and to help to ensure the bill is workable, whilst remaining neutral on the matter of assisted dying. In relation to legislative consent motions, requesting legislative consent motions from Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland is a matter for the sponsor. The Government continues to offer technical advice to ensure the devolution settlement is respected.
The Department recognises the importance of promoting openness and transparency in Government. However, it is also in the public interest that the Government can engage confidentially with the sponsors of the bill, so that the advice the Department provides in relation to the operability and soundness of the bill can be free and frank, both in relation to this bill and any future private member’s bill where the Government engages closely with the sponsor.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 30 October (HL10679), other than the bill team, how many officials are working in (1) the Department of Health and Social Care, (2) NHS England, on evaluating or devising implementation of the policy set out in the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is neutral on the principle of assisted dying and whether the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill becomes law.
Currently there is no implementation team. Bill officials are currently working to fulfil the Government’s duty to the statue book, providing technical drafting support and technical workability advice on clauses. Should the bill gain Royal Assent, some of this work could be deployed to inform an implementation programme.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 25 September (HL10725), how many civil servants were (1) working on compiling the abortion statistics for England and Wales from 2023 onwards, and (2) how many additional civil servants have been working on these statistics as a result of the delay in publication.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
A range of people working in different roles, civil service grades, and professions work on compiling the abortion statistics for England and Wales. This includes analysts, data entry specialists, policy professionals, and publications and communications specialists, whose contributions towards the abortion statistics publication make up varying degrees of their core role. For this reason, it is not possible to fully quantify the number of individuals compiling the abortion statistics. However, in the two main teams, the Department’s abortion statistics and abortion data entry teams, the combined number of staff, which represent the number of individuals rather than the number of full-time equivalent staff, below Senior Civil Servant grade was nine on 2 January 2023 and 10 on 17 October 2025.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to publish abortion statistics for England and Wales for 2023 by the end of this year.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The publication date for abortion statistics for England and Wales for 2023 has not been confirmed. This is because of delays, due to several operational issues. These include issues associated with moving to a new data processing system and an increase in the number of paper abortion notification forms to process.
Publication of the 2023 data is provisionally planned for winter 2025/26. We will announce the date for publication in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) appointments, (2) tests and (3) operations were delivered by independent providers for NHS patients in (a) 2022–23 and (b) 2023–24.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Independent sector providers have a role to play in supporting the National Health Service as trusted partners to recover elective services by using additional capacity to tackle the backlog whilst delivering value for money.
Independent sector providers delivered 3,265,305 outpatient appointments in 2022/23 and 4,156,770 outpatient appointments in 2023/24, including first appointment and follow-up.
They delivered 1,523,195 tests in 2022/23 and 1,876,989 in 2023/24. This includes only the 15 key diagnostic tests and excludes activity subcontracted from NHS trusts where responsibility for the pathway remains with the trust.
There were 761,420 inpatient admissions in independent sector providers in 2022/23 and 970,865 inpatient admissions in 2023/24. This includes ordinary electives and day case electives.