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Written Question
Financial Services: Compensation
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the systemic impact from the Financial Conduct Authority’s crackdown on wealth management services under the Consumer Duty; what estimate they have made of the likely total compensation that will need to be paid by wealth management firms; and what other areas of the financial sector they expect to be impacted by the Consumer Duty.

Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)

Requirements regarding financial adviser ongoing services started in 2013 following the Retail Distribution Review, with additional requirements resulting from the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in 2018.

In February, the FCA wrote to a number of financial adviser firms requesting information about their delivery of ongoing services, for which their clients continue to be charged. The FCA is collecting this information to assess what, if any, further regulatory work it may undertake in this area.

The FCA’s new Consumer Duty seeks to set a higher and clearer standard of care that firms owe their customers. The FCA is an independent non-governmental body and is responsible for determining the application of the relevant rules. The Government will continue to monitor the effectiveness of Consumer Duty rules, as they bed in and as industry becomes more familiar with them.


Written Question
Health Professions
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, following the protection of the titles “physician associate” and “anaesthesia associate” under the Anaesthesia Associates and Physician Associates Order 2024, when they plan to provide protection for other medical titles which are not already protected.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

All healthcare professional regulators have protected titles relating to the professions they regulate. There are currently 64 protected titles across 10 professional health and care regulators. The Government’s regulatory reform programme, which is already underway, will consider protected titles more broadly.


Written Question
Physician Associates
Monday 25th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government why the NHS England’s Network Contract Directed Enhanced Service specifies that physician associates employed under the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme have key responsibility for providing first point of contact care for patients presenting with undifferentiated, undiagnosed problems.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Physician Associates have been part of the National Health Service workforce for a number of years. They are an important part of clinical teams across the NHS, providing support to thousands of patients every day, under the supervision of doctors.

The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme provides funding for a number of additional roles, including Physician Associates, to help create bespoke, multi-disciplinary teams. All these roles are in place to assist general practice (GP) doctors in reducing their workload and assisting patients directly with their needs, allowing doctors to focus on more complex patients and other priorities, including continuity of care. Physician Associates work alongside GPs and the wider practice team to provide care as part of the multidisciplinary team.


Written Question
INEOS: Ethylene
Friday 22nd March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the environmental impact of the 1,450 kilo-tons of ethylene that will be produced by the Ineos company's 'Project One' each year; what assurances they have received from Ineos about its claim only 10 per cent of the ethylene produced will be used for single-use products; what steps they are taking to ensure that the 10-per-cent limit is not exceeded; and what penalties will be applied if the 10-per-cent limit is exceeded.

Answered by Lord Offord of Garvel - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)

UKEF undertakes due diligence to ensure that all projects it supports align with robust international Environmental, Social and Human Rights standards. This includes ongoing monitoring to ensure this remains the case throughout the duration of UKEF’s support. UKEF does not attach specific conditions on the end-use of products. Further details about this individual project can be found online at: Category A project supported: INEOS Project One, Belgium - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)


Written Question
Chemicals: Health Hazards
Thursday 21st March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what processes the Environment Agency follows in identifying and nominating chemical substances to the Prioritisation and Early Warning System (PEWS) for chemicals of emerging concern; and whether there are routes for individuals or other organisations to raise chemical substances of concern to PEWS.

Answered by Lord Douglas-Miller - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The Environment Agency has developed a nomination process that integrates horizon scanning, environmental monitoring, and international collaboration. Nominations are received from internal and external stakeholders, collected from systematic reviews of published research, and watchlists developed by international environmental agency counterparts.

Individuals and organisations are able to feed into the nomination process by raising chemical substances of concern to any contact within DEFRA or the Environment Agency via PEWS@environment-agency.gov.uk who can nominate the substance following the instructions provided on the internal intranet page for PEWS.

The Environment Agency has adopted recommendations made by the Hazardous Substances Advisory Committee on stakeholder engagement, from their 2021 review of PEWS.


Written Question
Soil: Environment Protection
Wednesday 20th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in developing indicator E7 on healthy soils as part of the Outcome Indicator Framework for monitoring progress of the 25 Year Environment Plan.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) published a concept model for a soil health indicator in June 2023 (please see attached) and we intend to develop a more comprehensive model by 2025. A progress report on the development of the indicator will be published by June 2024.

Improving soil health and monitoring changes over time is a priority for government. The E7 indicator for soil health in England will use comprehensive data on soil characteristics (physical, chemical, and biological) and land use to show how different soils are contributing to different ecosystem services as a measure of soil health. Towards the end of financial year 2022/2023, we began national soil monitoring under the Natural Capital Ecosystem Assessment (NCEA) programme. The data will inform ambitious, proactive, and sustainable policy decisions to support the government's goal to improve the state of the environment within a generation.


Written Question
Antimicrobials: Drug Resistance
Monday 18th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what are their priorities ahead of this year's United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The High-level Meeting (HLM) on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) offers an excellent opportunity to catalyse global progress. The UK's priority is a political declaration that sets a high level of ambition across human health, animal health and environmental sectors. The UK is particularly keen to promote more equitable global access to antimicrobials and their appropriate stewardship.


Written Question
Antimicrobials: Drug Resistance
Friday 15th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure preventative measures such as enabling access to clean water and basic toilets, and promoting good hygiene practices are central to their work on combatting antimicrobial resistance globally.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

Access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in communities and health care settings helps prevent the threat of antimicrobial resistance. The UK's "WASH Systems for Health" programme is working in six lower-middle-income countries to strengthen the systems that deliver sustainable WASH services. The UK-funded Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition supported 14,800 facilities with WASH supplies and trained 460,000 health workers on hygiene. We also focus on achieving universal WASH in health care facilities to combat antimicrobial resistance through partners the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Hand Hygiene for All Partnership.


Written Question
Antimicrobials: Drug Resistance
Friday 15th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that their approach to tackling antimicrobial resistance across the world also works to end preventable deaths linked to unclean birth environments.

Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The UK's Ending Preventable Deaths campaign takes a multisectoral approach which includes tackling antimicrobial resistance, alongside strengthening health systems, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and broader determinants like nutrition, climate and water, sanitation and hygiene. Neonatal sepsis is a particular concern in the context of antimicrobial resistance and as such is where the UK will look to particularly align our work on water sanitation and hygiene, with our work on antimicrobial resistance and the health of mothers and newborns.


Written Question
Primary Care Networks: General Practitioners
Wednesday 13th March 2024

Asked by: Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (Green Party - Life peer)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to amend the Additional Role Reimbursement Scheme to allow the scheme to fund additional GPs, and what assessment they have made of the number of GPs now seeking and unable to obtain employment.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme aims to grow and diversify the general practice workforce. The scheme provides funding for 26,000 additional roles in primary care networks, to help create bespoke multi-disciplinary teams. General practitioners are not currently included in the scheme as they are a core role within general practice, and the recruitment of general practitioners is currently funded through global sum. We remain committed to growing the general practice workforce as well as number of doctors in general practice. There were 2,799 more full time equivalent doctors working in general practice in December 2023, compared to December 2019.