Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 7 December 2021 (HL3991), whether the additional data collected will include a record of the NHS numbers of patients who have had a termination procedure to enable effective tracking of both short and long term complications.
Answered by Lord Kamall
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 7 December 2021 (HL3991), whether the additional data collected will include data to monitor long term complications such as (1) fertility, including future miscarriage, and (2) future premature births.
Answered by Lord Kamall
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the expenditure on Marriage Allowance in (1) 2018–19, (2) 2019–20, and (3) 2020–21.
Answered by Baroness Penn - Minister on Leave (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
The most recent estimates for the expenditure and uptake of Marriage Allowance can be found in the Non-structural tax reliefs publication[1], last updated in December 2021. The estimated expenditure for Marriage Allowance is £490 million in 2018-19, £540 million in 2019-20, and £560 million in 2020-21. The number of claimants was estimated at 2,020,000 in 2019-20. Estimates of the number of claimants are the latest available and reflect only successful claimants up to that point in time and not the anticipated full take up when all backdated claims have been made in future tax years (up to 4 years later).
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what were the uptake figures for Marriage Allowance in the latest available year.
Answered by Baroness Penn - Minister on Leave (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State)
The most recent estimates for the expenditure and uptake of Marriage Allowance can be found in the Non-structural tax reliefs publication[1], last updated in December 2021. The estimated expenditure for Marriage Allowance is £490 million in 2018-19, £540 million in 2019-20, and £560 million in 2020-21. The number of claimants was estimated at 2,020,000 in 2019-20. Estimates of the number of claimants are the latest available and reflect only successful claimants up to that point in time and not the anticipated full take up when all backdated claims have been made in future tax years (up to 4 years later).
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/main-tax-expenditures-and-structural-reliefs
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the NHS England budget for relationship counselling in the latest available year.
Answered by Lord Kamall
This information is not held in the format requested as NHS England and NHS Improvement’s budgets are not allocated at the level of individual therapies. Individuals who are seen within Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services can expect to receive a course of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence-recommended psychological therapy from an appropriately trained individual and to have their clinical outcomes monitored and reported. All National Health Service talking and psychological therapy services are expected to have capacity to offer couple therapy.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the process by which local councils allocate SEN funding; and in particular, whether it matchs their provision of £6,000 per child, plus the additional cost for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs).
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has no plans to create a new dedicated budget for special educational needs (SEN), beyond the existing high needs block within the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). It is important that schools have the flexibility to decide on how best to support their pupils with SEN or disabilities (SEND), within all their available resources, and that they work closely with the relevant local authority in supporting those with more complex needs for whom additional resources are required.
Local authorities are required to provide mainstream schools, through the local schools funding formula, with sufficient funds to meet the additional cost of supporting pupils with SEN, up to £6,000 per pupil per annum. Local funding formulae vary in the way funding is allocated for this purpose, but all include factors which take account of the level of pupils’ disadvantage, for example, the number of pupils with low attainment in their previous phase of education.
Furthermore, local authorities give schools additional top-up funding from their high needs budget. This is used when the additional support required for a pupil cost more than £6,000 and can also support schools which are particularly inclusive or whose pupils have a greater range of SEN than the local funding formula might suggest. The high needs block of the DSG, which funds local authorities’ high needs budgets for children and young people with more complex needs, will total more than £9 billion in the 2022/23 financial year. This is a 13% increase over the 2021/22 financial year.
Local authorities’ funding processes differ, particularly those for allocating high needs funding to schools, but both the local school funding formula and the local high needs funding arrangements have to be discussed at the local schools forum.
Ultimately, local authorities are accountable for spending from the high needs allocation they receive from the department. Our guidance indicates that their responsibility for spending decisions should be discharged fairly, reasonably and after proper consultation.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to create a dedicated budget line for SEN funding.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has no plans to create a new dedicated budget for special educational needs (SEN), beyond the existing high needs block within the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). It is important that schools have the flexibility to decide on how best to support their pupils with SEN or disabilities (SEND), within all their available resources, and that they work closely with the relevant local authority in supporting those with more complex needs for whom additional resources are required.
Local authorities are required to provide mainstream schools, through the local schools funding formula, with sufficient funds to meet the additional cost of supporting pupils with SEN, up to £6,000 per pupil per annum. Local funding formulae vary in the way funding is allocated for this purpose, but all include factors which take account of the level of pupils’ disadvantage, for example, the number of pupils with low attainment in their previous phase of education.
Furthermore, local authorities give schools additional top-up funding from their high needs budget. This is used when the additional support required for a pupil cost more than £6,000 and can also support schools which are particularly inclusive or whose pupils have a greater range of SEN than the local funding formula might suggest. The high needs block of the DSG, which funds local authorities’ high needs budgets for children and young people with more complex needs, will total more than £9 billion in the 2022/23 financial year. This is a 13% increase over the 2021/22 financial year.
Local authorities’ funding processes differ, particularly those for allocating high needs funding to schools, but both the local school funding formula and the local high needs funding arrangements have to be discussed at the local schools forum.
Ultimately, local authorities are accountable for spending from the high needs allocation they receive from the department. Our guidance indicates that their responsibility for spending decisions should be discharged fairly, reasonably and after proper consultation.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that local ambulance services can accurately track the impact of complications arising from home use of medical abortion pills; and what plans they have, if any, to use an Advanced Medical Priority Dispatch System code for such cases.
Answered by Lord Kamall
The Department is undertaking a project to review the system of recording abortion complications data. We anticipate this work will be completed shortly. The review will cover all data on complications arising from abortion including home use of early medical abortion pills.
To improve the accuracy of the data collected, the Department is working closely with a range of statutory bodies, professional organisations and abortion providers to identify additional sources of information to complement complications data collected via HSA4 abortion notification forms. This would also improve the flow of data on abortion complications between different organisations, such as independent and NHS abortion providers and local ambulance services.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that ambulance call-outs have risen following home use of medical abortion pills; and what steps they are taking in response.
Answered by Lord Kamall
We are considering all evidence submitted to the Government’s public consultation on whether to make permanent the temporary measure allowing for home use of both pills for early medical abortion, including evidence from ambulance services. The consultation asked questions on whether other NHS services had been affected by the temporary measure. We will publish our response in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Eaton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the UK's cash network is not exploited by transnational organised crime groups.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The UK is internationally recognised as having some of the strongest controls worldwide for tackling money laundering (including through the use of cash) and bringing to justice those who seek to use or hide the proceeds of crime. These include Global Human Rights sanctions, Unexplained Wealth Orders, as well as our Economic Crime and Asset Recovery Action Plans.
The Home Office continues to work with our partners across Government and Law Enforcement to bring together the policy and operational response to Cash Based Money Laundering under one umbrella, with the overall objective to make the UK a harder place for criminals to launder cash in and through the UK and deter the use of criminal cash.
Economic crime knows no borders, and the actions that we take domestically need to be complemented at an international level. As noted in the Integrated Review and the new Atlantic Charter, we are working closely with the US to fight corruption and illicit finance. The UK-UAE Partnership to Tackle Illicit Financial Flows, recently announced by the Home Secretary, is another concrete example of joint international efforts to tackle the threat from dirty money and the serious and organised crime that it enables.
We have capitalised on the UK's G7 Presidency to strengthen the global response to corruption and illicit finance to reduce the space to hide dirty money.