Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to reports of the detention and intimidation of Palestinian human rights activists in the Palestinian territories, what recent discussions the Foreign Secretary has had with the Palestinian Authority about the activities of the PA Preventative Security Organisation.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Human Rights is a crucial element underpinning the UK's foreign policy. We continue to urge the Palestinian Authority (PA) to respect human rights, to ensure complaints of mistreatment or arbitrary detention are properly investigated and to continue to improve the performance of the security sector. An essential aspect of our efforts to prepare the ground for a two state-solution is to support a stable PA that can deliver services to its people and act as an effective partner for peace with Israel. The UK will continue to monitor these areas closely and raise with the highest levels of the PA.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent any breaches of human rights by the Palestinian Authority; and what further steps they are taking to support the right of freedom to protest in the areas administered by that Authority.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Human Rights is a crucial element underpinning the UK's foreign policy. We continue to urge the Palestinian Authority (PA) to respect human rights, Officials from our Consulate-General in Jerusalem regularly raise the need for key legislative and security sector reform to ensure respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. We encourage the PA to ensure the harmonisation of Palestinian laws with International Human Rights conventions to which it has acceded. As we mark the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, we are again urging the PA at the highest levels to adopt legislation to ensure the protection and progression of women's rights.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will give humanist marriages legal recognition by laying an Order under the Marriage Act 2013; and if so, whether they will consider doing so on an interim basis pending further reform of marriage law.
Answered by Lord Bellamy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
In July 2019, the Government invited the Law Commission to undertake a review of weddings law in England and Wales. The Law Commission report was published on 19 July 2022 and contains 57 recommendations for legislative reform.
To lay an order on an interim basis does not allow the necessary time to consider the Law Commission’s recommendations in full. As has been set out in Parliament, marriage will always be one of our most important institutions, and we have a duty to consider the implications of any changes to the law in this area very carefully, including balancing the needs and interests of all groups. We will publish a response to the report in due course.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) what criteria informed the decision to direct £16 million of UK aid to improving educational links with Iran between 2013 and 2017, (2) what projects the grants were used on, (3) how the projects were monitored, and (4) what plans they have to publish the results of such monitoring.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Between 2013 and 2017, the total FCO bilateral spending on Iran was approximately £4.4 million. These funds were spent on developing long-term people-to-people educational and cultural links between our two countries, including supporting English teachers, artists and Chevening scholars. Chevening supports exceptional young people all over the world to reach their potential, and remains open for applicants in Iran. Given these projects were run by a combination of British Council, Chevening and the FCO, these programmes were monitored and evaluated in line with standard FCO and British Council processes. The British Council do not currently operate or fund programmes in Iran.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the recommendations of their review, which promised to make council tax collection fairer and more efficient, launched on 10 April 2019, will be published.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Department has been working closely with a range of billing authorities, debt advice charities and civil enforcement agencies to better understand the approaches taken in local government in collecting council tax. On the basis of this work, the Department is now preparing guidance setting out the best practice that already exists in the collection and enforcement of council tax. This will be published as soon as possible.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the new guidance to local authorities on the collection of unpaid Council Tax to end aggressive enforcement tactics, announced on 10 April 2019, will be issued.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Department has been working closely with a range of billing authorities, debt advice charities and civil enforcement agencies to better understand the approaches taken in local government in collecting council tax. On the basis of this work, the Department is now preparing guidance setting out the best practice that already exists in the collection and enforcement of council tax. This will be published as soon as possible.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which (1) organisations, (2) charities, (3) debt advice services, and (4) local authorities were consulted as part of their review on unpaid Council Tax arrears, announced on 10 April 2019.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The Department has been working closely with a range of billing authorities, debt advice charities and civil enforcement agencies to better understand the approaches taken in local government in collecting council tax. On the basis of this work, the Department is now preparing guidance setting out the best practice that already exists in the collection and enforcement of council tax. This will be published as soon as possible.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the District Councils' Network on the safe opening of leisure facilities following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Leisure facilities and gyms play a crucial role in supporting people to be active and the Government is committed to reopening sports and physical activity facilities as soon as it is safe to do so.
We are holding regular discussions with representatives from the leisure sector, national sports organisations and local authorities to support the opening of facilities in a timely and safe manner once lockdown measures are eased. The Minister for Sport discussed some of these matters directly with the District Council Network at one of its weekly conference calls on Monday 8 June.
As with all aspects of the Government’s response to Covid-19, we will be guided by the science to ensure that as restrictions are eased people can return to activity safely.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to introduce a pre-action protocol for councils which would encourage the negotiation of affordable rent payment plans with tenants before seeking bailiff enforcement action following the end of the current moratorium on new evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
The existing Pre-Action Protocol for social landlords (attached) https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/protocol/pre-action-protocol-for-possession-claims-by-social-landlords encourages landlords and tenants to try to agree affordable sums for the tenant to pay towards rent arrears based on the tenant’s income and expenditure. Landlords are encouraged to do this as soon as possible and to postpone commencing court proceedings for as long as the tenant keeps to such agreement, or to adjourn proceedings if an agreement is reached after proceedings are begun. The failure of a landlord to comply with the protocol may be taken into account by the court in deciding what orders to make.
There are currently no plans to revise this protocol.
Asked by: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the reported antisemitic and extremist content in Palestinian Authority school textbooks adhere to (1) the Palestinian Authority–Department for International Development Memorandum of Understanding, and (2) the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to take action against incitement to violence.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Our partnership with the Palestinian Authority (PA) is underpinned by a Memorandum of Understanding and our ‘partnership principles’. We continue to judge that the PA are demonstrating a credible commitment to this Memorandum and the ‘partnership principles’. Related to education, the Palestinian Authority’s Education Minister has announced that he is currently revising the textbooks in time for the next academic year. The Palestinian Authority have also agreed to engage constructively with the review of the textbooks that we secured through our European Partners.