Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reported sale of equipment imported by UNRWA to (1) Hamas, and (2) Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK takes allegations of neutrality violations extremely seriously including reports of diversion of equipment. This is something we monitor closely in our annual assessment of UNRWA. UNRWA has a number of measures in place to prevent aid diversion.
We are closely following the independent investigation into UNRWA neutrality policies and systems, led by Catherine Colonna, which will look at all aspects of UNRWA's work.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of recent reports that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was an UNRWA teacher.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK takes allegations of neutrality violations seriously including any allegations related to Hamas' involvement in UNWRA's education provision. This is something we monitor closely in our annual assessment of UNRWA. When violations have been identified in the past, UNRWA has taken action including raising the issue with relevant parties.
We are aware that the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services and Catherine Colonna have now provided their interim reports to the UN Secretary-General. Their independent investigations include assessment of the policies and systems UNRWA has in place to ensure neutrality.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the ethnicity pay gap for (1) people of Bangladeshi heritage, (2) people of Pakistani heritage, and (3) people of African Caribbean heritage, for each of the past five years.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The most recent data available on UK ethnicity pay gaps is for 2022. The adjusted pay gaps for the most recent 5 years (2018 to 2022) for the Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Caribbean ethnic groups are provided below. A positive percentage value for the ethnicity pay gap means that the relevant ethnic group earns less than the white reference group.
Adjusted Ethnicity Pay Gaps | Bangladeshi | Pakistani | Caribbean |
2022 | UK born 8.3% Non UK born 17.4% | UK born estimate considered unreliable (-2.0%) Non UK born 14.1% | UK born 3.3% Non UK born 4.7% |
2021 | UK born 18.3% Non UK born 20.4% | UK born 9.5% Non UK born 11.9% | UK born 8.0% Non UK born 10.5% |
2020 | UK born 3.5% Non UK born 22.6% | UK born 12.1% Non UK born 20.8% | UK born 4.2% Non UK born estimate considered unreliable (3.7%) |
2019 | UK born 7.0% Non UK born 20.6% | UK born 3.2% Non UK born 16.0% | UK born 6.3% Non UK born 11.9% |
2018 | UK born 9.7% Non UK born 28.7% | UK born 6.1% Non UK born 14.7% | UK born 7.5% Non UK born 9.4% |
Adjusted pay gaps account for a variety of pay determining characteristics such as occupation, age, sex and geographical region. These figures are split into UK and non-UK born as we do not have the overall adjusted pay gap available for these specific ethnic groups. Further data on ethnicity pay gaps is available from the ONS website at https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/ethnicitypaygapsingreatbritain/2012to2022/relateddata.
Closing ethnicity pay gaps requires much wider shifts in society. Our ambitious Inclusive Britain strategy, published in March 2022, set out 74 bold actions to tackle entrenched ethnic disparities in employment, education, health and criminal justice. This includes our comprehensive guidance for employers on ethnicity pay reporting, published last April, which set out best practice on measuring, analysing and reporting ethnicity pay gaps. We also launched an Inclusion at Work Panel last year aimed at helping employers achieve fairness and inclusion in the workplace.
Asked by: Lord Shinkwin (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of overall pregnancy terminations have been carried out in accordance with paragraph (d) of section 1(1) of the Abortion Act 1967 in each of the past five years.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We are unable to provide the data requested for 2022 and 2023 as these statistics have not yet been published. Abortion statistics for 2022 are provisionally scheduled to be published in May 2024. The date of publication of abortion statistics for 2023 will be announced in due course.
The following table shows information on the proportion of overall pregnancy terminations carried out in accordance with paragraph (d) of section 1(1) of the Abortion Act 1967 between 2019 and 2021:
Year | Proportion (%) |
2019 | 2.0 |
2020 | 1.5 |
2021 | 1.6 |
Source: NHS England