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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government for how many hours the (1) Family Court, and (2) Family Division of the High Court, sat in (a) 2023, and (b) 2024.
Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does not hold the data for hours sat as family sittings for both the County Court and the High Court are recorded in days. This data can be found in the Royal Courts of Justice Annual Tables, table 9.2 as below:
Year | Days Sat in the High court - Family division(1) | Days sat in the Family court(2) |
2023 | 2,518 | 132,855 |
2024 | 2,895 | 124,280 |
Notes:
These figures represent only the days sat in court or in chambers in the jurisdictions shown. Judges sit in other areas (for example, High Court hearings in regional County Courts are not currently included) and also undertake a range of other functions outside the courtroom that are not shown here.
Includes Private and other family figures including family: divorce sitting days.
HMCTS does not hold data on how many cases were heard in the Family Court and Family Division of the High Court. However, data on the total number of cases disposed of, which includes both hearings and out of court disposals are in table 1 of the Family Court Statistics as shown below:
Cases reaching a final disposal | |
Year | Total cases disposed |
2023 | 235,184 |
2024 | 245,691 |
Source: HMCTS FamilyMan and Core Case Data
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many cases the (1) Family Court, and (2) Family Division of the High Court, heard in (a) 2023, and (b) 2024.
Answered by Baroness Levitt - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does not hold the data for hours sat as family sittings for both the County Court and the High Court are recorded in days. This data can be found in the Royal Courts of Justice Annual Tables, table 9.2 as below:
Year | Days Sat in the High court - Family division(1) | Days sat in the Family court(2) |
2023 | 2,518 | 132,855 |
2024 | 2,895 | 124,280 |
Notes:
These figures represent only the days sat in court or in chambers in the jurisdictions shown. Judges sit in other areas (for example, High Court hearings in regional County Courts are not currently included) and also undertake a range of other functions outside the courtroom that are not shown here.
Includes Private and other family figures including family: divorce sitting days.
HMCTS does not hold data on how many cases were heard in the Family Court and Family Division of the High Court. However, data on the total number of cases disposed of, which includes both hearings and out of court disposals are in table 1 of the Family Court Statistics as shown below:
Cases reaching a final disposal | |
Year | Total cases disposed |
2023 | 235,184 |
2024 | 245,691 |
Source: HMCTS FamilyMan and Core Case Data