Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what discussions he has had with the Sentencing Council on the implementation of guidelines that require judges to consider factors such as poverty and social deprivation in sentencing; and whether his Department will provide training on these factors.
Answered by Gareth Bacon - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
On 1 April 2024, the Sentencing Council for England and Wales introduced a new mitigating factor ‘difficult and/or deprived background or personal circumstances’ across all offence specific guidelines, following consultation. As a statutory consultee, the Lord Chancellor made clear in his response his opposition to the inclusion of this new mitigating factor. However, as an independent body, the Government cannot require the Council to review particular guidelines.
Regarding the implementation of the guidelines, under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, the Council is required to monitor the operation and effect of its guidelines once published. The Council decides on its own priorities and work plan for producing and monitoring guidelines.
In relation to judicial training, in order to preserve the independence of the judiciary, the Lady Chief Justice has statutory responsibility under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 for the maintenance of appropriate arrangements for the welfare, training and guidance of the judiciary. The Lady Chief Justice exercises this responsibility through the Judicial College.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will hold discussions with the Department of Health in Northern Ireland on ambulance response times in that region.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Departmental officials have regular discussions with Northern Ireland and other Devolved Governments on a range of issues, including urgent and emergency care services. There are, however, no specific discussions currently planned on ambulance response times in Northen Ireland.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he is considering legislative proposals to strengthen the ability to tackle (a) phishing, (b) online payment fraud and (c) other cybercrime.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Crimes such as phishing and online payment fraud are already criminalised under the Fraud Act [2006] and the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA). To ensure that online platforms are doing all they can to further protect the public the Government passed the Online Safety Act (OSA) in November 2023. Fraud is included as a priority offence under the Act, which means tech companies are now required to tackle fraudulent content on their platform that is ‘user-generated’ or face the possibility of significant fines. The Act’s fraudulent advertising duty will also require certain categories of companies to stop fraudulent advertising appearing on their platforms.
The Government published the Online Fraud Charter in November 2023; a voluntary agreement with the largest companies in the tech sector, designed to raise best practice across the sector and deliver a much quicker and more targeted response than regulation. As part of the Charter, signatories have committed to supporting the Government’s Stop! Think Fraud campaign. This was a major campaign – across TV, radio, social media and billboards – that aim’s to improve public awareness by streamlining and amplifying messaging. The campaign, and supporting website, will make it easier for the public to recognise fraud and take steps to protect themselves, their family and friends.
Furthermore, the Government is committed to ensuring that the CMA, the UK’s key piece of cybercrime legislation which criminalises unauthorised access to computer systems and data remains up to date and effective to tackle criminality. We are currently reviewing the CMA, and the Home Office will provide an update to Parliament on any proposals that we will take forward in due course.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she made of the adequacy of the HIV Action Plan deadline of 2030.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ending new HIV transmissions, AIDS, and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030, and our HIV Action Plan from 2021 sets out how we will achieve our interim ambitions by 2025. The HIV Action Plan Implementation Steering Group, chaired by the Government's chief adviser for HIV, is supporting and driving forward the implementation of the HIV Action Plan, to ensure progress is in line with the plan's ambitions.
The UK Health Security Agency publishes an annual monitoring and evaluation report of the HIV Action Plan, which tracks progress towards achieving our long-term commitment to end new HIV transmissions, AIDS, and HIV-related deaths within England by 2030. The 2023 report demonstrates progress made to date, with under 4,500 people living with undiagnosed HIV, and extremely high levels of antiretroviral therapy coverage and viral suppression. The report also highlights areas which needs further work, such as strengthening HIV prevention and testing, retainment in care, and tackling HIV related stigma. The report is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hiv-monitoring-and-evaluation-framework.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department plans to take to (a) monitor and (b) enforce the removal of illegal content on platforms with end-to-end encryption.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Online Safety Act 2023 places legal obligations on tech companies to prevent and rapidly remove illegal content.
The Act’s illegal content safety duties mean that in-scope services will have to prevent users from encountering illegal content, such as child sexual exploitation and abuse. These provisions will come into force in due course.
The Online Safety Act is “technology agnostic” and focuses on the outcomes and behaviours it's trying to regulate, rather than targeting specific technologies, platforms and services. The Online Safety Act requires digital services to put in place proportionate systems and processes to make their platforms safe, whatever the design of the platform, informed by their own risk assessment of their service and its functionalities.
The UK Government supports strong encryption provided that it can be implemented safely and in a way that does not undermine legitimate law enforcement. But there does not necessarily need to be a choice between protecting children and privacy and it is right to require companies to keep children safe.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help improve patient access to primary care services.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Delivery plan for recovering access to primary care has two central ambitions to improve access to general practice (GP): tackling the 8:00am rush and reducing the number of people struggling to contact their practice; and for patients to know on the day they contact their practice, how their request will be managed.
We are doing this by modernising telephone systems, backed by £240 million in retargeted funding, and by building the capacity to deliver more appointments. As a result, we have now delivered on our manifesto commitment for 50 million more GP appointments per year, with 370.7 million booked across the last 12 months.
There is an increasing number of clinical services that are being delivered in community pharmacy, including the New Medicines Service, Contraception Service, Blood Pressure Check Service, Stop Smoking Service, and most recently the new Pharmacy First service. These services help take the pressure off GPs, and make it quicker and easier for patients to access care.
Furthermore, our plan to recover and reform NHS dentistry will fund approximately 2.5 million additional appointments. The plan sets out our actions to address the challenges facing National Health Service dentistry, and to improve dental access for patients across the country. A new patient premium is supporting dentists to take on new patients, and a new marketing campaign will help everyone who needs an NHS dentist in finding one. We have further supported dentists by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28 this year, making NHS work more attractive and sustainable.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what steps he is taking with his international counterparts to tackle human rights violations in Iran (a) relating to recent protests and (b) generally.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We continue to work with international partners to hold Iran accountable for its unacceptable human rights record. At the 55th Human Rights Council session, the UK was on the core group for the Iran human rights resolution, which successfully renewed the mandates of the Special Rapporteur and the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran human rights, enabling continued monitoring of abuses against women and girls and religious and ethnic minorities, as well as freedom of expression. We continue to engage with UK-based and international organisations on human rights, including Iranian diaspora organisations. In October 2023, the former Foreign Secretary and Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon hosted a roundtable with women's rights activists, joining them publicly in calling for an end to impunity and violence. Since October 2022, we have sanctioned 94 individuals or entities for human rights abuses, including senior decision makers responsible for enforcing Iran's mandatory hijab law. We continually assess our human rights sanctions regime, and will make further designations where we have the evidence to do so. We will continue to raise human rights issues with the Iranian Government.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what steps his Department is taking to monitor (a) the enforcement of dress codes and (b) other human rights abuses in Iran.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We continue to work with international partners to hold Iran accountable for its unacceptable human rights record. At the 55th Human Rights Council session, the UK was on the core group for the Iran human rights resolution, which successfully renewed the mandates of the Special Rapporteur and the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran human rights, enabling continued monitoring of abuses against women and girls and religious and ethnic minorities, as well as freedom of expression. We continue to engage with UK-based and international organisations on human rights, including Iranian diaspora organisations. In October 2023, the former Foreign Secretary and Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon hosted a roundtable with women's rights activists, joining them publicly in calling for an end to impunity and violence. Since October 2022, we have sanctioned 94 individuals or entities for human rights abuses, including senior decision makers responsible for enforcing Iran's mandatory hijab law. We continually assess our human rights sanctions regime, and will make further designations where we have the evidence to do so. We will continue to raise human rights issues with the Iranian Government.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what comparative assessment she has made of the regulatory approach by (a) the UK and (b) other advanced digital economies on enforcing a minimum age for the use of encrypted messaging services.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The UK’s Online Safety Act will make the UK the safest place to be a child online. The strongest protections in the Online Safety Act are for children. Providers which have age restrictions need to specify in their terms of service what measures they use to prevent underage access and apply these terms consistently The Online Safety Act will require user-to-user and search services to implement robust processes to tackle illegal content and safeguard children on their platforms.
Under the Act, where an in-scope provider makes significant changes to their service, they will be required to update their illegal content and children’s risk assessment. Ofcom will have strong investigatory powers to determine the impact of changes that particular providers make. Where Ofcom finds that a functionality is a risk factor for illegal content or harm to children on particular services, then it is empowered to set out steps providers should take to mitigate this. Ofcom have robust enforcement powers available to use against companies who fail to fulfil their duties, including imposing substantial fines.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of Meta's decision to lower the minimum age for access to WhatsApp to 13 on children's levels of exposure to extremist content.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The UK’s Online Safety Act will make the UK the safest place to be a child online. The strongest protections in the Online Safety Act are for children. Providers which have age restrictions need to specify in their terms of service what measures they use to prevent underage access and apply these terms consistently The Online Safety Act will require user-to-user and search services to implement robust processes to tackle illegal content and safeguard children on their platforms.
Under the Act, where an in-scope provider makes significant changes to their service, they will be required to update their illegal content and children’s risk assessment. Ofcom will have strong investigatory powers to determine the impact of changes that particular providers make. Where Ofcom finds that a functionality is a risk factor for illegal content or harm to children on particular services, then it is empowered to set out steps providers should take to mitigate this. Ofcom have robust enforcement powers available to use against companies who fail to fulfil their duties, including imposing substantial fines.