Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report from the Patient Safety Commissioner entitled The Hughes Report: Options for redress for those harmed by valproate and pelvic mesh, published on 7 February 2024, whether she is taking steps to implement the recommendation that women treated with mesh should be compensated.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Government commissioned the Patient Safety Commissioner (PSC) to produce a report on redress for those affected by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. We are grateful to the PSC and her team for completing this report, and our sympathies remain with those affected by sodium valproate and pelvic mesh. The Government is now carefully considering the PSC’s recommendations, and will respond substantively in due course.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there are any further meetings planned for the Maternity Disparities Taskforce.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Maternity Disparities Taskforce has met six times. The taskforce will meet again in due course, to further explore and consider evidence-based interventions to tackle disparities in maternity outcomes and experience.
The taskforce is currently focused on developing a targeted pre-pregnancy toolkit, aimed at women from ethnic minorities and deprived areas, which will encourage healthy behaviours and planning for pregnancy by supporting women to make informed choices about their health and wellbeing.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many meetings of the Maternity Disparities Taskforce have taken place since its establishment.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Maternity Disparities Taskforce has met six times. The taskforce will meet again in due course, to further explore and consider evidence-based interventions to tackle disparities in maternity outcomes and experience.
The taskforce is currently focused on developing a targeted pre-pregnancy toolkit, aimed at women from ethnic minorities and deprived areas, which will encourage healthy behaviours and planning for pregnancy by supporting women to make informed choices about their health and wellbeing.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether there have been any outcomes from the work of the Maternity Disparities Taskforce.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Maternity Disparities Taskforce has met six times. The taskforce will meet again in due course, to further explore and consider evidence-based interventions to tackle disparities in maternity outcomes and experience.
The taskforce is currently focused on developing a targeted pre-pregnancy toolkit, aimed at women from ethnic minorities and deprived areas, which will encourage healthy behaviours and planning for pregnancy by supporting women to make informed choices about their health and wellbeing.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made in implementing the three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, published on 30 March 2023.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is making good progress in delivering its Three year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, a copy of which is attached. The plan is backed by £186 million of funding per year from April 2024, which sets out how maternity and neonatal care will be made safer, more personalised, and more equitable for women, babies, and families.
For example, many local maternity and neonatal systems have published Equity and Equality Action Plans to tackle disparities in outcomes and experiences of maternity care at a local level. NHS England has published new guidance for general practitioners on the 6-8 week postnatal check, all parts of England have begun rollout of perinatal pelvic health services and 39 maternal mental health services have been established.
All trusts are implementing the third version of the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle which provides maternity units with detailed guidance to reduce stillbirths and neonatal deaths.
NHS England’s Digital Maternity Fund has awarded 128 funding bids to support the digitisation of maternity services across England and NHS England have established a new data taskforce to better detect and act sooner on safety issues.
Finally, to increase neonatal cot capacity, £45 million of capital was allocated across several providers to deliver an overall increase of more than 50 cots.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to publish a response to her Department's consultation on Mandating quit information messages inside tobacco packs, which closed on 10 October 2023.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Smoking is responsible for approximately 80,000 deaths a year in the United Kingdom, and causes around one in four cancer deaths in the UK. It also costs our country £17 billion a year, and puts a huge burden on the National Health Service. Alongside creating the first smokefree generation in the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, we are also scaling up our efforts to support existing smokers in quitting. We have provided an additional £70 million per year to local authority led stop smoking services, and we are investing in a new incentives programme to support pregnant women to quit. We are also providing £15 million a year to fund anti-smoking campaigns.
The Government ran a consultation on mandating informative messages about quitting smoking inside tobacco packs, which was open from 14 August 2023 to 10 October 2023. This included proposed inserts on a number of themes related to stopping smoking, such as benefits to physical and mental health, financial benefits, and how to access stop-smoking aids. We will aim to publish the response to this consultation in this parliamentary session.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the level of risk to women and girls arriving in the UK via small boats of trafficking for sexual exploitation in 2024.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office publishes statistics on small boat arrivals to the UK in the ‘Irregular migration to the UK statistics’ release. Data on small boat arrivals by year, sex and age group is published in table Irr_D01 of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK detailed datasets’, with the latest data up to the end of December 2023.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. Future irregular migration publication release dates can be found on the research and statistics calendar.
No assessment has been made of the risk to woman and girls arriving in the UK via small boats to trafficking for sexual exploitation. However, all individuals arriving on small boats will be assessed on arrival, including assessments to identify vulnerability and safeguarding needs. Where there are indicators of modern slavery, the individual will be referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). The NRM aims to lift victims out of situations of exploitation, provide them with a short period of intensive support and specialist care, and put them in a position where they can begin to rebuild their lives with increased resilience against future exploitation. In the last two years alone almost 30,000 people have had access to the protections of the NRM.
Asked by: Diana Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) women and (b) girls have arrived in the UK via small boats in each year since 2018.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office publishes statistics on small boat arrivals to the UK in the ‘Irregular migration to the UK statistics’ release. Data on small boat arrivals by year, sex and age group is published in table Irr_D01 of the ‘Irregular migration to the UK detailed datasets’, with the latest data up to the end of December 2023.
Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. Future irregular migration publication release dates can be found on the research and statistics calendar.
No assessment has been made of the risk to woman and girls arriving in the UK via small boats to trafficking for sexual exploitation. However, all individuals arriving on small boats will be assessed on arrival, including assessments to identify vulnerability and safeguarding needs. Where there are indicators of modern slavery, the individual will be referred into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). The NRM aims to lift victims out of situations of exploitation, provide them with a short period of intensive support and specialist care, and put them in a position where they can begin to rebuild their lives with increased resilience against future exploitation. In the last two years alone almost 30,000 people have had access to the protections of the NRM.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of vaping on fertility.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government has not yet assessed in detail the potential impact of vaping on fertility. A recent study reported in the media analysed blood samples from more than 8,000 women but this was not published in a medical journal and no other details of the research have been shared.
Our health advice will continue to advise all women planning to get pregnant, or who are pregnant, to stop smoking for their general health.
Overall, studies on the effects of vaping have so far shown that vapes are less harmful than smoking and can help people quit, although the long-term risks are unknown. We are exploring future opportunities with the United Kingdom research councils to examine the potential long-term harms from vaping.
To help pregnant smokers quit smoking, the Government is providing up to £10 million of investment over 2023/24 and 2024/25 via a financial incentives scheme. This evidence-based intervention, supported by behavioural support, will encourage pregnant women and their partners to quit smoking, and remain smokefree throughout pregnancy and beyond, helping to improve the health and wellbeing of both mother and baby.
Asked by: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what the total cost to her Department was of (a) events, (b) activities, (c) merchandise and (d) all other associated costs relating to Pride Month 2023.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
No costs were incurred by the Equality Hub connected to any events, activities, merchandise or other associated costs in relation to Pride Month 2023.