The five-day timeframe in England and Wales to register a death starts once the medical examiner has sent the medical certificate of cause of death to the registrar. While the guidance provided on GOV.UK is up to date, the General Register Office for England and Wales will continue to work with relevant departments to ensure that this information best supports the bereaved. Civil registration is a devolved matter in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

My Lords, the Secretary of State must, by law, consider whether and to what extent granting a permit for an automated passenger service is likely to help improve understanding of how these services should best be designed for and

provided to disabled and older passengers. Accessibility considerations will be set out in non-statutory guidance, and related permit conditions can be enforced through the permitting process. It would be counterproductive to specify detailed requirements in regulation for innovative new services.

My Lords, in his statement on 9 December, the Foreign Secretary called for violence

towards protesters and journalists in Georgia to stop. Until Georgian Dream halts its move away from European democratic norms and freedoms, the United Kingdom is suspending programme support to the Georgian Government, restricting defence co-operation and limiting engagement with representatives of Georgian Dream. It would not be appropriate to speculate about future sanctions designations, as to do so would reduce their impact.

Section 5.1, in the minutes from NHS England’s Advisory Group on Data meeting on 13 June 2024, was a discussion of a proposal that is still in consultation. Therefore, areas including but not limited to types of data use and individual subject rights are still under review and development.

Currently, the only data from NHS Spine used in NHS App analytics is related to the general practice (GP) surgery with which the user is registered. This includes the name of the GP surgery, its postcode, its Organisation Data Service code, and whether the surgery is operational.

NHS App users are informed about what the NHS App offers, and the personal data it requires to function. This information is provided through the NHS App Terms of Use and Privacy Notice, which can be found on the NHS.UK website, in an online only format. These provide details on the use of analytical data, and how users can exercise their rights. Users can also choose whether to allow the NHS App to collect performance data, with further information on this available in the NHS App cookies policy, also available on the NHS.UK website, in an online only format.

All Ministers speak with the authority of the Government, and it is for the Prime Minister to decide how responsibility is allocated. The role of Minister for Disabled People has been undertaken at both Minister of State and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State level in the past. The new Minister has been at the Department for Work and Pensions since 2019 and has the ability to get things done and extensive experience of the issues that disabled people face.

My Lords, the Government are clear that everyone should be able to travel by air safely and with dignity, and they are committed to working with industry and the Civil Aviation Authority to achieve this. The department is committed to reforms that will help protect all passengers, including disabled passengers, and has ongoing engagement with industry and consumer stakeholders to identify ways to continue to improve aviation accessibility.

My Lords, the code of practice is a step in the right direction, with better protections for vulnerable households, increased scrutiny of supplier practices, and redress measures when prepayment meters were wrongly installed. Ofgem has now confirmed that it will put strengthened rules into energy company licences so that they can be enforced. The Government will

monitor very closely the behaviour of suppliers and regulators and will not hesitate to intervene again if necessary.

My Lords, the announcements made on Monday do cover stalking. We have added violence against women and girls to the strategic policing requirement, meaning that it is set out as a national threat for forces to respond to. Tackling stalking is included in this. Stalking is already one of the offences specified in multi-agency public protection arrangements. This week we announced that the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour will be added alongside it.

Being assigned a 'purpose' (now known as a 'project') gives a Foundry user access to different data on Homes for Ukraine, depending on their role. For privacy and security reasons, the access rights for users is carefully controlled. Foundry does not hold data not related to Homes for Ukraine and is not used for any other purpose.

The Home Office does not use Palantir Foundry software and therefore cannot provide information on the Purpose-Based Access Controls.

My Lords, the Government have launched a new consultation on proposals to support the fire safety of residents unable to self-evacuate in an emergency. These include a person-centred fire risk assessment for these residents, simultaneous evacuation of buildings and the provision of information to fire and rescue services to feed into their emergency response. The Government’s response to the PEEPs consultation was published on 18 May. It sets out the difficulties in mandating PEEPs in high-rise residential settings.

The success of the COVID-19 vaccination programme has meant that shielding and identifying people as clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) are no longer necessary. This is because the majority of those previously considered to be CEV will benefit from the COVID-19 vaccine. However, there remains a smaller number of people who, in spite of vaccination, are at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19. This is due to a weakened immune system or specific other medical condition, which means they require enhanced protections such as those offered by antivirals and therapeutics, additional vaccinations and potentially other non-clinical interventions.

Within this smaller group, approximately 1.3 million people have been identified as potentially eligible for Antivirals, and Neutralising Monoclonal Antibodies, as non-hospitalised treatments, and approximately 0.5 million people in England have been identified as severely immunosuppressed and therefore eligible for a third primary COVID-19 vaccine dose.

We recognise the unprecedented pressures that the ambulance service is facing, and strong support is in place. A £55 million investment by NHS England and NHS Improvement will provide 700 additional staff in control rooms and on the front line to improve response times. This is alongside £4.4 million to keep an additional 154 ambulances on the road this winter. NHS 111 is recruiting an additional 1,100 staff, alongside a £250 million winter GP capacity fund to avoid unnecessary ambulance calls and visits to A&E.

The information requested is not centrally collected.

We have signed contracts to supply over 10 million tests from Roche and Abbott in the coming months. We have agreed these contracts with two suppliers whose assays have been evaluated by Public Health England and continue to engage with other companies to establish further agreements to meet our testing strategy. These contracts will secure a significant volume to meet the United Kingdom’s testing plans. Further details are commercially sensitive.

Public Health England (PHE) were asked to review all major suppliers of assays for National Health Service use, including the Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody test, in order to limit the amount of on-site evaluation each facility has to perform.

PHE is familiar with the processes involved in European Medicine Agency registration. No discussions have been held with stakeholders in Germany about their trial and approvals processes.

My Lords, we are committed to supporting carers to provide care in ways that protect and preserve their own health and well-being. Last June, we published the Carers Action Plan, a cross-government programme of targeted work. This included a £5 million carers innovation fund, to encourage innovative and creative ways of supporting carers. We are also working

with local government on a sector-led improvement programme of work focused on implementing the carers Act duties for carers.

My Lords, we expect all train companies to do everything possible to make travel easy for all passengers, including those with disabilities. Train companies have a legal obligation to make reasonable adjustments and must comply with the Equality Act 2010. They must also publish a disabled people’s protection policy which sets out their plans for disabled access and which must be approved by the independent Rail Regulator. The Government will publish an inclusive transport strategy later this year.

My Lords, although there is no specific statutory duty on clinical commissioning groups to offer respite care, under provisions in the National Health Service Act 2006, CCGs must ensure that they secure health services to meet the needs of disabled children to a reasonable extent. Furthermore, the statutory framework introduced in the Children and Families Act 2014 requires CCGs and local authorities to work together to support all the needs of children with a special educational need or disability.

NHS England is undertaking a programme of work to engage, inform and support commissioners, clinicians, pharmacists, patients and others in their consideration of the optimal use of biosimilar medicines. In September 2015 they published a What is a Biosimilar Medicine? guide, which provides an update for clinical and non-clinical stakeholders about the developing role of biosimilar medicines in the NHS in England and to support the safe, effective and consistent use of all biological medicines, including biosimilar medicines, to the benefit of patients. A copy is attached and is also available at:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/biosimilar-guide.pdf

NHS England has also convened a National Biosimilar Medicines Group, chaired by the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, whose role includes improving education and understanding of both the theory and practical considerations related to biosimilar medicines.

Guidance to prescribers requires them to explain to patients the likely benefits, risks and burdens, including serious and common side effects of treatments they are proposing. The What is a Biosimilar Medicine? guide makes it clear that patients’ needs preferences and values are an essential part of evidence based medicine. Local collaborations involving both patients and clinicians have been successful in introducing biosimilars.