The Down Syndrome Act 2022 was published with explanatory notes to assist the reader in understanding the act. Under the Down Syndrome Act, My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is required to give guidance to the relevant authorities in health, social care, education, and housing services on what they should be doing to meet the needs of people with Down syndrome.

A call for evidence on the guidance under the Down Syndrome Act was launched on 19 July 2022 and ran for 16 weeks. An easy read version of the call for evidence was published which included an overview of the Down Syndrome Act, and which is available on the GOV.UK website. The Department has engaged with stakeholders on the call for evidence, including sharing an easy read version of a draft summary of the results.

We intend to issue the draft guidance for public consultation by the summer, including easy read versions.

The Government is committed to improving outcomes for people with Down syndrome.

Through implementation of the Down Syndrome Act 2022, we will improve the lives of people with Down syndrome by improving their access to services, including health and care services. NHS England has published statutory guidance requiring every integrated care board (ICB) to identify a member of its board to lead on supporting the ICB to perform its functions effectively in the interest of people with Down syndrome.

Under the Down Syndrome Act, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is required to give guidance to the relevant authorities in health, social care, education, and housing services on what they should be doing to meet the needs of people with Down syndrome.

The guidance will raise awareness of the specific needs of people with Down syndrome and bring together in one place everything that the relevant authorities should already be doing to support people with Down syndrome. A working draft of the Down syndrome statutory guidance was shared with sector partners in December 2024. Officials have been working through the feedback received and have engaged all relevant Government departments to produce a second draft of the guidance. The Minister of State for Care wrote to sector partners with an update in March 2025. We intend to publish the draft guidance for consultation by the summer, including easy read versions.

Beyond the Down syndrome guidance, under the Equality Act 2010 health and social care organisations must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled people are not disadvantaged. Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard, which details the recommended approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability.

A range of evidence-based interventions and services are provided for women in prison. Referrals for all services are encouraged from across the female estate, to support women to access the services they need. These services include the Women’s Offender Personality Disorder Pathway, as well as the Women’s Estate Psychology Service team, which provides forensic psychologists within all 12 women’s prisons to deliver therapeutic services.

HMPPS is piloting an enhanced approach to supporting women in their first weeks in custody, which is often the time when they are most vulnerable. This pilot is fully operational at five women’s prisons. It includes one-to-one psychological support and psychology-based group work.

The Women Offenders Repeat Self-Harm Intervention Pragmatic Trial piloted the delivery of face-to-face therapy. The provider subsequently proposed to move to a digital model. HMPPS was concerned that this could carry significant risks, given the vulnerability of the women. It was not clear how the wellbeing of the women would be safeguarded.

HMPPS would be glad to consider a new proposal to deliver the programme in women’s prisons, on condition that delivery was on a face-to-face basis to support the vulnerability of the women engaging in the therapy, and with provision of after-care.

A range of evidence-based interventions and services are provided for women in prison. Referrals for all services are encouraged from across the female estate, to support women to access the services they need. These services include the Women’s Offender Personality Disorder Pathway, as well as the Women’s Estate Psychology Service team, which provides forensic psychologists within all 12 women’s prisons to deliver therapeutic services.

HMPPS is piloting an enhanced approach to supporting women in their first weeks in custody, which is often the time when they are most vulnerable. This pilot is fully operational at five women’s prisons. It includes one-to-one psychological support and psychology-based group work.

The Women Offenders Repeat Self-Harm Intervention Pragmatic Trial piloted the delivery of face-to-face therapy. The provider subsequently proposed to move to a digital model. HMPPS was concerned that this could carry significant risks, given the vulnerability of the women. It was not clear how the wellbeing of the women would be safeguarded.

HMPPS would be glad to consider a new proposal to deliver the programme in women’s prisons, on condition that delivery was on a face-to-face basis to support the vulnerability of the women engaging in the therapy, and with provision of after-care.

In March 2021, the Government published The best start for life: a vision for the 1,001 critical days, a copy of which is attached. This vision sets out six action areas for improving support for families during the 1,001 critical days to ensure every baby in England is given the best possible start in life, regardless of background.

The Government is investing approximately £300 million to improve support for families through the joint Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Education Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme. The programme is implementing many elements of the Best Start for Life Vision and is delivering a step change in outcomes for babies, children and their parents and carers in 75 local authorities in England, including those with high levels of deprivation. This investment includes £100 million for bespoke perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationship support. Many local authorities without funding have also chosen to implement elements of the vision.

The Government knows there are some extremely rare cases where individuals have sadly experienced harm following vaccination against COVID-19, and recognises how difficult this is for those individuals and their families. It would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases, including where there may be ongoing litigation that may involve the Government.

As part of business-as-usual work, the Government reviews the payment amount of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), alongside all routine policy on a regular basis. There are no plans at this time to change the level of payment awarded under the VDPS.

To provide a more comprehensive response to a number of outstanding Written Questions, this has been answered by an information factsheet Testing – note for House of Lords which is attached, due to the size of the data. A copy has also been placed in the Library

NHS England can confirm that five people with a learning disability, autism or both have died within a specialist inpatient setting between 5 March and 30 April 2020, the latest data available. This includes people who were transferred from a specialist inpatient setting to an acute setting and subsequently died. In the same period last year less than five people died within a specialist inpatient setting. NHS England hold demographic data on gender, age and ethnicity of these patients, but cannot provide them due to the low patient numbers leading to a high chance of patient identification.

Public Health England are undertaking a thorough analysis of data on the deaths of people with learning disabilities, including looking at age, gender and ethnicity of people who have died. This will draw on data published by NHS England and the Care Quality Commission to understand the impact of COVID-19 on this group of people and the specific risks that they may face from the virus.

The number of deaths of various at-risk groups has been published by the Office for National Statistics. This include a breakdown of deaths by the most common underlying conditions, ethnicity, age and occupation.

NHS England publishes data on deaths of patients with a learning disability in England (LeDeR programme) who have either tested positive for COVID-19 or are considered to have had COVID-19.

Specific guidance has been produced for visiting care homes. This can be found in the Admission and Care of Residents during COVID-19 Incident in a Care Home guidance which is attached.

We recognise that these are extremely difficult conditions for leisure attractions such as science and discovery centres. These organisations educate and entertain visitors of all ages on what science is and the important discoveries over the centuries that have changed all our lives.

We have announced unprecedented support for business and workers, including those in the tourism and attractions sector, to protect them against the current economic emergency. This includes the Job Retention Scheme, VAT payment deferrals for firms and £330bn worth of government backed and guaranteed loans to support businesses. The Chancellor has also announced a Bounce Back loan scheme to help small businesses access loans of up to £50,000, with a 100% government-backed guarantee for lenders.

Our immediate national priority is containing the spread of the virus. As soon as it is safe to do so, we will be encouraging people to visit leisure attractions once again. On 11th May 2020 the Government published a roadmap setting out how we expect organisations such as science and discovery centres to open back up and welcome visitors again.

The government has advised everyone to work from home if possible. Guidance on staying at home is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/full-guidance-on-staying-at-home-and-away-from-others/full-guidance-on-staying-at-home-and-away-from-others.

We have also asked parents to keep their children at home, wherever possible, but asked schools and all childcare providers to continue to provide care for a limited number of children, including children who are vulnerable and children whose parents are critical to the COVID-19 response and cannot be safely cared for at home. Guidance for schools is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-school-closures/guidance-for-schools-about-temporarily-closing.

In recognition of the vital role that the charity sector plays in the UK, the Government has long provided tax reliefs to help charities carry out their charitable aims. This includes the provision of tax reliefs directly to charities to increase the amount they have to spend on charitable activities; and on donations, to incentivise charitable giving. Gift Aid is widely supported and is worth around £1.3billion (2018-19). Giving 100% tax relief to the donor for donations to charities would mean charities losing out on valuable Gift Aid income. However, those who wish to receive 100% tax relief can make their donations through Payroll Giving.

As part of the government’s £750million support package for charities, the government announced it would match-fund public donations to the BBC’s Big Night In charity appeal on 23 April, starting with a contribution of at least £20 million to the National Emergencies Trust appeal. The event has raised over £33 million in donations from the general public. We encourage the public to continue donating to the National Emergencies Trust appeal, which is coordinating national support for local charities doing vital work during the pandemic.

Care home and home care providers are being issued with personal and protective equipment. We are also engaging with key health and social care stakeholders to understand what more we can do to help the ensure continuity of supply.

Additionally, we are working with wholesalers to help ensure a longer-term supply of all personal protective equipment, including gloves, aprons, facemasks and hand sanitiser, to all care sectors.

We are working closely across Government with local authorities and providers to make sure the adult social care sector is prepared and able to respond to COVID-19. Local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and providers should have appropriate arrangements in place to manage their workforce. We expect them to work together to make sure that our valued social care staff, including frontier workers, can continue working wherever possible. There is a £5 billion contingency fund to support the National Health Service and local authorities to meet the additional costs they will face, and to ensure they can maintain adult social care provision, given the additional pressures on the sector caused by COVID-19.

We are working closely across Government with local authorities and providers to make sure the adult social care sector is prepared and able to respond to COVID-19. We know that the adult social care sector will need to recruit more people to ensure it can operate at maximum capacity, both to fill existing vacancies, but also to ensure there is sufficient cover for those in the workforce who will need to self-isolate because they are unwell, or who need to undertake more stringent social distancing measures because they are in a high risk group. We are planning to adapt our current national recruitment campaign ‘When you care, every day makes a difference’ for the current context, while continuing to highlight opportunities for career development and progression.

DCMS ministers and officials regularly meet stakeholders to discuss a range of issues, including online media sites and their comment sections.

The Government published the initial response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation in February 2020. This confirmed that the Government is developing legislation on online harms to establish a new duty of care on online companies towards their users, overseen by an independent regulator. This framework will make companies more responsible for their users’ safety. For comments sections on media sites, the legislation will not duplicate existing regulation.

My Lords, the Government strongly encourage businesses to be transparent with consumers over voucher expiry dates. This is backed by legislation which enables consumers to challenge unfair terms. Many retailers offer vouchers which do not expire and, where expiry dates are used, we strongly encourage businesses to stipulate at least two years. There are no plans for further legislation.

In a ‘no deal’ European Union exit, EU citizens living in another state but travelling regularly to and from the United Kingdom as a frontier worker on or before exit day will continue to be entitled for National Health Service treatment without charge.

The Government is aiming to agree with the EU or with individual Member States continuing the existing reciprocal healthcare arrangements after exit day until at least 31 December 2020. Where such agreement is reached, an EU citizen who becomes a frontier worker after exit day would be eligible for NHS treatment without charge, under the terms of that arrangement. Where no agreement is reached, a frontier worker from that country may be charged for their care unless an exemption applies or the service that they are accessing is one which is free for everyone.

Based on the latest intelligence from the WHO, Public Health England does not anticipate a virulent flu strain this season but remains vigilant. The Government are committed to extending the effectiveness of vaccinations, particularly for vulnerable groups. As a result, NHSE has advised GPs that all individuals with learning disabilities are eligible for the enhanced service specifications. To raise awareness of the opportunity for vaccination, PHE, in partnership with NHSE/I, produces a range of easy-read leaflets for individuals with learning difficulties.