Category: Speeches

  • Lord Birt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Lord Birt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Birt on 2016-09-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what has been the trend for input prices for industry since the EU Referendum.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    On a monthly basis, total input prices rose by 0.2% in August 2016, after rising by 3.1% in July 2016 and by 1.7% in June 2016.

    On a monthly basis, core input prices rose by 0.2% in August 2016, after a rise of 4.2% in July 2016 and 0.7% in June 2016.

    The latest ONS producer price inflation data can be found in the following release (also attached): https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/producerpriceinflation/august2016#input-prices-summary

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  • Jim Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Jim Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-11-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the net present value of a phase-out of the use of lead ammunition for sports shooting.

    Rory Stewart

    The independent Lead Ammunition Group, which was established to consider the effect of lead shot on human health and wildlife, was also asked to advise on any significant impacts on shooting activity of possible advice or solutions. The Government is considering its report and will respond as soon as possible.

  • Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how he plans to hold to account clinical commissioning groups whose transformation plans do not include key performance indicators or estimated costs.

    Alistair Burt

    As part of improving transparency, all Local Transformation Plans must be published locally and made widely available.

    NHS England’s guidance Local Transformation Plans for Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing – Guidance and support for local areas is explicit about the need to promote equality and address health inequalities, and states that plans should ‘address the full spectrum of need including children and young people who have particular vulnerability to mental health problems for e.g. those with learning disabilities, looked after children and care leavers, those at risk or in contact with the Youth Justice System, or who have been sexually abused and/or exploited’.

    The assurance process requires local areas to evidence how they are meeting the needs of vulnerable groups including looked after children and children who have experienced abuse.

    An analysis of Local Transformation Plans has been commissioned and will include a thematic review of how the mental health needs of children and young people in vulnerable groups have been addressed.

    As set out in the guidance for Local Transformation Plans an integral part of the locally developed Children and Young People’s Mental Health Transformation Plans includes a tracking template that sets out local progress milestones and financial spend. This tracker will be used as the basis for assurance assessment in 2015/16 and from 2016/17 onwards progress on local transformation will become part of the mainstream planning assurance process.

    Local Transformation Plansrequire all key partners in a local area to agree how best to meet the mental health needs of children and young people in their local populations. 122 Local Transformation Planshave been developed that cover all 209 clinical commissioning groups.

    The assurance process for Local Transformation Plans for Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing was undertaken by NHS England regional teams and included assurance against each plan of standard self-assessment and tracker templates to enable a comparison of plans against objective success criteria.

    NHS England have commissioned a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Local Transformation Plans, in order to support policy makers, local commissioners and services to understand and use the data that is contained within the plans to drive further improvements. Local Transformation Plans will be reviewed from a narrative, analytical and financial perspective, with thematic reviews carried out in key focus areas that align with Future in mind principles.

  • Julian Knight – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Julian Knight – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Knight on 2016-01-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if the Government will take steps to assist with the backlog of Disclosure and Barring Service applications.

    Karen Bradley

    The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) aims to process all certificates within 56 calendar days and nationally DBS meets this target. The vast majority of applicants do receive their certificates in a timely manner and in December the average processing time for DBS applications was 15.3 days.

    It is important that checks undertaken are thorough and sometimes the DBS needs to refer an application to one or more local police forces as part of the enhanced certificate checking process. Unfortunately, a small number of forces have been experiencing difficulties in completing their checks within expected timescales.

    DBS has been working closely with forces who are not meeting performance targets to ensure that their performance improves as quickly as possible. The Home Office is taking a keen interest in this work.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to support the Marrakesh Declaration, signed on 27 January 2016.

    Mr David Lidington

    The Government welcomes the Marrakech Declaration, which issued from a gathering of Muslim scholars and intellectuals from over 120 countries in January 2016. In particular we welcome its call for cooperation among all religious groups to go beyond mutual tolerance and respect, and instead to provide full protection for the rights and liberties of all. We also welcome the call for Muslim scholars and intellectuals around the world to develop a jurisprudence which is inclusive of diverse groups; for governments to review educational curricula that instigate aggression and extremism and to support initiatives to fortify relations and understanding among the various religious groups in the Islamic World. We stand ready to help governments and civil society in Muslim majority countries in whatever way we can, and encourage them to put the words of the Declaration into action.

  • Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) has been spent on health care in (a) England and (b) the UK in each year since 1997; and what estimate he has made of the proportion of GDP that will be spent on health care over the next five years.

    Alistair Burt

    Spend as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) is usually reported on a United Kingdom basis. HM Treasury publishes UK health spend figures as a percentage of GDP which are shown below. Note this excludes private health expenditure.

    Spend on health in UK as % of GDP –

    1996/97 – 5.0%

    1997/98 – 5.0%

    1998/99 – 5.0%

    1999/00 – 5.0%

    2000/01 – 5.2%

    2001/02 – 5.6%

    2002/03 – 5.8%

    2003/04 – 6.2%

    2004/05 – 6.5%

    2005/06 – 6.7%

    2006/07 – 6.6%

    2007/08 – 6.7%

    2008/09 – 7.2%

    2009/10 – 7.8%

    2010/11 – 7.6%

    2011/12 – 7.4%

    2012/13 – 7.5%

    2013/14 – 7.5%

    2014/15 – 7.4%

    Source: Table 4.4 HMT, Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2015.

    The Spending Review settlement, delivered by the Chancellor on 25 November, set the Department’s overall budget for the remaining years of the parliament and the level of funding that will be available to the National Health Service. It set absolute spending totals, not spending as a percentage of GDP, providing certainty for financial planning over the period. The Department has not therefore made forecasts for health spending as a share of GDP for future years.

    GDP figures are calculated on an economy wide basis, so GDP figures for England are not available to calculate spend on health care in England as a share of English GDP.

  • Lord Wills – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Wills – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Wills on 2016-04-11.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that high quality end of life care is available in every setting, including for people who wish to die at home.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    We are committed to ensuring that everyone at, or nearing, the end of life receives high quality, compassionate care, tailored to their individual needs and preferences.

    The Government’s forthcoming response to the independent Review of Choice in End of Life Care, which will be published shortly, will set out our vision for high quality, personalised care and the steps we will take to achieve this. The response will also address each of the Review recommendations, including on care coordination; improving the quality, availability and responsiveness of care; improving the quality and use of data; care planning and the use of digital care records; and the involvement of family members and carers in discussions about care.

  • Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-05-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that non-medical scientists and technicians working in the health sector are registered with the Science Council or other relevant professional bodies.

    Ben Gummer

    Voluntary registration schemes, such as those overseen by the Science Council, provide an important mechanism for assuring the standards of professional staff. It is a matter for individual staff and their employing organisation as to how they make use of the assurance provided by voluntary registration schemes.

  • Helen Hayes – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Helen Hayes – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Hayes on 2016-07-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will investigate the reasons for the delay in agreeing the rate for NHS-funded nursing care for residents of care homes in 2016-17.

    Alistair Burt

    Mazars LLP were appointed to carry out an independent review of the costs of nursing care by a registered nurse. Mazars’ report[1] recommends that the National Health Service-funded nursing care rate should be £156.25 – 40% higher than the 2015/16 rate. The Government has taken on board Mazars’ recommendation, meaning the rates paid by clinical commissioning groups for eligible care home residents assessed to require the help of a registered nurse are now as follows:

    ― standard rate – £156.25 per week; and

    ― higher rate – £215.04 per week (this is only relevant for those people who were already on the higher rate in 2007 when the single band was introduced).

    These rates will be backdated to 1 April 2016 for individuals who were in receipt of NHS-funded Nursing Care from that time and paid on an interim basis whilst regional variation and the element of the rate for staff working on an agency basis are reviewed.

    [1] http://www.mazars.co.uk/Home/Our-Sectors/Public-Services/Health/NHS-Funded-Nursing-Care-Review

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  • Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2016-09-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for requiring manufacturers of all domestic white goods to put fire-proof markings on them, including the manufacturer, model and serial number, so that they can be identified more easily if they are damaged after causing a fire.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    Under existing legislation, electrical products must be labelled with the manufacturer’s name and address, and a serial number or other identification mark.

    The Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances and the London Fire Brigade are in discussion over whether there is any further requirement for fire-proof markings.