The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) policy and (b) other responsibilities are of each special adviser in his Department.
Justin Tomlinson
I refer the hon.Member to the answer given by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, my Rt.Hon. Friend Matthew Hancock, Question UIN 27946.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Oliver Dowden on 2016-03-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how the Government is monitoring the effects of the £1.25 billion funding for child and adolescent mental health services.
Alistair Burt
Following the March Budget 2015 announcement of £1.25 billion additional funding for children and young people’s mental health services being available over the following five years, £143 million has been allocated for 2015-16. From this, £75 million has been allocated to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) to work intensively with key partner agencies to transform local services through delivery of their Local Transformation Plans (LTPs) to improve children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing, and £68 million is being spent centrally on workforce and system development to support local transformation. For 2016-17, £119 million has been included in CCG baseline allocations. The profile of spending for future years has not yet been fully determined.
The guidance for LTPs issued in August 2015, specified that plans had to be signed off by Health and Wellbeing Boards to ensure a shared ambition across all local partners, and included details of a robust bespoke assurance process for 2015-16, put in place by NHS England. This included the completion of detailed financial tracking templates, backed by a programme of regional and national support, to ensure that the additional money was spent for the purposes intended and that locally determined key performance indicators are being met. The intention from 2016-17 is to mainstream children and young people’s mental health as part of the normal NHS England planning cycle and to integrate LTPs into the new Sustainability and Transformation Plan.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2016-04-25.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they intend to take to enable UNRWA to deliver urgent aid to Palestinian refugees trapped in Yarmouk camp in Damascus.
Baroness Verma
The UK is extremely concerned about the situation in Yarmouk camp in Syria, especially given intense fighting between Daesh and Al-Nusra Front in recent weeks. According to UNRWA, the intensified fighting has acutely aggravated shortages of food and clean water for the approximately 6000 civilians residing inside Yarmouk. We condemn in the strongest terms the grave crimes committed by Daesh and Al-Nusra Front against civilians in the camp, and continue to call on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians, ensure humanitarian access to the area, and allow the safe passage and evacuation of civilians.
We welcome UNRWA’s efforts in protecting and assisting vulnerable Palestinian refugees. To date, the UK has allocated over £59 million to UNRWA to provide assistance for Palestinian refugees affected by the violence in Syria and the region.
The UK has given support to the UN and international NGOs since the start of the conflict to deliver aid to besieged and hard to reach areas and continue to use our position in the UN Security Council to push for humanitarian access to be granted to these areas. We are also part pf the International Syria Support Group that agreed at its meeting on 11 February that humanitarian access would be opened to a number of priority areas, including Yarmouk, as a first step to accelerating full and sustained access across Syria. Since then, UNRWA has delivered 21 convoys with multi-sectoral assistance to 19,000 people in Yalda, Babella, Beit-Sahm, including thousands of residents in and from Yarmouk.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by would have a less than one in five chance of being detected despite potentially causing more than 10 on 2016-06-06.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the statement in the Executive Summary of the Water fluoridation: Health monitoring report for England 2014 that there is no evidence of a difference in the rate of hip fractures between fluoridated and non-fluoridated areas”
Lord Prior of Brampton
The possible effects of fluoride in water have been extensively studied and reviewed over the last 50 years. In the United Kingdom the most recent review prior to the publication of Public Health England’s (PHE) Health Monitoring Report was undertaken by the National Health Service Centre for Reviews and Dissemination based at the University of York and published in 2000. The Medical Research Council subsequently, in 2002, reported to the Department of Health its advice on future research priorities. The US National Research Council reported in 2006 and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council reported in 2007. PHE drew on these authoritative sources in selecting a number of indicators of health conditions for inclusion in the 2014 water fluoridation health monitoring report.
The chosen indicators of various health conditions were selected based on the evidence base, theoretical plausibility, potential impact on population health, the quality and availability of data, and the validity of the indicator. The selected indicators will be reviewed for future reports in the light of emerging evidence.
The article by KK Cheng et al did not provide any new evidence regarding hip fractures, but comments on the chance of detecting an increased risk of hip fracture for a speculated odds ratio of 1.2 in a previous study by Hiller et al. 2000. This only refers to a single study and it is important to consider the overall weight of evidence.
The overall weight of evidence and the consensus of opinion from authoritative reviews do not indicate that a drinking water concentration of 1 part fluoride per million parts of water presents an increased risk of hip fracture.
A more recent review of potential health effects from water fluoridation was published in 2015 by the Irish Research Board. The report concluded that a summary of the existing literature indicates that the relationship between fluoride in drinking water and bone health is inconsistent, with no definitive proof of protective or harmful effects.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2016-07-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to lay an explanatory memorandum before Parliament on the ratification of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Mr Nick Hurd
The UK’s commitment to the Paris Agreement and to climate action is firm. An explanatory memorandum initiating the UK’s domestic approval of the Agreement was laid on 7th October 2016 with a view to completing domestic procedures before the end of the year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Glen on 2016-10-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he plans to appeal NICE’s draft guidance on asfotase alfa for treating paediatric-onset hypophosphatasia, issued in September 2016.
Nicola Blackwood
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is currently evaluating the costs and benefits of asfotase alfa (Strensiq) for treating paediatric-onset hypophosphatasia to determine whether it can be recommended for national commissioning by NHS England.
There has not yet been an opportunity for stakeholders to appeal NICE’s recommendations on the use of asfotase alfa for treating paediatric-onset hypophosphatasia. NICE published a second iteration of draft guidance for consultation on 22 September 2016 and the closing date for comments was 13 October 2016. NICE’s independent Evaluation Committee will now consider the comments received in response to the consultation before deciding on the next steps for the evaluation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Mann on 2016-01-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure sufficient provision of neuromuscular and respiratory physiotherapy services for adults and children with neuromuscular conditions in the East Midlands.
Jane Ellison
NHS England is responsible for commissioning specialised care for people with neuromuscular disorders. However, it commissions physiotherapy only as part of an inpatient episode. All other community and hospital outpatient physiotherapy is commissioned by clinical commissioning groups based on an assessment of local needs.
Since 2015, NHS England has provided specific recurrent investment for three muscular dystrophy care advisor posts across the East Midlands.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Blenkinsop on 2016-01-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what funding the Government has provided for carbon capture and storage research and development projects not based in the UK since 2010.
Andrea Leadsom
Under DECC’s £20m CCS Innovation Programme, Net Power LLC, a US company, was awarded a Research and Development grant of £7.5m to demonstrate a British invented low carbon power generation technology. Net Power worked with Goodwin Steel castings, an established UK manufacturer, to manufacture turbine casings for the project.
Through the International Climate Fund (ICF) the Government has funded capacity building projects in a number of partner countries. In December 2012, the UK committed £60 million from the ICF to trust funds operated by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to support developing countries to develop both the technical and institutional knowledge necessary to enable the deployment of CCS technologies. The ICF finance is supporting CCS capacity building through pilot projects, with the aim of demonstrating the technology and reducing the cost of the technology application across the CCS chain.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-02-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if she will place in the Library any information her Department holds on the number of jobs imported coal supports in each of its source countries; and if she will make a statement.
Andrea Leadsom
The number of jobs imported coal supports in each of its source countries is not information that the Department of Energy and Climate Change holds.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-03-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society on use of results from the European Accredited Laboratory Assay related to Lyme disease to inform the provision of treatment on the NHS for that disease.
Jane Ellison
My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has had no discussions with the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society.