Tag: Barry Sheerman

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department issues to police forces on the presence of social workers at the questioning of children and vulnerable adults who are possible victims of child abuse.

Karen Bradley

Tackling abuse is a priority for this Government. We will continue the work of overhauling how our police, social services and other agencies work together to protect vulnerable children. To this end, we have prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat like serious and organised crime, which means police forces now have a duty to collaborate with each other across force boundaries to safeguard children.

The provision of police training is an operational matter. The College of Policing and the National Policing Lead for child protection and abuse investigation have set the requirement for all forces to train all new and existing police staff to respond to child sexual exploitation and abuse, including call handlers, Police Community Support Officers, police officers, detectives and specialist investigators.

The College of Policing has issued Achieving Best Evidence guidance and training for all officers engaged in interviewing children and vulnerable witnesses. This includes training on the sensitivity needed when dealing with victims and witnesses who may be vulnerable as well as working with partners – such as social workers – and their involvement in interviews.

Specialist courses for child sexual abuse and rape specialist investigators also expand on these requirements in relation to interviewing children and vulnerable adults.

The role of social workers in these investigations, including their training, is a matter for the Department for Education. The guidance issued by DfE in March 2015, “Working Together to Safeguard Children”, sets out how social workers and their managers, as well as other agencies including the police, should work together and follow the Achieving Best Evidence guidance.

The Department of Health are responsible for the training of social workers working with vulnerable adults who may have been sexually abused as children or in adulthood.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what changes have been made to the implementation of Achieving Best Evidence procedures in relation to investigations into domestic and sexual abuse in the last 10 years.

Mike Penning

Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) is a guide to best practice when interviewing vulnerable and intimidated witnesses. It was last updated in 2011 and we are currently revising this guidance.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which of the recommendations of the report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission on Operation Gullane have been implemented; and what form that implementation has taken.

Karen Bradley

The IPCC report on Operation Gullane makes a number of recommendations relating to police investigation of non-recent child sexual abuse.

Since the publication of those recommendations the Home Office has:

• prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat to empower police forces to maximise specialist skills and expertise to prevent offending and resolve cases

• provided £1.7 million to Operation Hydrant which coordinates the handling of multiple non-recent child sexual abuse investigations specifically concerning institutions

In addition:

• the College of Policing has issued updated Authorised Professional Practice guidance for police in relation to child abuse and exploitation, and

• a joint National Policing Lead and CPS review panel has been established to re-examine non-recent cases of sexual abuse where a decision was made that no further action would be taken and identify whether any issues require further exploration and investigation.

Combined, these measures significantly improve the quality of police investigations non-recent child sexual abuse.

I understand that the IPCC will write directly to the Honourable Member regarding implementation of the report’s recommendations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many payments of what amount were made by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority to former residents of the Bryn Alyn Community in each year since 1992.

Mike Penning

The information requested is not held centrally.

Three cases have been identified from central records where Bryn Alyn care home has been recorded as the incident location. The date and amount of each payment is shown below:

Payment made	Value of payment (£)
2010	20295
2014	15150
2015	16500

As part of records management policy, records of older cases have been destroyed. It is likely that other cases relating to Bryn Alyn may have been included, but it is not possible to identify these.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-26.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will ensure that the science budget will be maintained in real terms.

Greg Hands

This Government has made a long term science capital commitment investing £6.9bn in the UK’s research infrastructure up to 2021.

Future allocations for science resource funding will be determined at the forthcoming Spending Review.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment her Department has made of the relative safety, sustainability and threats to the environment of the various types of nuclear reactors used in nuclear power stations, including liquid fluoride thorium reactors.

Andrea Leadsom

The UK’s independent nuclear regulators assess individual nuclear reactor designs proposed for development in the UK. In doing so, their aim is to ensure the safety, security and high environmental standards of nuclear installations in the UK, rather than to compare proposed designs with each other. As yet, no liquid fluoride thorium based designs have been submitted to the UK regulators for such an assessment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment her Department has made of the safety, sustainability and absence of risk to the environment of methods available for disposing of radioactive waste.

Andrea Leadsom

Government policy on disposing of higher activity radioactive waste is based on a comprehensive review of all the available options for existing wastes originally carried out by the independent Committee on Radioactive Waste Management between 2003 and 2006. Based on their consideration of all the evidence, including international best practice and scientific advice, they recommended geological disposal in an engineered facility at least 200m below ground as the best available option.

The independent nuclear safety, security and environmental regulators will only allow a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) to be built and operated if they are satisfied it will meet their demanding regulatory requirements. The developer of any GDF will be required to present a detailed set of safety arguments for all aspects of a proposed facility. This includes everything from transporting the waste to the facility, to its design, construction and operation and safety in the long term, following closure.

Disposal routes for low level waste are already in operation in the UK. All proposals for radioactive waste disposals, including existing low level waste disposals, are subject to permitting by the Environment Agency who require operators to demonstrate that they are applying the best available techniques.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the proposed Hinkley nuclear power station operates in a safe and environmentally friendly way.

Andrea Leadsom

The proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point has successfully completed Generic Design Assessment of the proposed reactor design, the EPR. The independent nuclear regulators, the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency, have also granted the project a site licence and environmental permits. The regulators would continue to ensure robust safety, security and environmental standards at Hinkley Point C, as at all the UK’s nuclear installations, through construction, operation and decommissioning.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

Through the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (GRM) over 95,000 people have now been able to buy materials to repair homes that were damaged during the conflict. However, we are concerned that none of the homes destroyed have been rebuilt yet. We therefore welcome the June 2015 agreement between the Israeli and the Palestinian authorities on the Residential Stream of the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism to support the reconstruction of homes that were completely destroyed. DFID is providing £700,000 to the Materials Monitoring Unit which monitors the import, storage, supply and use of construction materials into Gaza under the GRM. The UK is also calling on all donors to disburse pledges made at the October 2014 Cairo Gaza Reconstruction Conference without delay.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what cost benefit assessment his Department has made of a policy of providing Group B strep tests to new-born babies on the NHS.

Ben Gummer

Routine testing of babies for Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection is not recommended. Therefore, no cost benefit assessment has been made by the Department on providing GBS tests to newborn babies.

A search of the Department’s Ministerial correspondence database has identified 41 items of correspondence received since 1 January 2015 on GBS. This correspondence relates mainly to offering testing for GBS carriage in pregnancy.

If a woman has previously had a baby with GBS, her maternity team will either monitor the health of her newborn baby closely for at least 12 hours after birth, or treat them with antibiotics until blood tests confirm whether or not GBS is present. The Department’s policy is not to offer antenatal screening for GBS carriage. This is based on advice from the UK National Screening Committee the body responsible for advising Ministers and the National Health Service in all four countries about all aspects of screening policy, and their advice is because there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the benefits to be gained from screening would outweigh the harms.