Tag: Ben Howlett

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that carers are able to give each patient an appropriate amount of time on visits.

Alistair Burt

In most cases, very short visits from care workers are incompatible with high quality care. However, short visits may be appropriate in certain circumstances. For instance, checking medication has been taken.

Local authorities are responsible for the commissioning of services, not the Government but both Government and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) agree that inappropriately short home care visits are unacceptable.The Care Act sends a clear message that commissioning services without properly considering the impact on people’s wellbeing is unacceptable.

In September 2015, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published guidelines on homecare which state that homecare visits should not normally be less than 30 minutes long. The Department published statutory guidance to the Care Act which directs local authorities when commissioning to consider national standards including NICE guidelines.

Further, the Department worked with ADASS and the Local Government Association (LGA) to produce a framework of standards, ‘Commissioning for Better Outcomes’ which explicitly states that inappropriate use of short visits is not compatible with best practice. The framework is designed to support local authorities to improve their commissioning practices using self-assessment and peer challenge through the LGA’s programme of sector-led improvement.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department intends to establish or encourage national training schemes for care providers to ensure consistency in care provision across the sector.

Ben Gummer

The introduction of the Care Certificate, a recommendation of the Cavendish Review, will help to improve the consistency of training in the sector. As of 1 April 2015, all new social care support workers and healthcare assistants are expected to attain the new Care Certificate within their first twelve weeks of employment.

The Department funds Skills for Care, the partner in the sector skills council for social care, to produce a range of resources for workers to develop the knowledge to support people who use the services. This includes the apprenticeships programme which is important in growing a consistently skilled workforce providing high quality care for the future.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to reduce the prevalence of giant hogweed.

George Eustice

Giant hogweed has been present in the UK for over a century and is widespread. Biocontrol methods have been considered in the past but suitable candidates from the plant’s native range have not been found.

Giant hogweed is, however, listed on schedule 9 and subject to section 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, which makes it an offence to plant, or cause this species to grow, in the wild. In addition, Local Authorities and the Police now have powers to issue Community Protection Notices under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, requiring landowners to take action to control species like giant hogweed where they are having a detrimental effect on local people’s quality of life.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the human rights situation in Iran.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

Our assessment of human rights in Iran can be found in the FCO Human Rights Report, which was updated in July.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to improve air quality in order to assist people with lung diseases.

Rory Stewart

We are fully committed to complying with EU Air Quality Standards as soon as possible. We have already committed over £2 billion since 2011 in transport measures to improve air quality. On 12 September we launched a public consultation on our draft revised Air Quality plans for nitrogen dioxide, which set out a range of local, national and European actions to lower levels of harmful emissions. The consultation closes on 6 November 2015.

Government departments and agencies work together to prioritise action and offer the best advice to vulnerable groups to help mitigate the health effects of air pollution. Our daily air quality forecast includes accompanying health messages to the public based on advice provided by Public Health England.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Summer Budget 2015 has an equal impact on men and women.

Damian Hinds

In line with both the Government’s commitment to fairness and its legal obligations, ministers carefully considered the policy implications for men and women when developing and deciding upon Summer Budget measures.

As with other public sector bodies, HM Treasury is required (under the Equality Act 2010) to pay due regard, in the course of fulfilling its functions, to the implications of its decisions for those with specified ‘protected characteristics’. ‘Sex’ is one of these protected characteristics.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps the Government is taking to prevent price-fixing in service charges by providers of retirement homes.

Brandon Lewis

The law provides a framework of rights and protections for residential leaseholders where service charges and the management of their property are concerned.

These rights allow leaseholders to hold their freeholder and managing agent to account. They include the right to be consulted about proposed major works and long term agreements, to challenge the reasonableness of service charge demands at an independent tribunal, to seek the appointment of a new manager and, in some cases. to take over the management of the block of flats where they live.

Price-fixing is a serious matter and any evidence of this should be reported to the Competition and Markets Authority for consideration.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what plans her Department has on funding for onshore wind energy development.

Andrea Leadsom

We are delivering our election commitment to end subsidies for new onshore wind. We are seeking to legislate through the Energy Bill to close the renewables obligation (RO) to new onshore wind capacity from 1 April 2016, one year earlier than planned. To protect wider investor confidence we are proposing to allow projects which meet certain criteria extra time to accredit under the scheme.

Fifteen onshore wind projects, with a combined installed capacity of around 750MW, signed a Contract for Difference (CfDs) earlier this year following the first CfD allocation round. These projects are expected to commission between 2016/17 and 2018/19. We will be setting out our plans for delivering a new generation of cost effective, secure, electricity supplies and confirming decisions in relation to allocations of further renewables contracts in due course.

Small-scale onshore wind projects up to 5 megawatts in scale are eligible for support under the feed-in tariff (FITs) scheme. DECC has proposed action, through the FITs review consultation, to control spending and put FITs onto an affordable and sustainable footing. Further information can be found online at:

https://econsultation.decc.gov.uk/office-for-renewable-energy-deployment-ored/fit-review-2015.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will review the regulation of service charges to ensure that housing associations are not exploiting residents.

Brandon Lewis

Service charges are subject to legal requirements that limit these to covering the cost of providing the services. The Social Housing Regulator requires that providers give clear information to tenants about how their service charges are set. If tenants feel their service charges are too high they may make a complaint through their landlord’s formal complaints procedure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-10-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether he plans to introduce a requirement that private landlords have a certificate confirming their accommodation has reached a minimum condition before it can be let.

Brandon Lewis

Local Authorities have powers under the Housing Act 2004 to assess the risks and hazards in properties, and to require landlords or owners to remove hazards, and to prosecute if they fail to do so. If a property is found to contain serious hazards, the local authority has a duty to take the most appropriate action in relation to the hazard. This could include serving a notice for the landlord to carry out improvements.

The Government wants to crack down further on the small minority of rogue and criminal landlords who exploit their tenants by renting out unsafe and substandard accommodation and are taking forward proposals through the Housing and Planning Bill. The legislation will enable local authorities to:

• access a database of rogue landlords and letting agents helping councils keep track of them and target enforcement action;
• seek banning orders for the most prolific and serious offenders;
• issue civil penalty notices of up to £5,000 for certain breaches of housing legislation, ring-fencing resources for housing compliance activity;
• extend Rent Repayment Orders to cover situations where a tenant has been illegally evicted, the landlord has failed to rectify a serious health and safety hazard in the property or has breached a banning order, allowing local authorities to retain the money for housing purposes.
• apply a more stringent ‘fit and proper’ person test for landlords letting out licensed properties.

The majority of landlords in the private rented sector provide decent accommodation with surveys showing that 84% of tenants are satisfied with their accommodation, and staying in their homes for an average of 3.5 years.