Tag: Cat Smith

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reduce the number of former care leavers living in unsuitable accommodation.

Edward Timpson

Ensuring that young people leaving care are able to access suitable accommodation is a priority for this Government. In 2015, 92% of care leavers aged 19-21 were in suitable accommodation. We have introduced measures to help ensure care leavers have access to suitable accommodation but we are determined to do more.

That is why, during the last Parliament, we introduced the ‘Staying Put’ duty, which requires local authorities to support young people to continue living with their former foster carers up to age 21.

Statutory guidance sets out the factors that local authorities must take into account when determining the suitability of accommodation for their children and young people. The guidance was strengthened in 2015 to make clear that bed and breakfast accommodation should only be used in exceptional circumstances and for no longer than 2 working days. Since 2014, Ofsted inspections have assessed whether local authorities are ensuring that care leavers have access to suitable accommodation.

Further measures to support care leavers to access suitable accommodation will be considered as part of the refreshed cross-Government care leaver strategy, to be launched later this year.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what the cost was to the public purse of indemnification of franchise partners to meet the costs for staff from Crown Post Offices who transferred into their employment in 2014 and 2015.

George Freeman

Post Office Limited runs and manages its directly managed Crown post offices. Arrangements for employees of these offices and changes to the Crown network are the operational responsibility of the Post Office.

I have therefore asked Paula Vennells, the Chief Executive of Post Office Limited, to write to you on this matter. A copy of her reply will be placed in the libraries of the House.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the funding formula is that was used for the 2016-17 allocation of Rural Services Delivery Grant.

Mr Marcus Jones

The Rural Services Delivery Grant is distributed to the top quartile of authorities ranked by their super-sparsity, as calculated using data from the 2011 Census. The amount that each authority receives is dependent on their super-sparsity above the threshold value of 0.089302, their total resident population (calculated using information from the 2011 Census) and the types of services that the council delivers. Further information on the methodology can be found in Part K of the 2014-15 Local Government Finance Report.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-04-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the specification for the Work and Health Programme to provide specialist support for long-term unemployed and claimants with health conditions and disabilities will require (a) autism and (b) other conditions of claimants to be recorded by both providers and Jobcentre Plus; and what discussions he has had about which conditions will be recorded.

Priti Patel

Development of the Work and Health Programme design is well underway, including engagement with a wide range of stakeholders. The Department has commenced the commercial process for the programme by releasing the Prior Information Notice for potential providers on 28 April.

Decisions on what the information reporting requirements will be for people with a disability or health condition are yet to be made.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-06-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what role the Government is playing in UN discussions on improving mechanisms for casualty recording.

James Duddridge

The UK welcomes efforts to improve the UN’s recording of casualties as a means of ensuring UN decision making is better informed and civilians are better protected in conflict. We will continue to support the UN Secretary-General, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and all other relevant parts of the UN system as they take this work forward. We are a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and a strong supporter of the Human Rights Up Front Initiative.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2015-11-06.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many people are employed on zero-hours contracts in their main employment in Lancaster and Fleetwood constituency.

Mr Rob Wilson

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the What About YOUth survey, published 8 December 2015, what assessment he has made of the findings of that survey; and if he will commission further research on the health behaviour of young lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

Jane Ellison

We want all young people to have healthy lives, and reducing inequalities is central to our work. We have increased the National Health Service budget by £10 billion and introduced legal duties to ensure inequalities are taken into account when planning health services.

Further research on the health of young lesbian, gay and bisexual people has not been commissioned. The data collected through What About YOUth survey is available on a dedicated tool on the Public Health England (PHE) Public Health Profiles webpage. Key indicators on this page can be viewed partitioned by different factors, such as sexuality, gender, ethnic groups and deprivation deciles.

PHE has developed an action plan to address the health and wellbeing inequalities experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. A strand of this work considers ways to reduce the risk of suicide experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and includes training for nurses in a range of health and community settings and in schools.

The Department is aware of the difficulties experienced by some LGB patients in accessing primary care, in response to this the Department recently funded work by the Lesbian & Gay Foundation to develop a benchmarking tool to identify general practitioner surgeries that are fully committed to assuring that their surgery is fully accessible to lesbian, gay and bisexual people, including their young LGB patients.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of funding to the new northern rail franchise will be provided by (a) subsidies to Northern Rail, (b) investment by Network Rail, (c) passenger revenue and (d) investment by Arriva.

Andrew Jones

We are unable to disaggregate the proportion of funding on the new Northern Rail franchise.

I refer the hon Member to my answer of 11 January to the Hon Member for Nottingham South, Lilian Greenwood, (UIN 21124) where the level of subsidies to the Northern franchise was provided and which gives the biggest transformation in decades. These will achieve an unprecedented package of improvements unlike the last Northern franchise in 2004 which included limited plans to invest in services or meet demand, offers better value for the taxpayer and reduces the amount of annual government subsidy required by the Northern franchise by £160 million over nine years (http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-questions-answers/?page=1&max=20&questiontype=AllQuestions&house=commons%2clords&uin=21124).

Network Rail investment is not allocated per franchise. Investment is made on the infrastructure which multiple franchises use and so it is not possible to ‎disaggregate.

Predicted Passenger revenue and investment by Arriva are commercially confidentially information that we are unable to provide. Actual Passenger revenue is published retrospectively through annual financial statements.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he has received any representations from NHS staff who feel they are being harassed outside NHS buildings by protesters.

Ben Gummer

There have been no representations from National Health Service staff who feel they are being harassed outside NHS buildings by protesters.

Although protesters are democratically entitled to make their views known on abortion and other issues and can do so outside NHS hospitals and other NHS buildings, we would condemn any harassment of NHS staff, patients and others. We would expect NHS trusts, as responsible for providing a safe environment for all using their facilities, to work with the Police and other agencies as appropriate to ensure they have adequate arrangements in place to prevent harassment of staff and patients. If staff are subject to criminal activity such as physical assaults, these should be reported so that employers can take appropriate action.

Currently, NHS trusts have access to Security Incident Reporting Systems which helps NHS Protect measure the nature and scale of security incidents across the NHS, not just those involving physical assaults on staff but also those involving non-physical abuse and theft of/damage to NHS assets.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many tonsillectomy operations were carried out in England in the last five years.

Jane Ellison

The information is not available in the form requested.

A count of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) with a primary or secondary procedure of tonsillectomy from 2010-11 to 2014-15 is below. Equivalent data for 2015-16 is not yet available, and a small number of tonsillectomy procedures are performed in outpatient settings which are not included in these figures.

Year	FCEs
2010-11	48,073
2011-12	47,342
2012-13	48,808
2013-14	52,536
2014-15	52,595

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Health and Social Care Information Centre.

Note:

An FCE is a continuous period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FCEs are counted against the year in which they end. Figures do not represent the number of different patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the same stay in hospital or in different stays in the same year.