The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-03-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what the nature of the contribution of Mr Paul Newby was to the drafting of and consultation process for the Pubs Code; and when those contributions were delivered.
Anna Soubry
Mr Newby has not been involved in the drafting of and consultation process for the Pubs Code.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-03-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure accurate and early diagnosis of Kawasaki disease.
George Freeman
The Government published the UK Strategy for Rare Diseases in November 2013. The strategy contains over 50 commitments to ensure people living with a rare disease, such as Kawasaki disease, have access to the best evidence-based care and treatment that health and social services, working with charities, researchers and industry can provide.
It is the responsibility of the professional regulators to set the standards and outcomes for education and training and approve training curricular to ensure newly qualified healthcare professionals are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide high quality patient care. This includes training in both scarlet fever and Kawasaki disease.
Health Education England works with bodies that set curricula such as the General Medical Council and the Royal Colleges to seek to ensure training meets the needs of patients.
The Department and its arm’s length bodies have not published any specific guidance on the similarities between Kawasaki disease and scarlet fever.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s guideline on the assessment and initial management of fever in under 5s sets out the circumstances in which a diagnosis of Kawasaki disease should be considered, and Public Health England (PHE) has endeavoured to keep healthcare professionals, schools and the general public informed of the increased incidence of scarlet fever through timely information, news stories and updates on the PHE website and by using social and other media. These awareness raising measures assist general practitioners and other frontline healthcare professionals in reaching a correct diagnosis more quickly and encourage patients to seek medical advice early so that suspected cases receive prompt antibiotic treatment to reduce the risk of complications and limit further transmission.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-04-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in Madaya in Syria.
Mr Desmond Swayne
Across Syria, Assad and other parties to the conflict are wilfully impeding humanitarian access on a day-by-day basis. We have given support to the UN and international NGOs since the start of the conflict to deliver aid to those in need and continue to push for humanitarian access to be granted to all besieged and hard to reach places. This includes through our participation in the International Syria Support Group’s Humanitarian Taskforce and our position in the UN Security Council.
On Madaya, several inter-agency convoys have now reached the town delivering much-needed humanitarian assistance. On 23 March, the UN received written approval from the regime for further inter-agency convoys in April to six of eleven besieged locations including Madaya. Under this plan, deliveries are expected to reach 40,000 people in Madaya. We also are pleased that on 4 April, the Syria Arab Red Crescent was able to supervise medical evacuations from Madaya.
However, progress is too slow and we are deeply concerned by reports of civilian deaths in Madaya due to blocked medical evacuations. We are calling for this to end, alongside the removal of medical equipment from convoys by the regime, and regular access to healthcare for besieged populations.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-05-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2016 to Question 29900, on tuberous sclerosis, for what reasons the policy statement for the commissioning of Everolimus for treating angiomyolipomas has not yet been published; and when he plans to publish that statement.
George Freeman
The policy statement for the commissioning of Everolimus for treating angiomyolipomas has not yet been published owing to delays experienced when incorporating the needs of children into the policy.
Those issues have now been resolved and the policy is due to be published imminently on NHS England’s website.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-05-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how the £68 million that was allocated to the the New Generation Trolleybus scheme for Leeds was spent.
Claire Perry
The Department of Transport did not provide any funding for the Leeds Supertram or Leeds New Generation Trolleybus schemes. Any expenditure committed so far is the responsibility of the promoters – West Yorkshire Combined Authority and Leeds City Council.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-07-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve the accuracy of diagnosing chronic urinary tract infections.
David Mowat
Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are caused by the presence and multiplication of microorganisms in the urinary tract.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) publishes quality standards to define clinical best practice for the diagnosis and treatment of conditions.
The NICE published the Urinary tract infections in adults quality standard in June 2015. The quality standard comprises of quality statements concerning the diagnosis, treatment and management of UTIs. Quality statement 1 and 2 offer specific guidance on ensuring more accurate diagnoses of UTIs in adults.
The guidance is available at: www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs90
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-07-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with her EU counterparts on the future of the Erasmus programme.
Joseph Johnson
The EU referendum result has no immediate effect on students abroad under Erasmus or those applying in 2016/17. Payments will be made in the usual way. Access after we leave the EU is a matter for the forthcoming negotiations.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-09-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to enable communities with neighbourhood plans that are (a) complete and (b) being developed to appeal against planning decisions that conflict with that plan.
Gavin Barwell
The Neighbourhood Planning Bill will strengthen neighbourhood planning, by requiring local planning authorities and others who decide planning applications to have regard to neighbourhood plans that have been independently examined, once the decision has been taken to put the plan to a referendum.The Bill would also ensure plans have full legal weight at an earlier stage of the process, as soon as the outcome of the referendum is announced, and make it easier to ensure plans can be kept up to date.
These measures are in addition to existing safeguards that ensure neighbourhood plans are given proper consideration, including existing powers for communities to request that the Secretary of State ‘calls-in’ planning applications for his own determination, and new requirements introduced in the Housing and Planning Act, that will require any conflict with a made neighbourhood plan to be set out in the committee report that will inform a planning committee decision.
Furthermore, national planning policy is clear that where a planning application conflicts with a neighbourhood plan that has been brought into force, planning permission should not normally be granted, and that decision-makers may give weight to policies in emerging neighbourhood plans according to the stage of preparation of the plan, the extent of unresolved objections, and the degree of consistency with the National Planning Policy Framework.
In the light of these safeguards, the government does not support a right of appeal for those opposed to a decision to grant planning permission, which would delay the building of the new homes we need.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-10-17.
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if she will bring forward proposals for a consultation on extending civil partnerships to heterosexual couples in England and Wales.
Caroline Dinenage
The Government has already carried out a consultation on the future of civil partnerships in 2014, and has no plans to carry out another consultation on this issue.
Following the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, we carried out a full review of the operation and future of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which included a thorough public consultation on potential changes to civil partnership. Views were invited on three options: abolishing civil partnerships; phasing them out; or extending them to opposite sex couples.
The review found that there was no clear consensus on the future of civil partnerships. A majority of respondents to the consultation were against extending civil partnerships to opposite sex couples and a significant number of stakeholders thought it was too soon to consider making changes to civil partnerships until the impact of extending marriage to same sex couples is known. Given the lack of any consensus, the Government has no current plans to make changes to the Civil Partnership Act 2004.
The Isle of Man is a self-governing crown dependency. We are not required to carry out an assessment on their legislation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-10-28.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of armed forces veterans are in receipt of tax credits.
Damian Hinds
I refer the member to the answer I provided on 28 October 2015 to question 25228:
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