Tag: Greg Mulholland

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for which countries that the UK has reimbursement arrangements with under the European Health Insurance Card regulations his Department has identified as not having staff with relevant language skills.

Justin Tomlinson

There is no requirement for DWP staff to have foreign language skills when dealing with EEA Member States in relation to the reimbursement process under the EHIC regulations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-01-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what progress his Department has made on improving tenants’ access to longer-term family friendly tenancies.

Brandon Lewis

The Government supports longer tenancies, and promotes them through its Model Tenancy Agreement. Some mortgage lenders incorporated clauses in their agreements with landlords preventing them from granting tenancies of longer than a year. We have continued to encourage lenders to permit family friendly tenancies, and consequently the majority have now changed their policies, and permit tenancies of up to two to three years. We are encouraging those remaining lenders, who have not changed their policies, to do so and to promote the use of our Model Tenancy Agreement to their landlord customers.

We also know that tenants value the flexibility that private renting offers and not all want longer tenancies. A recent report by Knight Frank reported that the majority of Private Rented Sector tenants (53%) favour a six month or one year tenancy. The average length of residence, according to the English Housing Survey 2013-14, was three and a half years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect on patient access to medicines of planned reductions to the community pharmacy budget.

Alistair Burt

Community pharmacy is a vital part of the National Health Service and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020/21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of services including public access to medicines. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

Our proposals are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. A consequence may be the closure of some pharmacies but that is not our aim.

We are not able to assess which pharmacies may close or the number of people who may lose their jobs, because we do not know the financial viability of individual businesses or the extent to which they derive income from services commissioned locally by the NHS or local authorities or have non-NHS related income.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-03-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential effect on local economies of stone theft.

Karen Bradley

Stone theft has a detrimental effect on towns and communities across England and Wales. The impact of these crimes includes both the economic cost to the victim, but there are also wider costs to the community, for example where schools, churches or heritage items are targeted by criminals.

We have received no recent representations from local authorities on this issue, nor have we had recent discussions with the police on stone theft specifically. However, the police are working with Historic England, the Crown Prosecution Service and others to share intelligence and shape good practice in tackling and preventing heritage crime, such as stone theft.

We would encourage all victims of stone theft, whether individuals or organisations, to report instances of these crimes to their local police, so that the crimes can be properly recorded and investigated. The local response is a matter for individual chief officers of police and Police and Crime Commissioners, taking into account the specific local issues and demands that they face.

We are satisfied that the existing legislation provides the police and courts with sufficient powers to respond to stone theft.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-03-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many applicants to the Pubs Code Adjudicator vacancy were subject to departmental clearance checks; and how many applicants did not pass those checks and for what reasons.

Anna Soubry

In accordance with standard departmental practice, successful candidates are subject to departmental clearance checks.

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 support children with 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 Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with international partners on aid access to Madaya in Syria.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The UK is part of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG). The ISSG Humanitarian Task Force meets on a weekly basis to push for increased access across Syria, in line with relevant Security Council Resolutions. We have been pushing hard through these discussions for humanitarian access to be granted to all besieged and hard to reach places in Syria, including Madaya. As a result, humanitarian convoys have reached 11 besieged areas, including Madaya – several inter-agency convoys have reached a total of 150,000 people in besieged areas. This is out of a total of 487,000 people in besieged areas.

However, progress is too slow. More needs to be done to provide for all those in need in Syria. We are also deeply concerned by reports of civilian deaths in Madaya because their medical evacuations were blocked. We are pressing for an end to the removal of medical equipment from convoys by the regime, the evacuation of critical medical cases and regular access to healthcare for besieged populations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-04-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the level of disability benefits for which disabled refugees in the UK are eligible.

Justin Tomlinson

Refugees who are eligible must meet the same basic conditions of entitlement for disability benefits as other recipients.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-05-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average hourly earnings were of his Department’s (a) BME and (b) non-BME employees in (i) 2015 and (ii) 2016.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Department for Transport is made up of the central Department and the following agencies:

• Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
• Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency
• Maritime and Coastguard Agency
• Vehicle Certification Agency

The table below shows the average hourly earnings for both BME and non- BME staff within the Department for Transport in 2015 and 2016. It is voluntary for staff to declare their ethnic origin. Data for staff who have chosen not to declare their ethnic origin is also provided in the tables.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans her Department has to conduct telephone surveys of British Muslims on views of extremism; how many such surveys her Department plans to conduct; when those surveys will commence; and how many people will be surveyed.

Karen Bradley

The Government is committed to tackling all forms of extremism. The Counter Extremism Strategy aims to protect and safeguard communities at risk from extremism of all types.

In that strategy we committed to be evidence based and to work closely with academics and universities through commissioning and part-funding research. Decisions on how best to do this will be made in due course.