Tag: Laurence Robertson

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether addressing barriers to licensing off-patent, repurposed drugs in an aim of the current Accelerated Access Review.

George Freeman

The Accelerated Access Review, chaired by Sir Hugh Taylor, will make recommendations to government on reforms to accelerate access for National Health Service patients to innovative medicines and medical technologies (including devices, diagnostics and digital), making our country the best place in the world to design, develop and deploy these products. This will cover products that may already be on the market and off patent but are being innovatively repurposed to treat conditions other than those in remit of the existing license.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 21 October 2015 to Question 12247, on breast cancer, what assessment his Department has made of the 26 recommendations produced by charities on access to off-patent, repurposed drugs following the roundtable event of February 2015.

George Freeman

The Government hosted a Roundtable Event to explore the issues around off-label prescribing as part of its response to a Private Member’s Bill presented in the last Parliament. The Government’s position on the current Off Patent Drugs Bill and how that relates to issues identified at the Roundtable Event will be shared at the Bill’s second reading on 6 November 2015.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to monitor the cost to nursing homes of employing agency nurses; and if he will make a statement.

Alistair Burt

The Government has no plans to monitor agency costs to nursing homes.

Care providers are independent businesses and agreements with agency staffing providers are commercial contractual arrangements.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken to make bisphosphonates routinely available on the NHS to prevent the spread of breast cancer to bones.

George Freeman

Where there is a clinical need to do so for a patient, clinicians are legally able to prescribe bisphosphonates for breast cancer prevention.

NHS England’s Breast Cancer Clinical Reference Group (CRG) has included the use of bisphosphonates in their draft service guidance for breast cancer. The CRG has highlighted bisphosphonates as a key issue for potential improvement in survival outcomes.

NHS England expects the draft service guidance to be finalised and available for dissemination in the autumn of 2015. It will then be up to clinical commissioning groups to consider how they adopt this in to their local commissioning activities.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 20 October 2015 to Question 12052, for what reasons Part M building regulations do not apply to extensions to dwellings.

James Wharton

When Part M was introduced in 1999 the then Government decided not to apply the requirements to extensions to dwellings. To do so would require alterations to the existing dwelling (or the approach to the dwelling or extension) in order to accommodate Part M requirements which are not considered to be reasonably practical for dwellings built before Part M was introduced.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to introduce interim payments in cases in which there are delays in making payments under the Basic Payments Scheme.

George Eustice

The Rural Payments Agency remains on track to meet their public payment commitments. Full payments on the majority of Basic Payment Scheme 2015 claims will be made from December, within the payment window that runs between December and June. As such interim payments are not being considered.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the level of complexity of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme; if she will take steps to simplify that scheme; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

Countryside Stewardship has introduced significant rationalisation with regard to its predecessors; integrating three legacy schemes into one. At the same time the number of environmental management options available has been reduced by 70% and the number of capital items by 20%.

Most of the elements in Countryside Stewardship (higher tier; woodland and water capital grants) remain largely analogous to their predecessor schemes. However, the application process has been inevitably more complex than intended given the need for a paper based application system this year.

The stricter EU control rules have resulted in greater reliance on record keeping and other documentary evidence to demonstrate compliance but we have already published guidance on the controls applicable to the scheme in order to clarify the requirements.

We will evaluate this first year of the scheme and simplify it wherever possible.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will publish the results of the EU’s recent tests on the likely harmful effects to bees of the use of neonicotinoids; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

The EU itself does not carry out tests on the effects on bees from the use of neonicotinoid insecticides.It makes decisions on the regulation of neonicotinoids and other pesticides on the basis of scientific information provided by companies working to agreed standards and published scientific studies.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published scientific opinions on the risks from uses of these pesticides following mandates from the European Commission. EFSA also recently held a consultation calling for data on this matter as the first step in an EU review of controls on these insecticides.The UK is contributing fully to this review.

EFSA documents are published on its website (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/).

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the level of take-up of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme is; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

The application window for the Mid-Tier closed on 30 September. 2,314 agreement applications were received. 1,025 expressions of interest for the Higher Tier have also been received, together with 257 applications for forestry agreements. The level of interest is in line with our expectation.

Natural England and the Forestry Commission are now working to assess these to offer agreements to those applicants who have submitted high quality plans that will do most to improve our water quality and the farmed environment

Some elements of the scheme have been available earlier in 2015. 1,798 applications were received for 2015 water capital grants, of which 1,458 have been awarded. We also received 743 applications for woodland creation during a fixed application period and for tree health and woodland management plans, which continue to be applied for year round. To date, 288 agreements have been awarded.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent assessment he has made of the employment conduct abroad of companies which are based in the UK; and if he will make a statement.

Nick Boles

We have made no such assessment. However, the UK was the first country to publish a National Action Plan to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights which sets out the Government’s expectation of business behaviour wherever they operate, including complying with all applicable laws and honouring the principles of internationally recognised human rights when faced with conflicting requirements.

Company directors of UK-based businesses also have a duty to act to promote the success of the company, and in doing so have regard for a number of factors including the interests of the company’s employees. To demonstrate this consideration, companies are required to report information on employee matters, where necessary for an understanding of their business.

Furthermore, the Home Office will shortly be introducing regulations that will require businesses with a turnover of £36million to report on the measures they are taking to ensure that modern slavery and human trafficking are not present in their supply chains.