Tag: Lord Ouseley

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-11-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they are giving to relaxing visa restrictions for those seeking to come to Britain as carers in order tackle nursing and care home staffing shortages.

Lord Bates

Tier 2 of the Points Based System for immigration – the skilled work route – has been reserved for graduate occupations since 2011. Carers do not qualify for entry to the UK under this route and sponsors are therefore unable to bring in workers from outside the EEA to fill such roles.

While the Government acknowledges that care work requires certain skills, it should be possible to source those skills from the resident workforce. The care sector, like others, needs to reduce its dependency on migration and develop a sustainable strategy for tackling high vacancy and turnover rates by doing more to attract, train and retain resident workers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-02-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they are giving to providing support for the estimated 2.5 million children being brought up by parents who are heavy alcohol drinkers.

Lord Nash

We are clear that all children at risk of abuse or neglect – including those children who may be a risk because of their parent’s alcoholism – must be identified early, have timely and proportionate assessments of their individual needs, and have the right services provided at the right time.

That is why the Government has put in place a range of cross-Government programmes and funding to support children and families, including children of alcoholics. We have invested more than £8 billion to help councils put services in place to protect children at risk of abuse or neglect, including from alcoholic parents. We have encouraged councils to find new ways to tackle problems through our £100m children’s social care Innovation Programme. And we have expanded the Troubled Families programme launched in April 2015, which offers support on health issues to up to 400,000 families, including for alcohol and drug misuse.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-05-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications for social and community cohesion of people living in poverty.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

Building a strong economy and increasing employment are the surest way to lift people out of poverty and build strong and cohesive communities. The latest figures show a record 31.6 million people are now in work making a real difference to families on the ground with the number of children in workless households at a record low.

Britain has a claim to be the most successful multi-faith, multi-racial democracy in the world. The Community Life Survey 2014-15 shows a well-integrated society with 87 per cent of people reporting they belong strongly to Britain and 86 per cent that their local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together. But we know deep seated inequalities remain between some minority groups and the majority population, and have set in train work to address these inequalities:

• a review by Louise Casey into boosting opportunity and integration in the most isolated and deprived communities to inform a major new Cohesive Communities Programme;
• a 2020 vision to increase Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic opportunities, such as take up of apprenticeships and employment; and
• plans to publish a Life Chances Strategy, announced in January, setting out a comprehensive plan to fight disadvantage and extend opportunity.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-12-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how many children move schools each month because of bullying, and what assessment they have made of the implications of such moves for the education system and the children affected.

Lord Nash

The Department does not collect information on the number of children who move school each month because of bullying.

All bullying is unacceptable and every school is required to have a behaviour policy including measures to tackle all forms of bullying. They are held to account by Ofsted and inspectors will look at records and analysis of bullying, discriminatory and prejudicial behaviour.

In 2015-16, the Government is providing £3.3m to charitable organisations to help tackle bullying and to provide support for those who are bullied. This is further to the £4m provided over the period 2013-15.

Levels of bullying have reduced as a consequence of the efforts of schools and anti-bullying charities. The Longitudinal Study of Young Peoplein England published by the Department in November 2015 compared experiences of bullying among two cohorts of 14 year olds (year 10 students)from 2004 and 2014. It found that 30,000 fewer people in year 10 in 2014 said they had been bullied in the last twelve months. This represented a decrease from 41 per cent in 2004 to 36 per cent in 2014.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-02-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications for participation in the democratic processes as a consequence of reports that 8000,000 names have dropped off the electoral roll following the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration.

Lord Bridges of Headley

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has now published the statistics for the December 2015 electoral registers. The full report can be found here:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/bulletins/electoralstatisticsforuk/2015
The number of entries on a register is not a measure of success – entries need to be up-to-date and accurate. That is why completing the transition to Individual Electoral Registration was so important; it meant we could remove out of date or inaccurate entries from the register and retain those that had already been confirmed as genuine. Any eligible elector missing from the register can apply to register to vote at any time and with online registration it is now easier and more convenient than ever before.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-05-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the shortfall in resources available to enable elderly and disabled patients to be discharged from hospitals with adequate provision in place for their appropriate care at home or elsewhere.

Lord Prior of Brampton

No-one should stay in hospital any longer than they need to and this Government is determined to ensure that health and social care are properly funded. As well as funding the National Health Service’s own plan for the future with £10 billion, we are giving local authorities access to up to £3.5 billion extra for adult social care by 2019/2020 through the new Social Care Precept and additional social care funding in the Better Care Fund.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-12-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the extent of self-harm among school children as a consequence of bullying in the education system.

Lord Nash

The Department has not made a systematic assessment of the extent of self-harm as a consequence of bullying. There is wide variation in reported rates of self-harming among school children because individuals often do not disclose it. However, schools are well placed to spot a change in behaviour that may indicate something is wrong. To assist school staff, we published advice for schools on mental health and behaviour, providing teachers with information and tools that will help them to identify and support pupils with mental health needs, including advice about making referrals to a specialist service when necessary. The advice includes specific information about self-harm and effective treatment, as well as a school case study about how to address mental health issues in a non-stigmatising way in the classroom.

The SEND Code of Practice makes it clear that schools need to look past any behaviour issues to identify underlying problems, including mental health issues, and put support in place where learning is affected. Our new joint training pilots with the NHS will further help to schools to effectively support children and young people with mental health concerns.

The new PSHE lesson plans include teaching about self-harm and to help schools teach about mental health we have funded the PSHE Association to provide new mental health guidance and resources. This will help schools provide age appropriate teaching about mental health issues through the teaching of PSHE.

All bullying is unacceptable and every school is required to have a behaviour policy with measures to tackle all forms of bullying. They are held to account by Ofsted and inspectors will look at records and analysis of bullying, discriminatory and prejudicial behaviour. In 2015-16, the Government has provided £3.3m to charitable organisations to help tackle bullying and to provide support for those who are bullied. This is further to the £4m provided over the period 2013-15.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-02-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what definition is used by HM Revenue and Customs to define an EU migrant family, and for what purposes such classifications are used; and which other government departments use similar definitions and classification, and for what purposes.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

EU migrant family is not a technical term that HM Revenue & Customs use in their calculations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-05-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether elderly and disabled patents are being discharged from hospitals without adequate on-going care arrangements in place in order to free up beds for other hospital admissions.

Lord Prior of Brampton

No patient with on-going care and support needs should be discharged from hospital without appropriate arrangements for meeting those needs being put in place. We expect the National Health Service and local authorities to work together to ensure that patient safety and social care needs are taken into account when decisions are made to discharge patients from hospital.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-12-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 9 December (HL4113), whether instances of bullying and abuse of children and young people via social media networks are reported, recorded and included in those exclusions statistics.

Earl of Courtown

Incidents of bullying and abuse of children and young people via social media by pupils which resulted in exclusions are reported to the Department. The Department publishes these incidents in its annual exclusions statistics. The latest statistics were published on 30 July 2015 and can be found online at GOV.UK.

The school census guidance provided to schools and local authorities for the 2015/16 academic year explicitly includes cyber bullying in the bullying exclusion category for the first time.

Prior to this, the guidance for the bullying category only specifically referenced verbal, physical and homophobic bullying.