Tag: Lord Ouseley

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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-03-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to setting a limit to how long individuals can be held at immigration removal centres.

Lord Bates

The Government does not believe that a time limit on immigration detention would be appropriate. Home Office published policy is centred on a presumption in favour of liberty. Depriving someone of their liberty is subject to careful consideration and scrutiny, with appropriate account taken of individual circumstances. The introduction of an arbitrary time limit could lead to the release of foreign criminals and illegal immigrants even when their removal is imminent. Home Office guidance is clear that detention must be used sparingly and for the shortest period reasonably necessary to achieve its purpose. Published statistics show that, in the year to December 2015, over 90 per cent of individuals leaving detention had been detained for no longer than four months.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-07-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Keen of Elie on 18 July (HL948 and HL949), how many judges in HM Courts and Tribunals service who are over 50 years of age are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Lord Keen of Elie

The Government recognises that judges from a Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic (BAME) background are under-represented in the judiciary in England and Wales when compared with the general population. We are committed to continue working with the judiciary and all others concerned to make sure that, while appointments will always be made on merit, the pool of candidates is as diverse as possible.

On average over the last 5 years, 11 per cent of candidates recommended for judicial appointment were from BAME groups. Meanwhile, 10 per cent of appointed judges aged over 50 were from BAME backgrounds on 1 April 2015.

The Government is committed to working with other members of the Judicial Diversity Forum, including the Judicial Appointments Commission, the judiciary and the legal professions, to explore ways of increasing the percentage of judges from under-represented groups, including individuals from a BAME background, whilst continuing to safeguard the fundamental principle of appointment on merit. The Forum is considering the feasibility of proposals around pre-application training. The Government fully supports such work and is strongly committed to the judicial diversity agenda.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-01-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to put mental health on the national curriculum for primary school children, as advocated by the Young People’s Mental Health Advisory Group.

Lord Nash

The new national curriculum, introduced in September 2014, does not attempt to represent the sum total of everything that should be taught in schools. It only prescribes the essential knowledge that should be taught, leaving schools greater flexibility to teach over and above what the national curriculum requires and to decide how to teach the essential content that is prescribed. It is also places greater trust in teachers to cover topics important for their community, including mental health.

Mental health and wellbeing is part of the non-statutory programme of study for Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, produced by the PSHE Association. To help schools deliver this, we funded the PSHE Association to produce guidance and lesson plans to support age-appropriate teaching about mental health. Further support for teachers and other professionals who work with children and young people is available through the Government funded MindEd site[1].

[1] MindEd can be accessed at the following link: https://www.minded.org.uk/

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-03-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they propose to take to improve the arrest and prosecution rates for racist attacks, abuse and graffiti on London’s rail network, in the light of the 650 incidents reported since 2013, resulting in only 13 arrests.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The Government considers the safety of people using the rail network to be of paramount importance. The British Transport Police (BTP) treats racially motivated hate crimes very seriously and a daily review takes place of every hate crime from the previous 24 hours. In line with the College of Policing’s National Hate Crime Strategy, BTP is working with partners to reduce hate crime and every crime is investigated in accordance with the College of Policing Guidance for the investigation of hate crime.

In addition, the London Transport Community Safety Partnership (LTCSP), which brings together Transport for London (TfL), the police and other key stakeholders, is looking at this important issue at a strategic level to ensure a coordinated response. Both the BTP and the Metropolitan Police have stepped up operational activity to provide a visible, engaging, reassuring presence across the TfL network. TfL is also working with community organisations to engage with them on this issue and encourage reporting. TfL provides full support to the police for their investigations, through staff reporting and access to CCTV and oyster card data, to help bring any offenders to justice.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-07-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Keen of Elie on 18 July (HL948 and HL949), what assessment they have made of the factors contributing to the low number of black, Asian and ethnic minority candidates being recommended for judicial appointments; how those factors are being addressed; and whether they plan to support the development and introduction of pre-appointment training for those from under-represented groups seeking judicial appointments.

Lord Keen of Elie

The Government recognises that judges from a Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic (BAME) background are under-represented in the judiciary in England and Wales when compared with the general population. We are committed to continue working with the judiciary and all others concerned to make sure that, while appointments will always be made on merit, the pool of candidates is as diverse as possible.

On average over the last 5 years, 11 per cent of candidates recommended for judicial appointment were from BAME groups. Meanwhile, 10 per cent of appointed judges aged over 50 were from BAME backgrounds on 1 April 2015.

The Government is committed to working with other members of the Judicial Diversity Forum, including the Judicial Appointments Commission, the judiciary and the legal professions, to explore ways of increasing the percentage of judges from under-represented groups, including individuals from a BAME background, whilst continuing to safeguard the fundamental principle of appointment on merit. The Forum is considering the feasibility of proposals around pre-application training. The Government fully supports such work and is strongly committed to the judicial diversity agenda.