Tag: Lord Ouseley

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 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action is proposed to prevent hospital beds being unavailable as a consequence of the number of elderly patients in hospital wards who cannot be sent home or moved to care homes because of the lack of necessary resources.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Since April local projects across the country have been using the Government’s £5.3 billion Better Care Fund to reduce non-elective admissions and get people out of hospital more quickly, as part of on-going work to bring health and social care services together. Local Better Care Fund plans for 2015-2016 should mean that there are 84,000 fewer days spent in hospital unnecessarily because of delayed transfers of care.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent study by Shelter, what steps they are taking to address the problems faced by tenants in privately rented homes infested with vermin.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

Local authorities have a power under section 4 of the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 to require owners of premises infested by mice or rats to eradicate the problem and failure to do so is a criminal offence. Infestation by such pests is also a hazard under the housing, health and safety rating system in Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004. Where the infestation is a category 1 hazard the local authority must require the landlord to take action to eradicate the infestation or it may prohibit the property (or the affected part) from being occupied until the hazard has been eradicated. Through licensing schemes under Parts 2 or 3 of that Act an authority can impose licence conditions relating to privately rented homes that require landlords to take measures to prevent infestation of pests and a failure to do so would be a criminal offence.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that workers in the United Kingdom currently earning below the minimum wage receive the minimum wage.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

HMRC enforces the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and responds to every complaint it receives. It also conducts programmes of targeted enforcement in sectors of the economy which have a high risk of non-compliance with the NMW. The Government increased HMRC’s budget for enforcing the NMW by £4m for 2015/16 to £13.2m.

The Government announced in September an increase in HMRC’s enforcement funding for 2016/17, following the introduction of the National Living Wage in April 2016. The Government also announced a package of measures to strengthen NMW enforcement: increasing penalties from 100% to 200% of the arrears that employers owe; the setting up of a dedicated team in HMRC focused on tackling the most serious cases of wilful non-compliance; and the creation of a statutory Director of Labour Market Enforcement and Exploitation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the Prime Minister’s party conference speech, when and how they will provide details of policies and programmes aimed at achieving the elimination of inequalities in the United Kingdom.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

This government is determined to extend opportunity to everyone. We have announced a number of new initiatives that will help achieve equality of opportunity in the UK.

On 25^th October, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Women and Equalities announced new measures to eradicate gender pay inequality. The government now requires larger employers to publish information about their bonuses for men and women. We are also extending our plans for gender pay gap reporting to the public sector.

On 26^th October, the Prime Minister launched a public and private sector initiative to tackle discrimination in recruitment. A number of organisations, including KPMG, HSBC and Deloitte, together with the Civil Service and local government, have committed to using name-blind applications for all graduate and apprenticeship level roles.

In addition, on 22^nd October, the Home Secretary published diversity profiles on all police forces in England and Wales. These profiles showed that no force had a black and minority ethnic (BME) contingent equivalent to that of the local demographic. She has asked chief constables to use this information to help improve their recruitment, retention, and promotion of police officers from BME backgrounds.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-10-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many incidents requiring the attendance of the police occurred on mental health wards in the past 12 months; what were the ethnic, gender and age characteristics of the patients involved; and what was the ratio of staff to patients at the time of each incident.

Lord Prior of Brampton

This information is not collected centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-10-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many patients detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 have been tasered in the past 12 months; what were the ethnicity, gender and age characteristics of the patients tasered; and what was the ratio of staff to patients at the time of each incident.

Lord Bates

Data is not recorded centrally on the number of individuals tasered who are detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 or on the monitoring of patients. A Taser record is completed by police officers on every occasion where a Taser is used. However, this record does not show whether individuals are detained or monitored after the incidents nor information on the ratio of staff to patients.

Police guidance specifies that all individuals who have been subjected to the discharge of a Taser should be examined by a forensic medical examiner.

To improve transparency around how force such as Taser is used by the police, the Home Secretary has asked Chief Constable David Shaw to carry out an in depth review of Taser data and other use of force. This will present options for collecting, collating and publishing data on how force including Taser is being used, who it is being used on and what the outcomes are.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2015-10-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what monitoring takes place of the use of tasers on patients detained under the Mental Health 1983, and how that monitoring information is made accessible to the public.

Lord Bates

Data is not recorded centrally on the number of individuals tasered who are detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 or on the monitoring of patients. A Taser record is completed by police officers on every occasion where a Taser is used. However, this record does not show whether individuals are detained or monitored after the incidents nor information on the ratio of staff to patients.

Police guidance specifies that all individuals who have been subjected to the discharge of a Taser should be examined by a forensic medical examiner.

To improve transparency around how force such as Taser is used by the police, the Home Secretary has asked Chief Constable David Shaw to carry out an in depth review of Taser data and other use of force. This will present options for collecting, collating and publishing data on how force including Taser is being used, who it is being used on and what the outcomes are.