The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine West on 2016-02-25.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the rate of pay is for cleaners in 10 Downing Street.
Matthew Hancock
All staff and contractors based in Downing Street are paid at least the London Living Wage.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-03-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of underwriting a national rent deposit scheme to help more homeless people access the private rented sector.
Mr Marcus Jones
One person without a home is one too many and we are committed to doing all we can to prevent homelessness. That is why we have increased central investment to tackle homelessness over the next four years to £139 million. At Budget, we went one step further and announced £100 million to deliver low cost ‘move on’ accommodation to enable people leaving hostels and refuges to make a sustainable recovery from a homelessness crisis, providing at least 2,000 places for vulnerable people to enable independent living.
We have also protected Homelessness Prevention Grant for local authorities, totalling £315 million by 2019-20. In doing so, we expect them to provide quality advice and assistance to all those that approach them for help. The Homelessness Code of Guidance for local authorities, developed by my Department working with local authorities and the voluntary and community sector, already encourages them to use this grant to provide rent deposits, guarantees or rent in advance. Many local authorities, housing associations or charities in England have put such schemes in place.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-04-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the prevalence of mental health issues among firefighters; and if she will make a statement.
Mike Penning
The physical and mental well being of fire fighters is of utmost importance and we recognise that from time to time some fire fighters may experience challenging times because of the stressful and demanding functions of the role. The responsibility for ensuring the health and safety of fire fighters rests with individual fire and rescue authorities. The Chief Fire Officers’ Association supports them in this work through its lead on fire and rescue occupational health matters.
The Government announced in October last year the allocation of nearly £10 million to help support 200,000 emergency services personnel and volunteers, funded through the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) fines. Of this funding up to £4 million was allocated to mental health charity MIND to develop a programme of targeted mental health support and information for all emergency services personnel across England. The programme includes an anti-stigma campaign, a confidential advice line for emergency service staff, training, peer learning events and other resources to help promote better mental health in the work place.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-05-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the extent of access to biological treatments for people with inflammatory bowel disease.
George Freeman
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended four different biological drugs for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), the collective term for Crohn’s disease and colitis, for use after the failure of conventional therapies or in patients for whom such therapies are not appropriate. The National Health Service is legally obliged to fund medicines and treatments recommended by NICE’s technology appraisals.
Although information concerning the exact number of people with IBD who have been treated with biological drugs in each of the last five years is not available, and no specific assessment of access has been made, some data are collected as part of the IBD audit. The IBD audit programme is commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership on behalf of NHS England and Wales (with additional funding from Healthcare Improvement Scotland), as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme, and carried out by the Royal College of Physicians.
The biological therapies part of the IBD audit aims to assess nationally: the efficacy of biological therapies in the treatment of IBD; the safety of biological therapies in the treatment of IBD; and IBD patients’ views on their quality of life at defined intervals throughout their use of biological therapies. The latest round of audit findings, published in September 2015, showed treatment continued to be effective and that patients were receiving treatment with biological therapies at earlier stages of disease. More information can be found at the following link:
www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/ibd-biological-therapy-audit
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Lister of Burtersett on 2016-07-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the Department for Work and Pensions report of the Household Below Average Income Statistics was over 100 pages in length in previous years and this year is 13 pages in length; and why this year’s report contains details published in Excel tables only.
Lord Freud
The change in publication format for the 2014/15 Households Below Average Income (HBAI) National Statistics release was made to bring this report into line with the new standard DWP Statistics template, with the aim of giving more focussed and accessible publications, without sacrificing the breadth of statistical analysis previously published.
No information has been lost from this publication, rather this restructuring is intended to allow the lay user to better understand these important statistics.
This approach is in line with the UK Statistics Authority’s “Better Statistics, Better Decisions” strategy and the specific change in format for HBAI was trailed in a Statistical Notice released in April 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Pennycook on 2016-10-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of isolation in the workplace on disabled people and the effect of such isolation on developing skills and career progression for disabled people.
Penny Mordaunt
The Department for Work and Pensions has not made a recent assessment of the effect of isolation in the workplace on disabled people.
However, we are committed to halving the employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people. The Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health have created a cross departmental Work and Health Unit to develop a strategy for system-wide reform on health, disability and employment, in order to reduce the numbers of people who are economically inactive due to a health condition or disability. The treatment of disabled people in the workplace will be among the factors the unit takes into account.
Meanwhile, employers and disabled employees continue to benefit from the support offered through Access to Work, which provides practical support, advice and guidance for both disabled people in work or entering work and their employers.
In addition, the Government’s Disability Confident scheme supports our commitment to halve the disability employment gap by focusing on employers, who have a crucial role to play in ensuring disabled people are recruited, retained and developed in their careers. Employers signing-up to Disability Confident on Gov.UK get access to a wide range of information, good practice and other resources, including links to DWP programmes which offer practical support.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rehman Chishti on 2015-11-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much NHS England spent on mental health services in England for each year from 2010-11 to 2015-16.
Alistair Burt
In total, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have set plans for 2015/16 which reflect an increase in mental health care expenditure in excess of their increase in allocation for the year. NHS England is tracking actual expenditure against those plans and it will report to the Secretary of State at the end of the year on whether those plans have been met.
Departmental Ministers meet the Chief Executives of NHS England and Monitor regularly and discuss a wide range of issues, including funding for mental health services.
NHS England was formally established on 1 April 2013.Expenditure by NHS England on Specialist Mental Health Services for 2013/14 was £1.780 billion and £1.795 billion in 2014/15. NHS England’s planned expenditure on Specialist Mental Health Services for 2015/16 is £1.859 billion.
NHS England has published CCG level expenditure on mental health for 2013/14, which was estimated to be £8.1 billion. CCGs are currently in the process of preparing estimates of expenditure for mental health services in 2014/15. Estimates for 2015/16 are not available.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-12-01.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when he plans to update information online on civil servants earning an annual salary of over £150,000.
Matthew Hancock
As part of its transparency agenda, the Government is committed to publishing an annual list of senior officials in departments, agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies with pay rates of £150,000 and above. The 2015 list will be published on the Cabinet Office website shortly.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-01-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what forecast he has made of the change in population in each London borough up to 2030.
Mr Marcus Jones
The latest Office for National Statistics population projection for London Boroughs are included in the 2012-based Subnational Population Projections for England, which provide figures for years up to 2037. The projections are published at:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/snpp/sub-national-population-projections/2012-based-projections/stb-2012-based-snpp.html#tab-Key-Points
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-02-01.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they support objections to a school’s admissions arrangements if those objections have been upheld.
Lord Nash
The School Admissions Code exists to ensure that places in all state funded schools are allocated in a fair and transparent manner. It is particularly important that parents feel confident that their concerns are listened to and acted upon.
The Government has recently announced its intention to change its policy, to ensure that the adjudication process is focused on dealing with the concerns of those who have a direct interest in the fairness of the admission arrangements of their local school. The adjudication process should not be delayed by the need to also consider large numbers of objections referred by interest groups from outside the area.
These changes will be subject to a full public consultation and parliamentary approval.