The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-06-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance he has issued to supported housing providers about funding following the absorption of housing benefit into universal credit.
Justin Tomlinson
The Department provides guidance for any changes made to Housing Benefit.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-09-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much funding has been provided to prevent and tackle Group B Strep infection among pregnant women in the last five years.
Mr Philip Dunne
Information on how much funding has been provided to prevent and tackle Group B Strep infection among pregnant women over the last five years is not collected centrally.
The Government has made clear that maternity care is a priority and on 13 November 2015 announced an ambition to reduce by 50% stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and neonatal brain injuries by 2030. This includes harm and death caused by Group B Streptococcus (GBS).
A range of work addressing GBS is being taken forward by the Department of Health and Public Health England with a range of partner organisations. This includes:
― Monitoring developments on GBS vaccines and undertaking a grant-funded study to assess the potential impact of a maternal immunisation programme.
― An audit in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and supported by the Royal College of Midwives, recently carried out by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). This examined current practice in preventing early onset neonatal GBS disease by investigating the implementation of the RCOG Green-top guideline on preventing the disease. The last of two reports was published on 29 January 2016 and has made recommendations for improvements in care in the prevention of early-onset GBS disease.
― The National Institute of Health Research has approved funding for a study on accuracy of a rapid intrapartum test for maternal group B streptococcal colonisation and its potential to reduce antibiotic usage in mothers with risk factors (GBS2). The study commenced in May 2016.
The Department is also convening two half day workshops with leading experts from a wide range of organisations, including the RCPG and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the charity Group B Strep Support to discuss research evidence gaps in relation to GBS.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-10-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of children living in relative poverty in the UK (a) on the latest date for which figures are available and (b) a year before that date.
Damian Hinds
Estimates of the number of children in relative low income in the UK are published in the National Statistics Households Below Average Income (HBAI) series.
In 2014/15 on a Before Housing Cost basis (BHC); there were 2.5 million children in relative poverty in the UK. In the previous year (2013/14) there were 2.3 million children in relative poverty in the UK. This increase however is not statistically significant.
The Prime Minister is clear that tackling poverty and disadvantage, and delivering real social reform, is a priority for this Government and we will be coming back to the House with a number of announcements over the coming months.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Callum McCaig on 2015-11-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he plans to take to ensure that potential breaches of international humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen are investigated.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
We have raised concerns with the Saudi Government on alleged breaches of international humanitarian law and have received repeated assurances of compliance. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) discussed this with the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister during his visit to Riyadh on 28 October, and most recently in Vienna on 14 November.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, on how many occasions work programme providers referred participants for a sanction between (a) June 2011 and November 2015 and (b) August 2015 and November 2015.
Priti Patel
The specific information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2016-01-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether an evaluation has been undertaken of the Ofsted pilot inspections of local area provision for children with special educational needs and disability; and if she will publish that evaluation.
Edward Timpson
Local authorities have made good progress complying with the statutory special educational needs duties in the Children and Families Act 2014 since they came into force in September 2014. We continue to monitor progress.
All local authorities have published a Local Offer of the services and support available to children and young people in their area with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Responsibility for publishing and maintaining Local Offers lies with each local authority. The Department supports local authorities to help make sure they meet all statutory requirements for their Local Offer, and that the quality of services continues to improve.
In summer 2014, the Department conducted a review of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans and plan templates from half of local authorities. The majority of the EHC plan templates we reviewed were judged likely to meet the requirements in the SEND Code of Practice. Where changes were needed, this was often due to inaccurate labelling of the required sections. Feedback was provided to individual local authorities alongside information to all local authorities about the key areas for focus. Since September 2014, EHC plans have been continually monitored. Where individual EHC plans are considered not to be fully compliant, advice on improvement is provided to the local authority.
Figures returned by local authorities and published in the Statements of SEN and EHC plans Statistical First Release[1] in May 2015 show that, of the 1,360 new EHC plans issued between 1 September 2014 and 15 January 2015, 64.3% were within the statutory 20 week time limit when excluding exception cases.
The Department for Education is providing specific additional funding to Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to support their inspection of the effectiveness of local areas in fulfilling their new SEND duties. We are in the process of setting individual budgets as part of our internal business planning process.
Ofsted and CQC conducted pilots as part of their wider consultation on their inspection proposals. These pilots explored different approaches to securing evidence in what is a complex area, involving a range of education, social care, and health providers at the local level. Ofsted and CQC will publish their response to the consultation on these new inspection arrangements in spring 2016. In addition, they will evaluate the impact of inspections, which will begin later in 2016.
The Department draws on a wide range of evidence to determine whether the SEND provisions of the Children and Families Act have improved outcomes for children. Our intention is that a combination of local accountability measures; data and analysis; and independent inspection will show how the SEND system is performing and whether outcomes are improving for children and young people.
The SEND inspections will evaluate local areas’ effectiveness in identifying and meeting the needs of children and young people. We will draw on a wide range of statistics[2], including information on educational attainment, absence and exclusions and research into families and young people’s experience of the new system.
A summary of the available data on SEN and disability is available at
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statements-of-sen-and-ehc-plans-england-2015
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Teresa Pearce on 2016-02-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of staffing of railway stations on (a) passenger safety, (b) passenger assurance, (c) safety of women passengers, (d) disabled passengers, (e) revenue protection and (f) passenger assistance.
Claire Perry
Whilst we regulate Ticket Office opening times through the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement station staffing levels are a matter for operators as we believe that railway operators themselves are best placed to determine how to meet the needs of their passengers. However, it is important that those who need assistance to travel can rely on railway staff to provide this. Each operator is required to participate in the Passenger Assist system which allows disabled passengers to book staff assistance when they require it.
We recognise that passengers can feel very strongly about station staffing hours and we expect all operators to take on board the views of stakeholders before taking any proposal to change such hours forward.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-03-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment she has made of the effect of recent floods on small businesses.
Anna Soubry
The most recent available data indicated that 4,940 businesses across northern England had been flooded following this winter’s exceptional rainfall. The vast majority of these will be small and medium size businesses. Impacts included flooded property, loss of stock and equipment and interruption to trading.
Our interventions, include business recovery grants (a total of £11 m from BIS, of which £4,572,000 has been paid out), business rate relief (£4.26 m from DCLG), and property level resilience scheme (£5,000 per household or business, to incorporate greater flood resilience into property repairs).
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl McCartney on 2016-04-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what financial impact analysis his Department has conducted on the proposed new model of community pharmacy.
Alistair Burt
Community pharmacy is a vital part of the National Health Service and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review, the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020/21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of services or public access to them. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.
The Government’s vision is for a more efficient, modern system that will free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services to the benefit of patients and the public.
We are consulting the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) and others, including patient and public representatives, on our proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. We announced on 16 March 2016 that the consultation period was to be extended to allow more time to develop the proposed changes with the PSNC and others. It will now close on 24 May 2016.
The proposals were considered against the Public Sector Equality Duty and other duties. The consultation responses will inform the final impact assessment, which will be published in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will publish his Department’s consultation response on the proposal for a combined headquarters and policy centre in London.
Joseph Johnson
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) recognises the interest in its decision to establish a combined headquarters and policy centre in London, which is why a summary of the decision and its rationale was issued on BIS’ website, and why a Written Ministerial Statement was laid informing all MPs on the day of the decision.
The document was written specifically with staff in mind as a piece of internal communications and as a response to the staff consultation BIS conducted. The Department’s top priority is ensuring staff have the most up to date and accurate information about the support available to them. We have no plans to publish the document because it contains information on issues which are the subject of on-going internal discussions with staff.