Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of allowing recipients of Attendance Allowance to report a change in circumstances digitally.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The modernisation of Retirement Services, which includes Attendance Allowance, forms a key part of DWP’s Service Modernisation Programme. A key objective of the programme is to understand how existing services - such as Attendance Allowance - should operate in the future and understand how and whether services, including reporting change of circumstances, can be accessed by citizens more quickly and easily online.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to publish the next action plan for antimicrobial resistance.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

In 2019, the Government published the first of four five-year national action plans (NAP), aimed at tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR) within and beyond our own borders. This plan is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-5-year-action-plan-for-antimicrobial-resistance-2019-to-2024

We are now in the process of developing the second five-year NAP, which will run from 2024 to 2029. It will be designed to ensure progress is maintained towards delivering our 20-year vision on AMR, in which resistance is effectively contained and controlled by 2040. Further information on the 20-year vision is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-20-year-vision-for-antimicrobial-resistance

The 2024 to 2029 AMR NAP is being co-developed across the Government, its agencies, and the administrations in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, with support from a wide range of external stakeholders, and informed by the responses to the Call for Evidence. The NAP is expected to be published in 2024.

The 2024 to 2029 AMR NAP will build on the achievements of the 2019 to 2024 NAP, whilst recognising where there is more to do, and will be aligned with global plans and frameworks for action.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Answer of 14 March 2022 to Question 133232 on Antibiotics: Drug Resistance and to the policy paper entitled UK five-year action plan for antimicrobial resistance: 2019 to 2024, published on 24 January 2019, what recent progress her Department has made on halving healthcare-associated Gram-negative blood stream infections.

Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)

As described in the answer of 14 March 2022 to Question 133232, progress towards the target of halving healthcare-associated Gram-negative bloodstream infections (GNBSI) has proved very challenging, in part due to the diverse nature of the underlying causes of these infections. Data on the incidence of these infections in England is published quarterly by the UK Health Security Agency, and is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mrsa-mssa-gram-negative-bacteraemia-and-cdi-quarterly-report/quarterly-epidemiological-commentary-mandatory-gram-negative-bacteraemia-mrsa-mssa-and-c-difficile-infections-data-up-to-october-to-december-2023#epidemiological-analyses-of-gram-negative-bacteraemia-data

Incidence of the three main healthcare-associated GNBSI organisms, E. coli, klebsiella pneumoniae, and pseudomonas aeruginosa, has fluctuated between 2019 and 2024, including a sharp decline in the incidence of E. coli seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, overall, the total incidence of healthcare associated GNBSI remains significantly above the target.

We are currently developing the 2024 to 2029 antimicrobial resistance national action plan. We anticipate that in the delivery of this plan, we will continue to focus on GNBSI, building on lessons learnt over the past five years.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of waiting times to speak to the Disability Service Centre.

Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Telephony is our customers’ primary channel to contact us. We continually assess the number of calls we are receiving and the associated waiting times, deploying resources accordingly to support service levels wherever this is possible.

However, due to recent higher volumes of calls than forecast, from the 24th of April and throughout May, we are deploying dedicated telephony specific resource to the Personal Independent Payment telephony lines which will give better support when dealing with sudden increases in traffic.

Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

What discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the date of the commencement of the Corporation Tax (Northern Ireland) Act 2015.

Answered by Steve Baker - Minister of State (Northern Ireland Office)

In the Safeguarding the Union Command Paper, the UK Government committed to a rapid, focused process, on the implementation of corporation tax devolution through a new Joint Exchequer Committee.

The Committee will take forward urgent work on this process. However, the devolution of corporation tax alone will not solve the financial challenges facing Northern Ireland. The Executive needs to make difficult decisions around revenue-raising and public service transformation to put Northern Ireland’s finances on a sustainable footing.

70th anniversary of Grangemouth Choral Society

RBS branch closures

One year anniversary of the kidnapping of Elizabeth Tsurkov

Access to State Pension for people with a terminal illness

Pre-1997 non-indexed company pensions

VAT on hair and beauty salons