Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what proportion of maladministration cases have been due to unreasonable delays from housing associations each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many clinical trial protocols have been awaiting approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for more than (a) 30, (b) 60 and (c) 120 days.
Answered by Will Quince
As of 5 July 2023, the number of clinical trial protocols, initial clinical trial authorisation applications, that have been awaiting approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for more than 30 days (31 to 60 days inclusive) is 68, for more than 60 days (61 to 120 days inclusive) is 110 and for more than 120 days (121 days+) is 81. The MHRA publishes this data about its performance on its website every month.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is taking to reduce the time it takes to assess human challenge clinical trials.
Answered by Will Quince
The Medicines Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is aware that customers who have submitted initial applications and amendments to our Clinical Investigations and Trials team have experienced extended timeframes in some cases and understands how this unpredictability is impacting companies. The MHRA has taken several significant steps to address the extended timeframes for clinical trial approvals. This includes, but is not limited to, prioritising recruitment and training of specialist staff, working with external stakeholders to streamline and improve its processes, and enhancing customer service support and communications. The MHRA regularly reviews and prioritises applications based on public health impact, patient safety and patient need. Unless a human challenge trial application is considered to meet those criteria it is not prioritised over other clinical trial applications.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency expedites human challenge trial applications where a case has gone beyond its 60-day review deadline.
Answered by Will Quince
The Medicines and Healthcare product Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is dealing with queued applications sequentially. However, the MHRA is reallocating work and routinely evaluates applications for their complexity and prioritises applications based on public health impact, patient safety and patient need. This approach applies to all queued clinical trials including human challenge trial applications that have exceeded the 60-day review deadline.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to conserve biodiversity in canals.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
We recognise that the inland waterways across England and Wales are an important national asset forming an important part of our natural environment by providing green and blue corridors along which biodiversity can flourish.
We are committed to recovering nature, including restoring our freshwater habitats, which is why we have now set four legally binding targets for biodiversity. By 2030 we have committed to halt the decline in species abundance and by 2042 we aim to reverse species decline; to reduce the risk of species extinction; and to restore or create more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitats. Action towards these targets will drive essential improvements to our freshwater habitats.
Defra is committed to improve at least 75% of our waters to as ‘close to their natural state’ as soon as is practicable, set out in the EIP. In April we published our Integrated Plan for Delivering Clean and Plentiful Water. The actions in the plan aim to restore all types surface waters, for example, river, lakes and canals.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the time taken to conduct clinical trial approvals by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on the UK's life sciences sector.
Answered by Will Quince
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is committed to making regulatory decisions in accordance with statutory timeframes. The MHRA has recently undertaken a significant recruitment exercise to bring on board new specialist staff to increase clinical trial assessor capacity within the Agency. The MHRA are supplementing this new assessor capacity with additional fixed-term resource of appropriately experienced and qualified specialists to support the training and supervision of new staff.
The MHRA continue to develop plans to increase staff capability and expertise, and to review internal processes for efficiencies. To that end, significant progress has been made to draft proposals for how a risk-proportionate approach to clinical trial assessments could be implemented.
Following public consultation, the MHRA plans to reform national legislation to deliver a world-class sovereign regulatory environment for clinical trials that will support the development of innovative medicines and ensure that the UK retains and grows its reputation as a world leading base for life sciences.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency meets its statutory obligation to assess clinical trials within 60 days of notification.
Answered by Will Quince
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is committed to making regulatory decisions in accordance with statutory timeframes. The MHRA has recently undertaken a significant recruitment exercise to bring on board new specialist staff to increase clinical trial assessor capacity within the Agency. The MHRA are supplementing this new assessor capacity with additional fixed-term resource of appropriately experienced and qualified specialists to support the training and supervision of new staff.
The MHRA continue to develop plans to increase staff capability and expertise, and to review internal processes for efficiencies. To that end, significant progress has been made to draft proposals for how a risk-proportionate approach to clinical trial assessments could be implemented.
Following public consultation, the MHRA plans to reform national legislation to deliver a world-class sovereign regulatory environment for clinical trials that will support the development of innovative medicines and ensure that the UK retains and grows its reputation as a world leading base for life sciences.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help reduce hospital occupancy rates in England.
Answered by Will Quince
As set out in the delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services, there will be 5,000 more beds this year, alongside expanded use of virtual wards with an extra 3,000 virtual ward beds to provide over 10,000 in total by autumn. This is backed by £1 billion of dedicated funding.
We are also investing £1.6 billion over the next two years to reduce the numbers of beds occupied by patients ready to be discharged. This includes establishing ‘transfer of care hubs’ in every hospital ahead of next winter, alongside new approaches to step-down care.
Same Day Emergency Care services will also be in place across every hospital with a major emergency department, helping avoid unnecessary overnight stays in hospital.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the policy paper entitled Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services, published on 30 January 2023, what recent progress his Department has made on introducing 800 new ambulances.
Answered by Will Quince
All ambulance trusts have now placed their ambulance orders for delivery in the current year under existing contracts, and tenders have been received for the mental health ambulances which are being evaluated by NHS England.
In total, NHS England expect delivery in 2023/24 of:
- 628 dual crew ambulances;
- 154 lightweight ambulances;
- 40 mental health ambulances; and
- 11 electric ambulances.
Asked by: Rushanara Ali (Labour - Bethnal Green and Bow)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress her Department has made on increasing access to nature through (a) improved maintenance of footpaths, (b) increasing the network of footpaths and (c) expansions of the freedom to roam.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
England already has a fantastic network of paths with some 120,000 miles of linear access through England’s countryside, but we are taking steps to improve this further.
For example, the Bridlington to Filey stretch of the King Charles III England Coast Path was recently opened, connecting thousands of people to the Yorkshire coast. Over 850 miles of the path are now open to the public and, when complete, it will be the longest waymarked and maintained coastal walking route in the world at 2,700 miles.
We are also designating Wainwright’s Coast to Coast route across the north of England as a new National Trail, crossing some of our most precious national landscapes making it accessible to cyclists and horse riders where it is feasible to do so.
We are delivering the £14.5 million ‘Access for All’ programme, which consists of a package of targeted measures in our protected landscapes, national trails, forests and the wider countryside to make access to green and blue spaces more inclusive. More than £3.5 million has already been spent on making our protected landscapes more accessible, including on creating and improving footpaths to ensure that the countryside is accessible to everyone.
We are also improving the way in which rights of way are recorded by implementing a package of reforms to reduce bureaucracy and speed up the process for new rights of way to be added to the legal record for everyone to enjoy. Local highway authorities are responsible for the management and maintenance of existing public rights of way and are required to keep a Rights of Way Improvement Plan to plan improvements to the rights of way network in their area. This must include an assessment of the local rights of way including the condition of the network.
The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 provides for a right to roam across open access land, giving the public a right of access to most areas of mountain, moor, heath, down, registered common land and coastal margin. This means that the public already has the ‘right to roam’ over many areas of wild, open countryside. We have no plans to change this.
We set out our commitment to the provision of safe and appropriate public access in as many woodlands as possible in the England Trees Action Plan. The Environmental Improvement Plan reiterates our commitment to publish our ambition for improving the quantity, quality, and permanency of woodland access.
Through programmes with the Community Forests and Forestry England we are enabling creation of large scale publicly accessible woodlands near towns and cities. For instance, as part of our ‘Access for All’ programme we are providing over £3 million to Forestry England to increase access to green and blue spaces in our most deprived urban areas.
We continue to support land managers to provide woodland access through our Countryside Stewardship and England Woodland Creation Offer schemes.
Under the new Environmental Land Management offer, for woodlands, we are providing societal benefits by bringing people closer to nature, allowing long-term permissive access for recreation and contributing to the rural economy.
The Department for Transport is investing in active travel. This includes delivering thousands of miles of safe, continuous routes for cycling and creating Active Travel England to support local authorities to deliver ambitious and transformational schemes. The Transport Secretary appointed Chris Boardman as National Active Travel Commissioner in June 2022.
This Government has done more than any other when it comes to walking and cycling. Around 250 more miles of walking and cycling routes have been opened since 2020 and we remain fully committed to the ambitious vision that by 2030 half of all journeys in towns and cities are walked or cycled. This is in addition to the objectives outlined in the second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS2).
This Government absolutely understands the importance of active travel. That is why we are investing more than any other government, over £3 billion, into this area. This includes at least £100 million capital funding over the two-year period 2023/24 to 2024/25 for active travel infrastructure, following on from £850 million investment in the three years up to 2022/23.
We also committed in our 2020 Gear Change plan commits to improve the National Cycle Network (NCN), recognising the vital importance of the NCN in enabling everyone to walk, wheel and cycle safely and easily. Last year Sustrans was awarded £25 million to support and expand the NCN.
Active Travel England will work to ensure that this wider funding supports delivery of the objectives in CWIS2 including the need for projects to conform with national design guidance. Active travel remains at the heart of this Government’s agenda and the Department will continue to ensure that it is given the priority it deserves.