Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
These initiatives were driven by Baroness Browning, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
Following agreement by both Houses on the text of the Bill it received Royal Assent on 28 February. The Bill is now an Act of Parliament (law). A Bill to amend the law relating to scrap metal dealers; and for connected purposes.
This Bill received Royal Assent on 28th February 2013 and was enacted into law.
Baroness Browning has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has recorded 22 contacts related to possible suicides via its Coroner focal point since 2016.
Coroners determine the cause of death, including whether it is by suicide. Coroners do not routinely inform the department when they return a conclusion of suicide in a case where the deceased person was claiming benefits. There is no requirement for them to do so, unless they have named it as an Interested Person at that inquest, or they decide to send it a Prevention of Future Deaths report.
DWP becomes aware of the majority of deaths through the Tell Us Once (TUO) service. It is offered by all 391 councils across England, Scotland and Wales on behalf of DWP. This service lets citizens report a death to most government organisations in one go. Once verified, the Customer Information System (CIS), a cross-government system, is updated and DWP will take the appropriate action on a case.
However, this service does not notify DWP of the cause or circumstances of a death, and DWP has no legitimate business reason to obtain or record this information.
The Serious Case Panel does not discuss individual cases, but the panel considers specific themes that emerge from internal process reviews (IPRs). The IPR process is how the DWP investigates individual cases to document the learning. Whilst several themes will have been drawn from serious cases where suicide featured in some of the customer journeys, the specific cases would not be discussed during the meeting.
The Serious Case Panel has convened, since March 2020, on 13 occasions with the 14th Panel due to meet on 20/6/23.
The minutes are available on GOV.UK: DWP Serious Case Panel - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
I am happy to provide a breakdown by year as follows:
We are fully committed to supporting those with mental health conditions. The assessment of mental, cognitive, and intellectual function is an integral part of the assessment process.
All healthcare professionals (HPs) undertaking assessments on behalf of the department must be registered practitioners who have undergone comprehensive training in the functional assessment of disability, and mental health conditions. HPs continue to keep this knowledge up to date through continuous professional development.
In addition, mental health function champions support HPs by providing additional expertise about mental health, cognitive, developmental, and learning disabilities, and can be referred to at any time during the assessment process.
Government’s Plan for Jobs provides new funding to ensure more people, including those with learning disabilities get tailored Jobcentre Plus support to help them find work and to build the skills they need to get into work. This includes £895 million to recruit an additional 13,500 Work Coaches which the Department is on track to achieve by Quarter 1 2021/22, and £2.9 billion invested in the Restart Programme, which is due to go live from summer 2021. The Restart Programme will support individuals who have been unemployed for over 12 months and through regular, personalised support providers will work with participants to identify the best way to support them into sustained employment.
From April 2021, the Disability Employment Advisors (DEA) Direct Support will be strengthened to include an element of Direct Support to customers with health condition or disability who require additional support over and above the ESA and Universal Credit core offer. DEA Direct Support will deliver work focussed bespoke support to move individuals with a disability or health condition towards a work outcome.
In addition, the Intensive Personalised Employment Support Programme provides highly personalised packages of employment support for disabled people who want to work but have complex needs or barriers and require specialist support to achieve sustained employment. People will get coaching, work experience, and a dedicated key worker who will work with them to overcome complex barriers, including lack of IT skills, which may be preventing them from entering work.
The Help to Claim service provides all UC customers with tailored, practical support at every step of their claim until they receive their first payment. It includes help with setting up an email address or a UC account, verifying identity, accessing a DWP home visit or preparing for their first payment. At a local level, there are a range of digital inclusion courses available, which a work coach can help a learning disabled jobseeker access.
Other than the definition for people who are terminally ill, there is no common definition used for assessing health and welfare needs. What is meant by “severe disability” and/or “long-term disability” will be specific to the benefits or schemes which apply them and could be defined in the legislation applicable and/or the guidance available. The definition of whether a person is “terminally ill” is that they “suffer from a progressive disease and their death in consequence of that disease can reasonably be expected within 6 months.”
On 26 January 2024, we published statutory guidance on discharge from mental health inpatient settings. This guidance sets out key principles for how National Health Service bodies and local authorities across adult and children’s services should work together to support people to be discharged from mental health inpatient services, including mental health inpatient services for people with a learning disability and for autistic people. This guidance states that strong links should be made with relevant community services prior to, and during, the person’s stay in hospital, and that this should include links in relation to meeting the person’s needs related to health, social care, education, housing, and any other individual needs.
In 2023/24, we are investing an additional £121 million to improve community support, as part of the NHS Long Term Plan. This includes funding for children and young people’s keyworkers. We continue to support the delivery of new supported housing by providing capital subsidies to providers, through the Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund and the Affordable Homes Programme in England. We have also made available up to £8.6 billion over this and next financial year, to support adult social care and discharge.
NHS England published updated policy and guidance on both Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews (C(E)TRs) and Dynamic Support Registers (DSRs) on 25 January 2023, for implementation from 1 May 2023, to help ensure people get the support they need to stay well in their communities. This includes guidance on the timescales for C(E)TRs and on ensuring that actions are taken forward.
NHS England produced the updated policy and guidance following a process of reviewing the learning since the inception of C(E)TRs and DSRs, including consultation and engagement with people with lived experience. This process included drawing on the findings of the Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board’s review of the deaths of Joanna, Jon and Ben at Cawston Park in Norfolk, and the subsequent safe and wellbeing reviews for all people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals.
NHS England published updated policy and guidance on both Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews (C(E)TRs) and Dynamic Support Registers (DSRs) on 25 January 2023, for implementation from 1 May 2023, to help ensure people get the support they need to stay well in their communities. This includes guidance on the timescales for C(E)TRs and on ensuring that actions are taken forward.
NHS England produced the updated policy and guidance following a process of reviewing the learning since the inception of C(E)TRs and DSRs, including consultation and engagement with people with lived experience. This process included drawing on the findings of the Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board’s review of the deaths of Joanna, Jon and Ben at Cawston Park in Norfolk, and the subsequent safe and wellbeing reviews for all people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals.
It is our priority to ensure that patients are discharged at the right time and to the right place, and to ensure that people receive appropriate care and support after they have been discharged. We believe it is crucial to ensure that the discharge process remains person-centred and driven by the patient’s fully informed decisions of the available options, including their own home or a residential care setting after they are discharged, with the support of their family or unpaid carers.
Whether or not a person qualifies for any financial support towards their care costs depends on their capital assets. Anyone who has assets above the upper capital limit, £23,250, is expected to meet the full cost of their own care. A person with more in capital than the upper capital limit can nonetheless ask their local authority to arrange their care and support for them.
Where the person’s needs are to be met by care in a care home, the local authority may choose to arrange the care, but is not required to do so. In supporting self-funders to arrange care, the local authority may choose to enter into a contract with the preferred provider or may broker the contract on behalf of the person.
NHS England and NHS Improvement work with National Health Service trusts to ensure effective implementation of United Kingdom infection prevention and control guidance in all areas, for both outpatient and inpatient care.
Mechanisms for infection prevention including physical distancing, optimal hand hygiene, equipment and environment decontamination, and extended use of face masks by healthcare staff, patients and visitors, are continually reviewed. The Department continues to have ongoing discussions with NHS England and NHS Improvement on controlling the spread of COVID-19 infection in all healthcare settings.
In March 2020, there were 234,416 residential care beds which decreased by 0.4% to 233,444 in October 2021. The number of nursing beds in March 2020 was 222,607 which rose by 1.1% to 224,979 in October 2021.
Since March 2020, the number of overall care beds rose by 0.3% to 458,423 in October 2021.
We have worked alongside the National Health Service and other organisations to provide a package of emotional, psychological and practical resources for all care workers, including those in the charitable and not-for-profit sectors. This package includes support helplines, guidance, bereavement resources and a bespoke package of support for registered managers. We have also worked with the sector to ensure that wellbeing resources and best practice advice are streamlined and easier to navigate.
The Department does not make separate assessments of the cost of the National Living Wage in respect of for-profit, local authority-run and not-for-profit providers, or at the level of individual providers.
The recommendations of the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review are being considered carefully.
The Government will provide an update in due course.
Protecting the public from dangerous criminals is a top priority for the Government. The UK has some of the toughest powers in the world to deal with sex offenders and those who pose a risk, and we are committed to ensuring that the system is as robust as it can be.
Registered Sex Offenders (RSOs) and Registered Terrorist Offenders (RTOs) are required, by law, to notify their details to the police annually and whenever those details change (including name changes) and they face up to five years in prison for failing to do so.
The Government has been reviewing whether more can be done in the legislative and non-legislative space to prevent criminals from being able to evade detection. This includes ensuring that law enforcement and other partners are fully utilising the monitoring tools and information sharing sources available to them, such as those provided by HM Passport Office, in addition to other ways to strengthen the system further.
We take this issue seriously and will take whatever action is required to prevent nefarious criminals from seeking to evade detection.
RSOs and RTOs are required to report name changes within three days of that change taking place. This information is collected and recorded by the police, and is not collected centrally by the Home Office.
Protecting the public from dangerous criminals is a top priority for the Government. The UK has some of the toughest powers in the world to deal with sex offenders and those who pose a risk, and we are committed to ensuring that the system is as robust as it can be.
Registered Sex Offenders (RSOs) and Registered Terrorist Offenders (RTOs) are required, by law, to notify their details to the police annually and whenever those details change (including name changes) and they face up to five years in prison for failing to do so.
The Government has been reviewing whether more can be done in the legislative and non-legislative space to prevent criminals from being able to evade detection. This includes ensuring that law enforcement and other partners are fully utilising the monitoring tools and information sharing sources available to them, such as those provided by HM Passport Office, in addition to other ways to strengthen the system further.
We take this issue seriously and will take whatever action is required to prevent nefarious criminals from seeking to evade detection.
RSOs and RTOs are required to report name changes within three days of that change taking place. This information is collected and recorded by the police, and is not collected centrally by the Home Office.