Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total cost payable to the government of Rwanda under the agreement with that country in the event that no migrants are sent there from the UK.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The UK has provided Rwanda with an initial investment of £120m into its economic development and growth as part of the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund (ETIF). Investment has been focused in areas such as education, healthcare, agriculture, infrastructure, and job creation. A separate advance payment of £20m was also paid last year to support initial set up costs for the relocation of individuals.
Funding will also be provided to support the delivery of asylum operations, accommodation, and integration in Rwanda. Costs and payments will depend on the number of individuals relocated, the timing of when this happens, and the outcomes of individual cases. We will not enter into speculation as to what the final costs of the partnership may be nor provide a running commentary.
Legal proceedings are ongoing, and we have been granted permission to appeal to the Supreme Court with a hearing scheduled to take place in October. We always knew that our policy was ambitious and novel, and that it would be tested in the courts, but we have also been clear we are committed to this partnership and will continue to robustly defend this policy so we can make it a reality.
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what powers contained in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 they have used to date.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The Illegal Migration Act received Royal Assent on 20 July 2023.
The bans on re-entry, settlement or citizenship to people who come to the UK illegally came into force from Royal Assent.
As is standard practice for any legislation, commencement of wider measures in the Act will take place over the coming months.
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to make longer-term and consistent funding available to local authorities for park and playground provision, particularly smaller play spaces in more deprived areas.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2023/24 makes available up to £59.7 billion for local government in England, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion or 9.4% in cash terms on 2022/23. This boost in funding demonstrates how Government stands behind councils up and down the country. The majority of the funding is un-ringfenced in recognition of local authorities being best placed to understand local priorities. On top of this, the £9 million UK-wide Levelling Up Parks Fund has provided specific funding to deliver improved green spaces in communities with the lowest access and a further £30 million will be provided to overhaul 30 local parks in England with a focus on improving facilities for young families.
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure young people have timely access to mental health services.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Under the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion per year by March 2024 to enable an extra two million people in England, including 345,000 children and young people, to access National Health Service-funded mental health support.
We also provided an additional £500 million for 2021/22, targeting those groups whose mental health has been most affected by the pandemic, including children and young people. Within the £500 million, £79 million was invested to allow around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more to access eating disorder services and a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges. £13 million was invested to ensure young adults aged 18 to 25, including university students, were supported with tailored mental health support, helping bridge the gap between children’s and adult services.
In February, NHS England published the outcomes of its consultation on the potential to introduce five new access and waiting time standards for mental health services, including that children and young people should start to receive care within four weeks from referral, as part of its clinically led review of National Health Service access standards. We are now working with NHS England on the next steps.
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government why the murals of cartoon characters at the Kent Intake Unit asylum centre were found to be 'too welcoming'; and under what legal powers they were removed.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
We provide high-quality facilities to minors upon immediate arrival in the UK at Kent Intake Unit and all their needs are provided for.
The unit works closely with Kent Children’s Services to ensure the unaccompanied children are processed and placed into appropriate care as quickly as possible.
We continue to prioritise work with local authorities (LA), and Kent County Council, to ensure that children are transferred into local authority care as soon as possible via the National Transfer Scheme (NTS). We have supported this through our incentivised funding pilots to all local authorities across the UK, which aimed to encourage quicker transfers into local authority care.
Between December 22 and February 23, the Home Office increased our incentivised offer to £15,000 per child, to allow local authorities to invest more money in long term infrastructure to support the children they received. We will continue to provide incentivised funding throughout 2023-24, with every local authority receiving £6,00 for each unaccompanied child transferred from a dedicated UASC hotel into local authority care within five working days. This funding is in addition to the contribution made by the Home Office to LA’s receiving children through the NTS, which can equate to £52,195 per child, per year, up to the age of 18.
Recent figures show that 70% of UASCs are over 16. Further details can be found at the Asylum and Resettlement datasets – Gov.UK: Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure accurate and timely monitoring of (1) new COVID-19 cases, and (2) new variants of the disease; and when the next round of booster vaccines will be made available to each age group.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) conducts routine monitoring and surveillance of COVID-19 and the emergence and spread of new variants internationally via a range of surveillance systems and genomic capabilities. These systems report on infection rates, hospitalisations and the risks posed by new variants.
This year’s autumn influenza and COVID-19 vaccine programmes is starting earlier than planned in England, on 11 September 2023, as a precautionary measure. Speeding up the Autumn vaccine programme will deliver greater protection, supporting those at greatest risk of severe illness and reducing the potential impact on the National Health Service.
The COVID-19 vaccine will be offered to:
- residents in a care home for older adults;
- all adults aged 65 years and over;
- persons aged six months to 64 years in a clinical risk group;
- frontline health and social care workers;
- persons aged 12 to 64 years who are household contacts of people with immunosuppression; and
- persons aged 16 to 64 years who are carers and staff working in care homes for older adults.
An appointment will be offered to eligible people between September and December 2023, with those at highest risk being called in first. Those eligible for vaccination are encouraged to take up the offer of the vaccine as soon as they are called to ensure they head into winter with the best protection.
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the reported increase in vaping and vaping-related health conditions among young people.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Recent NHS Digital data suggests there has been an increase in young people aged 19 years old and under with a finished admission episode with a primary or secondary diagnosis of a vaping disorder. There were 40 reported cases in 2022/23, seven more than in 2021/22.
The Government is taking a number of steps to prevent the circulation of illegal vaping products. In April 2023, we announced £3 million of funding to support a new illicit vapes enforcement squad to tackle underage sales and the illicit market. National Trading Standards have now begun setting up the operation, gathering intelligence, training staff and bolstering capacity and will begin field work later this year.
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they plan to take to prevent the circulation of illegal vaping products particularly among young people.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Recent NHS Digital data suggests there has been an increase in young people aged 19 years old and under with a finished admission episode with a primary or secondary diagnosis of a vaping disorder. There were 40 reported cases in 2022/23, seven more than in 2021/22.
The Government is taking a number of steps to prevent the circulation of illegal vaping products. In April 2023, we announced £3 million of funding to support a new illicit vapes enforcement squad to tackle underage sales and the illicit market. National Trading Standards have now begun setting up the operation, gathering intelligence, training staff and bolstering capacity and will begin field work later this year.
Asked by: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what financial resources they are allocating to anti-littering campaigns in England.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra launched the “Keep it, Bin it” anti-litter campaign in 2018 with Keep Britain Tidy to encourage people to dispose of their litter responsibly. Defra spent over £200,000 on scoping, developing and launching the campaign. Since 2019/20, the campaign has been funded by external partners. Keep Britain Tidy have now made the campaign available to local authorities and landowners for local use.
In response to COVID-19, Defra spent just under £100,000 on the development and launch of the 'Respect the Outdoors' campaign which included messaging about littering among other issues. We also contributed £30,000 for Keep Britain Tidy's Love Parks campaign, which encouraged people to treat our parks with respect.
We have previously provided nearly £1million across 44 councils to help them to purchase new bins, in support of targeted interventions to reduce litter. Across the last two years, our fly-tipping grant scheme has awarded nearly £1.2million to help more than 30 councils tackle the dumping of waste at known hot-spots.
We have also used social media to raise awareness of the impact of litter and to encourage individuals to put their rubbish in the bin or to take it home. The cost of these activities cannot be separated. Likewise, spend on Defra staff cannot be disaggregated.