Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they have taken to reduce the regional variation across the UK in access to treatment for focal therapies including focused ultrasound.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
While focal therapies offer promise, they are not yet recommended for wider adoption and spread across the National Health Service because more evidence is needed. As part of developing their guidance and recommendations, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence seeks input from professionals and patient associations and, through its clinical commissioning policy route, NHS England encourages clinicians working in the NHS in England to submit new policy topics to enable patients to quickly benefit from innovative, evidence-based treatments.
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the potential use of focal therapies in supporting the NHS to address the cancer treatment backlog.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
While focal therapies offer promise, they are not yet recommended for wider adoption and spread across the National Health Service because more evidence is needed. As part of developing their guidance and recommendations, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence seeks input from professionals and patient associations and, through its clinical commissioning policy route, NHS England encourages clinicians working in the NHS in England to submit new policy topics to enable patients to quickly benefit from innovative, evidence-based treatments.
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that independent training providers have access to funding on an equal basis with other adult skills providers, including colleges.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government recognises the important role Independent Training Providers (ITPs) play in delivering adult training and skills. After changes in the law brought about by the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, it was decided to procure an element of the Adult Education Budget (AEB) openly and competitively, for contracts for services provision. ITPs can submit bids for these contracts in Education and Skills Funding Agency non-devolved areas. In areas where the AEB has been devolved, mayoral combined authorities are now responsible for the provision of AEB-funded adult education for their residents and for deciding which providers to fund.
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to improve communication at a (1) local, and (2) national, level about best practices in the delivery of adult skills.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The steps being taken to improve communication at a local and national level about best practices in the delivery of adult skills were outlined in the white paper, Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth, published in January 2021: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skills-for-jobs-lifelong-learning-for-opportunity-and-growth.
We are trailblazing new employer-led Local Skills Improvement Plans in a small number of areas in the 2021-22 financial year. They will be created by employer representative bodies working closely with further education colleges, other providers and key local stakeholders and will set out the key changes needed in a local area to make technical skills training more responsive to employers’ skills needs. Alongside the trailblazers, we are legislating to put Local Skills Improvement Plans on a statutory footing as part of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill.
Local Skills Improvement Plans will provide a framework to help colleges and other providers reshape what they offer, to tackle skills mismatches and ensure that they are responding as effectively as possible to labour market skills needs. We will also make development funding available in the 2021-22 financial year in a number of pilot areas to support colleges to reshape their provision to address local priorities that have been agreed with local employers.
We will reform our funding and accountability systems to better support providers in their role. To this end, The Skills for Jobs: A New Further Education Funding and Accountability System Government Consultation was published on 15 July 2021: https://consult.education.gov.uk/fe-funding/reforms-to-funding-and-accountability/. This consultation proposes a range of steps to improve communication at local and national level about effective skills delivery:
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the importance of independent training providers in delivering training to meet current and future skills shortages in (1) the North East, and (2) the wider UK economy.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
In our Skills for Jobs White Paper, published in January 2021, we recognised the unique knowledge and capacity that independent training providers bring. They are the largest provider type delivering apprenticeships and they contribute substantially to adult education and training. In the academic year 2019 to 2020, enrolments at publicly funded private sector providers were:
- 21,700 apprentices and 15,900 adults in the North East
- 429,190 apprentices and 175,810 adults in England.
This prominence across the market is why we are legislating through the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill to place duties on independent training providers, alongside other post-16 providers, to co-operate with employer representative bodies in developing Local Skills Improvement Plans, so they can play their part in responding to the skills gaps that the plans identify.
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the UK–EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement on the provision of services into the EU by UK citizens living in (1) EU, (2) EEA and (3) EFTA, countries; and what steps they intend to take to reduce or offset that impact.
Answered by Lord Frost
The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and the UK free trade agreement with the EEA-EFTA states, provide for a wide variety of obligations regarding the treatment by one Party of investors, services suppliers and natural persons of the other Party. Some of these provisions may be affected by the place of residence of the natural person in question, and the legal position will depend on the details of each specific case. UK citizens will need to check whether and how the provisions apply to them.
Government routinely publishes a wide range of analysis on the UK economy. Other bodies, such as the Office for Budget Responsibility, also regularly publish economic analysis on the impact of the UK's trade deal with the EU.
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the terms of the UK–EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement on the provision of services into the European Union apply equally to UK citizens living in (1) EU, (2) EEA and (3) EFTA, countries, so that they can provide services outside their host state.
Answered by Lord Frost
The UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, and the UK free trade agreement with the EEA-EFTA states, provide for a wide variety of obligations regarding the treatment by one Party of investors, services suppliers and natural persons of the other Party. Some of these provisions may be affected by the place of residence of the natural person in question, and the legal position will depend on the details of each specific case. UK citizens will need to check whether and how the provisions apply to them.
Government routinely publishes a wide range of analysis on the UK economy. Other bodies, such as the Office for Budget Responsibility, also regularly publish economic analysis on the impact of the UK's trade deal with the EU.
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many pancreatic cancer surgeries have been cancelled in each month since January 2020.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The data requested on cancelled surgery is not collected centrally.
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in each month since January 2020; and what percentage of those diagnoses have been at Stage (1) 1, (2) 2, (3) 3, and (4) 4, respectively.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The number of diagnoses of pancreatic cancer by stage of diagnosis in 2020 is not yet available. The stage group by cancer type for diagnoses in 2020 is expected to be published in 2022.
Asked by: Lord Aberdare (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) construction, and (2) maintenance, contracts issued by departments since 1 January 2018 have used cash retentions; what was the total value of these retentions; how many of these retention monies have been released; and how long on average it took to release these monies.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Information is not collected on the use of cash retentions in construction and maintenance contracts for Central Government.