Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect on the economy of industrial action on Network Rail.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Strikes by RMT among their members at Network Rail in 2022/23 typically resulted in average industry-wide service levels of around 20%.
These strikes have resulted in direct impacts on rail industry revenue and on the wider economy, for example due to people being unable to attend work. Given the move to flexible working post-pandemic, the impact of strikes on the economy is far lower, albeit the hospitality sector experiences particular impacts as set out by HospitalityUK.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to retain a cap on bus fares after November 2024.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The £2 fare cap is set to run until the end of this year, with the Government having provided almost £600 million to deliver the scheme. The Government will continue to provide funding to support the sector through our regular funding streams. This includes making over £200 million available annually to bus operators through the Bus Service Operator’s Grant to help them maintain an extensive network and keep fares down, and over £2 billion for local areas to deliver their Bus Service Improvement Plans which can support local fares initiatives.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the transmission of H5N1 bird flu to humans.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) works closely with partners to monitor, investigate, and periodically assess the risk to human health of avian influenza (influenza A(H5N1)). This includes monitoring human cases, patterns of transmission of influenza A(H5N1) in animals, surveillance of humans exposed to infected birds, and assessing how well circulating viruses are matched to vaccines.
Our assessment of the risks of A(H5N1) to the United Kingdom is kept under regular review and is revised when new evidence is identified. Updates to this work are published in the UKHSA’s avian influenza technical briefings. The UKHSA also contributes to the World Health Organization’s global assessments.
There continues to be sporadic human cases of A(H5N1) detected globally, including both mild and severe infections. The UK does not currently have outbreaks of influenza A(H5N1) in poultry or other captive birds, although sporadic detections continue in wild birds. The UK has self-declared zonal freedom from highly pathogenic avian influenza for Great Britain with effect from 29 March 2024.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they have any plans to update the travel advice to Sri Lanka to reflect the security situation in that country.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The safety of British people is the main factor when determining our travel advice for all countries, including Sri Lanka. Our advice is designed to help British people make informed decisions about foreign travel and remains under constant review to ensure it reflects our latest assessment of risks when travelling abroad. Our travel advice is based on objective assessments of the risks to British nationals. These assessments are made by drawing on expert sources of information available to the government including local knowledge from our embassies and information provided by the local authorities in each country. We will continue to keep Sri Lanka travel advice under close review.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they anticipate having paid compensation in full to claimants of the Windrush Compensation Scheme.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Windrush Compensation Scheme is determined to ensure everyone who was affected receives every penny of the compensation to which they are entitled at the earliest point possible. The Scheme is making significant progress towards achieving this aim and has paid over £80 million in compensation as of January 2024. However, each person’s claim is deeply personal and deserves to be processed with the utmost care and sensitivity. This holistic approach necessarily takes time but is ultimately beneficial to individuals.
The Scheme does not therefore, impose time limit targets for concluding claims.
The Scheme has reduced the time to allocate a claim for a substantive casework consideration, from 18 months to under 4 months. The 4-month period includes all essential eligibility checks, together with a Preliminary Assessment to make an initial payment of £10,000 wherever possible. The Scheme has no end date so that people are not prevented from claiming compensation and there is no cap on the amount of compensation that will be paid overall.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what percentage of Windrush Compensation Scheme claims they have paid in full so far.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Information on the total number of Windrush Compensation Scheme claims that have received a compensation payment is published as part of the Transparency Data release. The latest published data, covering the period up to the end of January 2024, is available here: Windrush Compensation Scheme data: January 2024 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
As of January 2024, over £80 million has been paid in compensation across 2,233 claims.
An individual could have more than one claim under the Windrush Compensation Scheme rules, for example as a primary claimant, close family member, or as a representative of an estate. In addition, a claim may receive a preliminary, interim and/or full and final payment.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 29 February (HL Deb col 1190) where he stated that "there are legal proceedings" concerning the decision "not to proceed with some of the recommendations" contained in the Windrush Lessons Learned Review by Wendy Williams, what is the nature of those proceedings.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The “legal proceedings” refer to a Judicial Review, brought by three claimants, to challenge the decision, made in December 2022, of the former Secretary of State for the Home Department to not implement three of the Windrush Lessons Learned recommendations. The three policy recommendations are: recommendation 3, run reconciliation events; recommendation 9, introduce a Migrants’ Commissioner; and recommendation 10, review the remit and role of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of the health of children's teeth nationally in England.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In England, local authorities have the statutory function of assessing the oral health needs of their local populations. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, within the Department, co-ordinates the English National Dental Epidemiology Programme. This programme consists of annual surveys that assess the local oral health needs of specific population groups.
Year six schoolchildren were surveyed in 2023, and 16% of them had experienced tooth decay. Among the 16% of children with experience of decay, each child had on average two affected teeth. Five-year-old schoolchildren were surveyed in 2022 and 24% had experienced tooth decay. Among the 24% of children with experience of decay, each child had on average four affected teeth. Three-year-old children were surveyed in 2020 and 11% had experienced tooth decay. Among the 11% of children with experience of decay, each had on average three affected teeth.
Our plan to recover and reform NHS Dentistry sets out a new emphasis on prevention and good oral health in children. This includes supporting nurseries and early years settings to incorporate good oral hygiene into daily routines and providing advice to expectant parents on how to protect their baby’s teeth.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of the availability of NHS dentistry.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
18.1 million adults were seen by a National Health Service dentist in the 24 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 1.7 million, or 10%, when compared to the previous year. 6.4 million children were seen by an NHS dentist in the 12 months up to 30 June 2023, an increase of 800,000, or 14%, when compared to the previous year. Our plan to recover and reform NHS Dentistry will make dental services faster, simpler, and fairer for patients, and will fund around 2.5 million additional appointments, or more than 1.5 million additional courses of dental treatment.
Our plan sets out a number of actions which will improve access for patients, by helping the sector to recover activity more quickly, including the introduction of a New Patient Payment Premium of up to £50 for each new patient. This is on top of the funding dental practices already receive for delivering that care. We will further incentivise dentists to do more NHS work by raising the minimum Units of Dental Activity rate to £28. As an additional part of the plan, we will launch a new Golden Hello scheme for dentists who want to move to those areas which persistently struggle to attract dentists into NHS work. We will also deploy dental vans offering appointments to patients in targeted rural and coastal communities who have the most limited access to dentistry, starting later this year.
NHS dentists are now required to update their NHS website profiles at least every 90 days to ensure patients have access to up-to-date information on where they can access care. From 1 April 2023, responsibility for commissioning primary care dentistry to meet the needs of the local population has been delegated to all integrated care boards (ICBs) across England. ICBs are responsible for having local processes in place to identify areas of need and determine the priorities for investment.
Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to conduct a comparative assessment with other European nations on the state of rail services including on reliability, comfort and pricing.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department seeks to identify best practice from other countries’ rail networks but is not currently planning a formal comparative assessment.
The latest Common Safety Indicators from the Office of Rail and Road, which were published 15 February 2024, showed that Great Britain ranks favourably compared with other European countries in terms of employee safety, level crossing user safety and trespasser safety.