Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of implications for his policies of rises in the number of diagnoses of sexually transmitted infections.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
We are committed to improving sexual heath in England, including tackling sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and are considering the next steps for delivering the best outcomes, but no specific assessment has been made of our policies and the increase in STIs.
Sexual health services (SHSs) play a key public health role in diagnosis, early treatment and management of STIs and we are providing more than £3.5 billion to local authorities through the public health grant to fund public health services, including SHSs, in this financial year. Individual local authorities are responsible for and well placed to make funding and commissioning decisions about the SHSs that best meet the needs of their local populations.
As part of the HIV Action Plan, we are investing over £3.5 million from 2021 to 2024 to deliver the National HIV Prevention Programme for England, including HIV Testing Week and other campaigns to improve information and testing for HIV and other STIs.
The UK Health Security Agency published a Syphilis Action Plan to address the increase in syphilis diagnosis in England, focusing on key interventions such as targeted testing, partner notification and awareness raising.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to take steps to provide funding for sexual health clinics for mpox work that was not covered by local authority tariffs.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
No additional funding is currently planned for sexual health services in response to Mpox. Funding has been provided for antiviral medicines to treat Mpox, the procurement of the smallpox vaccine and for sexual health services to deliver this vaccine to those eligible for vaccination. There have been very few Mpox cases reported in the United Kingdom so far this year compared to the 2022 outbreak. It is likely that multiple factors, including vaccination, have contributed to the decline in transmission. We continue to work towards the goal of elimination of person-to-person Mpox transmission in the UK.
The Department is providing more than £3.5 billion this financial year to local authorities through the Public Health Grant to fund public health services, including sexual health services, increasing to £3.575 billion in 2024/25. This will provide every local authority real-terms funding protection over the next two years. Individual local authorities are responsible for and well placed to make funding and commissioning decisions about the sexual health services that best meet the needs of their local populations.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to extend the mpox vaccination programme, in the context of case numbers in London in summer 2023.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In December 2022, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) led the four public health bodies of the United Kingdom in publishing a joint strategy for Mpox control which is available at the following link:
This stated the ambition to work towards elimination of person-to-person Mpox transmission in the UK. The strategy made clear that vaccination was one of eight key areas of public health intervention, and that the vaccination programme would continue to be reviewed, drawing on the best available evidence, to ensure it delivers as efficiently as possible to protect those most at risk from Mpox.
The Government remain committed to delivering on this strategy. UKHSA continues to monitor the epidemiology of the Mpox outbreak very closely, including the recent, small cluster of cases in London, and are ready to scale up a response as required.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Thousands of asylum seekers to be moved out of hotels, published on 5 June 2023, what site in West London is being used to house asylum seekers; what hotels her Department plans to use to accommodate asylum seekers in (a) Hammersmith and Fulham and (b) Kensington and Chelsea; and what her Department's planned timescales are for the use of those sites to house asylum seekers.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The specific location of any of our asylum accommodation is not put in the public domain in order to maintain the privacy and security of those accommodated.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 9 May 2023 to Question 183237 on Prison Accommodation, what guidance his Department issues on the appropriate amount of time out of cell for prisoners.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
We are committed to delivering purposeful activity within prisons: our plans for prison regime reform are set out in the Prisons Strategy White Paper - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
As noted in my reply of 9 May, there is no central requirement governing the amount of time that prisoners should spend out of their cells. Governors have the flexibility to deliver balanced regimes to meet the needs of their establishment’s population. The collection of data on time spent out of cell is not currently practicable.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of his Department holding data on time spent out of cell across all prisons in England and Wales.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
We are committed to delivering purposeful activity within prisons: our plans for prison regime reform are set out in the Prisons Strategy White Paper - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
As noted in my reply of 9 May, there is no central requirement governing the amount of time that prisoners should spend out of their cells. Governors have the flexibility to deliver balanced regimes to meet the needs of their establishment’s population. The collection of data on time spent out of cell is not currently practicable.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the article by Dr Nick Thoburn of the University of Manchester entitled Razing the neighbourhood: consequences and alternatives to council estate demolition, published in April 2023, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of that report's recommendations on repair, refurbishment and retrofit of existing social housing.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Further to the measures under debate in the Social Housing Regulation Bill, approaches to regeneration should have the support of a majority of residents. Residents and the wider community should have the opportunity to have a say on the choices and options, master-planning and design.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, when his Department expects to have completed its implementation of local regime leads across the entire prison estate through the National Regime Model.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
All prisons will have a local regime lead in place by the end of 2023/24.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will publish data on the average time spent out of cell in each prison in England and Wales.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The information requested for adult prisoners is not held by the Ministry of Justice as collecting it would require the detailed monitoring of cell activity in each prison establishment.
There is no central requirement governing the amount of time that prisoners should spend out of their cells. Governors are instead afforded the flexibility to deliver balanced regimes that maintain an appropriate level of time out of cell on a range of activities, including association, which meet the needs of the establishment’s population.
HMPPS has introduced a Regime Dashboard which reports the percentage of prisoners receiving different levels of regime each week. We are further developing this to align to future regimes. A performance metric has also been introduced to hold prisons to account on their levels of regime delivery. Data from this are scheduled for publication in July 2023.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 27 February 2023 to Question 150416 on Bicycles and Electric Vehicles: Safety, whether the proposed rental framework to allow local transport authorities to manage rental services of cycles and e-cycles will include measures to help prevent users from leaving e-cycles on (a) pathways and (b) roads; and if he will publish details of the proposals.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Government plans to introduce legislation for private and rental e-scooter use when parliamentary time allows and will consult on regulations in due course. No final decisions about e-scooter regulations have been or will be made before interested parties have had an opportunity to offer views.
The Department also intends to introduce a rental framework which will allow local transport authorities to manage rental services of cycles, e-cycles and e-scooters, so that matters such as fleet sizes and parking can be kept under local control.
Local authorities already have legal powers to remove e-cycles and other items that are abandoned on the road or pathway. The Department will continue to work with local authorities and keep under review ways to prevent e-cycles and e-scooters from becoming obstructive to other road users and pedestrians, particularly those with disabilities.