Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what is the current backlog of appeals awaiting adjudication by the Planning Inspectorate (a) in each region and (b) nationally.
Answered by Lee Rowley
Region | Open Appeals as at 31st August 2021 |
East Midlands | 595 |
East of England | 1,991 |
London | 3,589 |
North East | 172 |
North West | 703 |
South East | 2,762 |
South West | 1,125 |
West Midlands | 768 |
Yorkshire & Humberside | 656 |
No Region Recorded | 67 |
Total | 12,428 |
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when the review of the contractual arrangements under which NHS dental treatment is carried out will be completed.
Answered by Will Quince
In July 2022, we announced measures to improve the National Health Service dental system and in ‘Our plan for patients’ published in September 2022. This aims to increase access for patients, including those with greater oral health needs and ensure that dentists are fairly rewarded for the delivery of NHS care. Further information on improving access for patients, including in the South West, will be available later in the autumn.
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take urgent steps to improve the availability and quality of NHS dental treatment in Torridge and West Devon constituency.
Answered by Will Quince
In July 2022, we announced measures to improve the National Health Service dental system and in ‘Our plan for patients’ published in September 2022. This aims to increase access for patients, including those with greater oral health needs and ensure that dentists are fairly rewarded for the delivery of NHS care. Further information on improving access for patients, including in the South West, will be available later in the autumn.
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps he is taking to protect people who have signed up to the Help to Buy Scheme from property developers altering completion dates of their building programmes to a date beyond the closure of that scheme; and what assessment he has made of the scale of that issue across the UK.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Opposition Chief Whip (Commons)
Homes England have set out deadlines which are 31 October 2022 for customer applications for the scheme, 31December 2022 for practical completion of the house build and 31 March 2023 for the legal completion date. These dates were designed to ensure all transactions have time to complete and provide consumers with the confidence that their purchase would be completed prior to the scheme closing.
Homes England have been clear developers should only take customer orders on properties that can meet these deadlines.
Customers who are not able to use the Help to Buy scheme maybe able to use one of the other government schemes to help them purchase a home. Details of these schemes can be found at https://www.ownyourhome.gov.uk/
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of funding the construction of defibrillator networks from the NHS central budget.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No specific assessment has been made. However, in partnership with The British Heart Foundation, the Resuscitation Council UK and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, NHS England and NHS Improvement have developed ‘The Circuit’; a database to register defibrillators in the United Kingdom. This will assist ambulance services to identify the nearest defibrillator at the time of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the cost of building the Government's planned national network of defibrillators; and what proportion of that cost his Department will cover.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No estimate has been made as the Government has not funded the network. We have encouraged communities and organisations in England to consider purchasing a defibrillator as part of first aid equipment, particularly in locations where there are high concentrations of people. Many community defibrillators have since been provided in public locations through national lottery funding, community fundraising schemes, workplace funding or by charities.
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to simplify the online visa application process; what recent assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of the format of that process; and if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of making that process available in (a) Ukrainian and (b) other languages.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Home Office is continually making efforts to simplify the application process for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion, and keeps this under regular review.
As a result of this continuing review, the webpage for the Ukrainian Family scheme and the factsheet for Ukrainians looking to apply for the Homes for Ukraine Scheme are available in English, Russian and Ukrainian.
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the average time taken is for registrations of land by the land registry in each of the last three years; and what recent assessment he has made of adequacy of the efficiency of the land registry.
Answered by Paul Scully
HM Land Registry (HMLR) processed over 135,000 information service requests or applications to change the Land Register every day in 2021/22.
Approximately 88% were information service requests. Over 90% of these were delivered instantly via digital services, with the remainder delivered within three days. Applications to change the Register make up the other 12% of requests and vary widely in type and complexity.
Both customer demand and HMLR’s overall output is higher than three years ago. At the same time, HMLR has focused a greater proportion of its resource on the less frequent, but more complex applications that it best supports the needs of all customers. As a result, and while precise comparisons with three years ago are not straightforward due to differences in processes for customers and categorisation of case type, this rebalancing has increased the average waiting time for all cases, despite the increase in overall output. Over the last quarter, the average time to process changes for all cases was 7 weeks compared to 4 weeks during the same period last year. The time taken to process an application to change the Register should not impact a property sale because it takes place after a transaction has completed. However, if a delay might have a negative impact on future transactions, customers can request for any change to be fast tracked for no extra cost. HMLR is currently processing up to an average 950 of these applications each day (up from around 550 in April 2021). It has maintained a 95% rate of completion within 10 working days across all fast tracked applications.
HMLR is making significant investment in long-term transformation. In the next three years it will have automated most applications to amend the Register and re-focused its expert caseworkers onto processing the most complex applications. It will also have started to improve the quality and accessibility of geospatial data to realise its vision of a fully informed property market that supports the wider economy.
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to ensure that the DVLA (a) clears the backlog of driving licence applications and (b) expedites the time taken for applicants to receive their renewed licences.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The quickest and easiest way to apply for a driving licence is by using the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s online service. There are no delays in successful online applications and customers should receive their licence within a few days.
However, many people still choose or have to make a paper application and the DVLA receives around 60,000 items of mail every day. The Government understands the impact that delays in processing paper applications can have on the daily lives of individuals and the DVLA is working hard to reduce waiting times. The DVLA has introduced additional online services, recruited more staff, increased overtime working and has opened new customer service centres in Swansea and Birmingham to reduce backlogs and provide future resilience. These measures are having a positive impact.
The backlog of vehicle paper applications has already been eliminated. Straightforward vocational driving licence applications and renewals are being processed within five working days with no backlog. The DVLA is on track to return to normal turnaround times on all paper driving licence applications by the end of May. Most straightforward paper driving licence applications are now being processed in around five weeks. Information on processing times for key DVLA workstreams is published online here.
The more complex driving licence applications where the customer has a medical condition(s) that must be investigated will take longer to recover. This area was targeted for industrial action by the Public and Commercial Services union last year and also DVLA cases were deprioritised by the NHS at a number of points during the pandemic. The large majority of applicants renewing an existing licence will be able to continue driving while their application is being processed, providing the driver can meet specific criteria. More information can be found online here.
Asked by: Geoffrey Cox (Conservative - Torridge and Tavistock)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's policy is on ensuring that those who assisted UK efforts in Afghanistan are referred to the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme; and what assessment she has made of the potential merits of expanding the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy to include applicants who were not directly employed by UK armed forces.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) commenced on 6th January. The ACRS will provide up to 20,000 women, children and others at risk with a safe and legal route to resettle in the UK. This includes those who supported the UK and international community effort in Afghanistan, as well as those who are particularly vulnerable, such as women and girls at risk and members of minority groups.
The first to be resettled under the new ACRS will be some of those already evacuated and in the UK. They include women’s rights activists, journalists, and prosecutors, as well as the Afghan families of British Nationals. From Spring, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will refer refugees to the scheme, based on assessments of protection need.
In Year One, we will also resettle individuals who supported the UK and international community effort in Afghanistan, including those British Council and GardaWorld contractors and Chevening alumni who are most at risk. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will be in touch with those eligible to support them through the next steps.
There will not be an application process for the ACRS. More detail on the three referral pathways can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/afghan-citizens-resettlement-scheme.
The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy was expanded in December 2021 to accommodate individuals not directly employed by UK armed forces.