Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department uses Office for National Statistics estimates of personal well-being in formulating policy; and what policies his Department has introduced to improve personal well-being in the last 12 months.
Answered by Simon Clarke
HM Treasury uses ONS wellbeing statistics to inform health and wellbeing policy within the department. The Treasury also measures personal wellbeing through the annual Civil Service People Survey using the same national statistics that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) use for the UK population as a whole. The survey includes personal wellbeing questions covering life satisfaction, worthwhile, happiness and anxiety.
Over the past year the department has implemented the following initiatives to support well-being: access to the Wellbeing Gateway that includes quick guides and links to policy and support for the most common wellbeing issues, development of a Wellbeing Hub detailing all the wellbeing and resilience support and training available; provision of ‘Wellbeing Confident Leader’ workshops to the senior civil service (SCS) staff and introduction of the Stress Talking Toolkit to help with the difficult conversations around stress and mental health.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much funding her Department has allocated to accelerate the development of a digital system for processsing Export Health Certificates; when that system will be fully operational.
Answered by George Eustice
The digital system known as Export Health Certificate (EHC) Online will be available on gov.uk and allow exporters to complete and submit an online application for an EHC.
EHC Online will provide a better user experience, automate processes and reduce running costs for the Government.
The technology build is well developed and we are starting to test the system with stakeholders and users. EHC Online will be fully operational by the end of 2019 and we will be rolling this out to exporters, certifiers etc. in a phased way, sector by sector in early 2020.
In fiscal year (FY) 18/19, £7.05 million was invested into the EHC Online system and in FY 19/20 a further £5.31 million has been spent to date. In September, we were allocated approximately £3.15 million of additional funding to support the development of the digital system for processing Export Health Certificates from the Operational Contingency Fund. Until EHC Online is delivered exporters will continue to follow the existing process on gov.uk.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
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 number of (a) children and (b) adults with an obsessive compulsive disorder who have died by suicide in each year for which data is available.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
An assessment has not been made as information on trends in suicide rates among people diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder is not centrally collected.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 21 October 2019 to Question 904, what the campaigns and initiatives referred to in the Answer were; and how many staff took part in each of them.
Answered by Simon Hart - Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Chief Whip)
As referenced in the Answer of 21 October 2019 to Question 904, Cabinet Office has run a number of campaigns and initiatives in the past year to improve the personal wellbeing of staff relating to physical, mental and social wellbeing. The department receives consistently strong engagement rates in activities relating to these campaign events. Whilst we cannot give exact numbers, we estimate that around 2000 members of staff taking part in events and initiatives in the first ten months of 2019, either physically or remotely through the use of video technology.
A breakdown of events can be seen below:
Month | Type of initiative | Staff Engagement |
January | Wellbeing Month - we organised 29 events and training sessions throughout the month, including resilience workshops, park runs, mindfulness sessions and a visit by ‘wellbeing dogs’ | Over 400 people attended workshops, 30 colleagues joined sessions remotely (via google hangout), and hundreds of colleagues visited the wellbeing dogs. |
February | Time to Talk Day events | Circa 50 attended events |
May | Mental Health Awareness Week – 5 talks organised and ‘This is me’ campaign where Cabinet Office staff shared their own personal stories with mental health | Raised £219 by selling green ribbons to staff Circa 500 members of staff took part in this campaign either through buying a ribbon or attending one of the talks |
June | Civil Service Active Wellbeing Week, led by Civil Service Sports Council. To support the week, colleagues across Cabinet Office volunteered their own time to run a series of events, such as bike rides, pilates sessions and wellbeing walks. | As these were organised by volunteers, we do not have an estimated number of staff who attended these events, however they were very popular amongst colleagues. |
September | National Suicide Prevention Day – guest speaker | Circa 50 members of staff attended the talk on the day, and a further 150 watched the talk remotely through the use of video technology. |
September | Know Your Numbers Week. A national campaign led by Blood Pressure UK to encourage staff to know their vital health statistics, such as blood pressure, heart rate, hydration and body mass index. As part of this event, we arranged for health check kiosks to be made available for staff in our London and Newcastle offices | A total of 683 people using these kiosks. In addition, 30 people took part in the smoothie bike challenge which formed part of the event |
October | Cabinet Office encouraged staff to stop smoking for 28 days as part of the Stoptober campaign. We promoted this campaign via the intranet and set up stalls manned by specialist stop smoking advisors | Circa 30 people visited stalls |
October | World Mental Health Day. This included a tea & talk session, a panel discussion and a mental wellbeing workshop. | Around 300 people took part in these events, with a further 200 people buying green ribbons to support the day |
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 18 October 2019 to Question 74 on Government Departments: Data Protection, if she will place in the Library a copy of each Government department's contingency plan.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport does not hold contingency plans for departments centrally. DCMS has worked with government departments to assess data protection risks and support their mitigating activity. Departmental contingency plans are individually owned by departments, which are responsible for mitigating their own data risks.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many and what proportion of burglaries were committed in the (a) Vale of Clwyd constituency and (b) North Wales Police area in each year since 2010; and how many and what proportion of those burglaries involved a violent assault.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Home Office collects data on the number of burglaries recorded by the police in England and Wales and these data are published quarterly. It is not possible to separately identify the number of burglaries that involved a violent assault in the information that we hold centrally. However, data is available on the number of aggravated burglary offences. These includes burglaries in which an offender is in possession of any firearm or imitation firearm, other weapon or explosive at the time of committing the offence.
Data for North Wales Police Force Area and for Vale of Clwyd constituency (Denbighshire Community Safety Partnership (CSP) encompasses this constituency) can be found in open data tables here back to the financial year 2002/03:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-recorded-crime-open-data-tables
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of six month prison sentences for criminals on re-offending rates.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are clear that sentencing must match the severity of a crime and public protection is our priority.
The latest proven reoffending rate for offenders released from sentences of six months or less in the quarter July to September 2017 was almost two thirds (64.8%).
That is why, one of the first acts by this Prime Minister was to order an urgent review of sentencing, which included looking at changes to sentencing for the most prolific offenders which could help break the cycle of re-offending. Based on the findings of this review, we have announced a Sentencing Bill, which will contain proposals for community penalties that offer an appropriate level of punishment, while tackling the underlying drivers of re-offending.
Custody should be available as a last resort, but if we are to break the cycle of reoffending, solutions will often lie in community sentences, including those which address offenders’ behaviour, answer their mental health and alcohol or drug misuse needs, or provide reparation for the benefit of the wider community.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 17 October 2019 to Question 70, how many full impact assessments for measures greater than £5 million his Department has undertaken.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
DfT has completed and published four full impact assessments for EU Exit measures.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department uses Office for National Statistics estimates of personal well-being in formulating policy; and what policies his Department has introduced to improve personal well-being in the past 12 months.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
This Government recognises the important role transport plays in connecting communities, which is why we have committed £72 billion in capital spending over the five years until 2020/21.
In the past 12 months the Department for Transport has also introduced several initiatives that contribute to improving personal well-being.
Reflecting buses’ vital role in connecting communities and reducing isolation, in September 2019 the Government announced a £220 million package to transform bus services. This included £30 million extra funding for local authorities to enable them to improve current bus services or to restore lost services. This funding is additional to the over £2 billion of existing public sector support for buses.
In the Government’s 2018 Loneliness Strategy the Department made several commitments, including:
Building partnerships with transport providers and community groups who are developing initiatives for how transport can be used as a means for tackling loneliness
Putting the need for inclusive transport at the heart of our approach to the Future of Mobility Grand Challenge
Supporting community groups wishing to make use of unused or underused railway property
Providing funding to the Community Transport Association for driver training, recognising the key role they play in connecting their local community
Working with seven Mobility Centres in England to pilot ‘community hubs’ which will help support those that are at risk of loneliness
In July 2019, Nusrat Ghani announced the following as part of the one year anniversary of the Inclusive Transport Strategy:
That 73 stations would receive a share of £300 million for the Access for All Fund, delivering accessibility improvements between 2019 and 2024
That 22 Motorway Service Areas will receive a share of a £2 million fund, run in partnership with Muscular Dystrophy UK, for fully accessible Changing Places toilet facilities
The extension of the Blue Badge eligibility criteria to include people with non-visible disabilities
The Government is also committed to increasing cycling and walking and making our roads safer for vulnerable users – our aim is to double cycling and increase walking by 2025. Almost £2 billion is therefore being invested in cycling and walking over this Parliament through the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy.
In the development of policy, the Department uses a wide range of evidence, including data from across ONS sources. We are continuing to build our understanding in this area and plan to shortly publish a social behavioural literature review into the impact of transport on wellbeing.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the Answer of 17 October 2019 to Question 140 on Electricity Generation, when she plans to publish that forthcoming White Paper.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
We intend to publish an Energy White Paper in the first three months of 2020.