Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of businesses that are (a) without flood insurance and (b) eligible for business recovery grants.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government does not collect data on the proportion of businesses that are without flood insurance.
Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in England are in principle eligible to receive the Department for Business and Trades Business Recovery Grant as long as they:
It is for a local authority to make an assessment on who qualifies for a Business Recovery Grant in the light of all the criteria and circumstances on the ground.
If they are in an eligible area and have suffered internal flooding, they should contact their local authority to understand if they can also Defra’s Property Flood Resilience recovery grant, which provides for up to £5,000 to install measure to make eligible properties more resilient to future flooding.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help improve the support provided to people with Complex Trauma Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Integrated Care Boards have a statutory responsibility to commission healthcare and develop strategic clinical plans, covering a wide range of health care services, based on the needs of their local population.
Nationally, we are investing to increase access and improve the quality of mental health services. Thanks to this investment, since 2018/19 there has been an 11% increase in the number of adults accessing NHS Talking Therapies. We are set to reach nearly £1 billon of investment by 2023/2024, to transform community mental health services, the largest area of investment within the Long Term Plan for mental health, so that more people can be supported with the care that is most appropriate for their needs and that is integrated between primary and community mental health services.
This includes new integrated community models, offering improved access to NHS Talking Therapies, improved physical health care, employment support, personalised and trauma informed care, medicines management and support for self-harm.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce diagnosis times of Complex Trauma Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Integrated Care Boards have a statutory responsibility to commission healthcare and develop strategic clinical plans, covering a wide range of health care services, based on the needs of their local population.
Nationally, we are investing to increase access and improve the quality of mental health services. Thanks to this investment, since 2018/19 there has been an 11% increase in the number of adults accessing NHS Talking Therapies. We are set to reach nearly £1 billon of investment by 2023/2024, to transform community mental health services, the largest area of investment within the Long Term Plan for mental health, so that more people can be supported with the care that is most appropriate for their needs and that is integrated between primary and community mental health services.
This includes new integrated community models, offering improved access to NHS Talking Therapies, improved physical health care, employment support, personalised and trauma informed care, medicines management and support for self-harm.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will have discussions with providers of the Flood Re scheme on the potential merits of extending the scheme to cover businesses.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Flood Re scheme allows for insurers to offer discounted premiums to domestic properties. Flood Re is funded via a levy on UK household insurers. Expanding the scope of Flood Re to cover businesses would create a new levy on businesses, and could result in businesses across the country, and indirectly customers, subsidising profit-making organisations located at flood risk.
There is no evidence of a systemic problem for businesses at high flood risk not accessing insurance.
Businesses in high flood risk areas can shop around for the best insurance quote and could consider using an appropriate broker. There are a number of products being offered to businesses by the industry such as the British Insurers Brokers’ Association (BIBA) Commercial Property scheme to help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and provide flood cover for those that are ineligible for Flood Re.
We are working with the insurance industry and the wider commercial sector to help businesses become more resilient to flooding through the joint government and industry Property Flood Resilience (PFR) roundtable.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that (a) receiving councils are (i) involved in and (ii) able to object to decisions relating to out of county placements of looked after children and (b) adequate handovers take place between relevant service providers when such a placement is made.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The ‘Care Planning, Placement and Care Review (England) Regulations 2010’ and statutory guidance outline duties on local authorities regarding out of area placements, including to notify and consult other local authorities if they place a child in care within their area. A link to the regulations is available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/959/contents/made. The statutory guidance is also available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60e6fb43d3bf7f56896127e5/The_Children_Act_1989_guidance_and_regulations_Volume_2_care_planning__placement_and_case_review.pdf.
The needs of the child are paramount when deciding the right care placement. Though the department wants to reduce out of area placements, they will always be part of the care landscape and sometimes circumstances make it the right decision for a child to be placed elsewhere, for example when they are at risk from sexual exploitation, trafficking or gang violence.
The government recognises that there are challenges in the placements market and that is why the government is investing £259 million of capital funding to help local authorities create more beds in their local areas. The funding for open residential placements, match-funded equally by the department and local authority investment, is expected to create 95 new children’s homes, providing 360 additional placements across England.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to promote careers for young people in science and technology industries.
Answered by Robert Halfon
High-quality careers guidance is key to helping young people to find out about and consider a wide range of future options, including careers in the science and technology industries.
The department funds The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) to support schools and colleges to deliver high-quality careers programmes in line with the government’s careers framework, the Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Career Guidance. The benchmarks include an expectation that secondary schools and colleges should provide at least one meaningful interaction with employers per student per year, with a particular focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) employers. The benchmarks also state that all teachers should link curriculum learning with careers. For example, STEM subject teachers should highlight the relevance of STEM subjects for a wide range of career pathways.
CEC connects business and sector bodies with schools and colleges through a national network of Careers Hubs. Almost 400 Cornerstone Employers provide local leadership to increase opportunities for meaningful employer encounters and workplace experiences. Over 4,000 Enterprise Advisers provide support to schools and colleges in Careers Hubs to help develop their employer engagement plans, including ensuring that STEM encounters are built into careers programmes. Examples of STEM employers funded by the CEC to deliver encounters with young people include Engineering UK, Greenpower Trust and Manufacturing UK.
The STEM Ambassadors programme is a nationwide network of 30,000 volunteers, representing over 7,000 employers, who engage with young people to increase their interest in STEM subjects and to raise awareness of the range of careers that STEM qualifications offer. The department is a partner signatory to the Tomorrow's Engineers Code. Through the code, the department aims to work with the engineering sector to improve the quality, targeting and reach of engineering inspiration activities.
The CEC’s STEM careers webpage includes resources for schools and colleges, as well as information for employers, and is available at: https://www.stem.org.uk/secondary/careers. This includes a STEM toolkit for careers leaders. My Learning My Future resources support teachers to link careers to the curriculum and include several STEM subjects, such as science, biology, physics, chemistry, geography, design technology, computer science/IT, maths. The resources available can be viewed at: https://resources.careersandenterprise.co.uk/my-learning-my-future.
Young people can also access information on a range of digital tools and resources through the National Careers Service website, which is available at: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-careers. More than 800 profiles include jobs like microbiologist, nuclear engineer and web developer within the science and technology sectors.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he is taking steps to increase the information provided by food labelling.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As the Secretary of State discussed in his speech at the Oxford Farming conference, we think there is an opportunity to improve transparency for consumers and ensure fairness for producers, so consumers can be fully confident about what they’re buying. We therefore intend to launch a rapid consultation on clearer labelling.
The consultation will explore options for improving method of production labelling and country-of-origin labelling.
It will explore how we can better highlight imports that do not meet UK welfare standards, and, in terms of country-of-origin labelling, look at improving how and where origin information is displayed - including for minimally processed meat, such as bacon and ham - and what products should be in scope.
The exact details of the consultation will be published in due course.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Groceries Supply Code of Practice for (a) farmers and (b) others impacted.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Groceries Supply Code of Practice (GSCOP) sets out how designated retailers should manage their relationship with suppliers and was intended to protect food and drink suppliers to major supermarkets from being treated unfairly. It is enforced by the Grocery Code Adjudicator (GCA), and the most recent review published in July 2023 found the GCA to be an effective regulator.
However, most farmers do not supply supermarkets directly and so they are not covered by the GSCOP. As a result, powers were introduced in the Agriculture Act 2020 to enable the introduction of statutory codes of contractual practice to protect farmers. Since then we have been undertaking supply chain fairness reviews into different sectors of farming to understand the specific issues that farmers face.
Using these powers, we will be introducing new regulations on contractual standards for the dairy sector. We plan to introduce these into to Parliament before the Easter Recess. We expect to introduce regulations relating to the pork sector later in 2024. Two new supply chain fairness reviews were announced at the UK Farm to Fork summit on 16 May 2023, into the egg and fresh produce supply chains. We will analyse the responses and provide a summary of the findings and set out next steps.
This issue was also discussed in a parliamentary debate that took place on 22 January in which Government set out its plans for supporting farmers.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Red Tractor Assurance Scheme on the competitiveness of British farmers relative to food producers overseas.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
While Red Tractor is not a Government scheme, we recognise how important it is to work closely with industry, which is why the Food Standards Agency has an earned recognition relationship with Red Tractor. We will continue to work with industry bodies on the vital role they play in helping farmers do the right thing – giving communication and advice as well as upholding standards.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she is taking steps to ensure that NHS equipment which is in good condition is recycled for use by other patients.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As set out in the Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service report, published in October 2020, the National Health Service is committed to reducing its environmental impact, including by increasing the reuse and recycling of medical equipment. This commitment is then applied locally, taking into account local priorities, through local Green Plans.
NHS England also collaborates with NHS Supply Chain to increase availability of reusable products and supports local NHS organisations through the publication of guidance and resources to help with implementing changes.
As an example, the NHS has set out ambitions to expand existing walking aid refurbishment schemes. Arrangements for the return and reuse of walking aids are managed locally, to be adapted to the local context, and a number of NHS trusts already have local return and reuse schemes with over 200 return sites now featured on the Recycle Now website, and is available at the following link:
https://www.recyclenow.com/recycle-an-item/walking-aids
NHS England is supporting local NHS organisations to increase walking aid return rates. This includes: providing guidance to trusts on setting up or enhancing reuse schemes and planning communication activities; providing visual material to help communicate locally about the schemes in a consistent way; and directly supporting trusts with their pilot schemes.
Regarding further equipment types, improving resource efficiency forms a key part of the Government’s Medical Technology Strategy, published in February 2023, where we are working with industry, the health and care sector, and academic partners to improve the extent to which we reuse, remanufacture, and recycle many different medical equipment types.