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 has taken steps to help ensure that the Grain Passport Scheme is carried out digitally.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The digitisation of the grain passport in the arable supply chain is an industry led initiative run through the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board led Digital Passport Leadership Group.
The group are currently consulting on delivery of the digitisation of the passport. Following this, the Group will review the responses and decide on a way forward.
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 merits of empowering the Groceries Code Adjudicator to provide additional protections for farmers who are at risk of unfair practices.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has already launched a review to increase fairness in the fresh produce supply chain in December 2023, building on what we have already got underway to improve transparency and contracts in the pork and dairy markets and the. Following this, we will analyse the responses and consider the need for providing additional protections for farmers at risk of unfair practices.
This review seeks to understand issues relating to fairness in the supply chain across the whole of the UK. If responses indicate there are contractual issues that we believe we should seek to address, the powers in the Agriculture Act apply to the whole of the UK. If regulations are developed, we will engage widely with stakeholders, including the devolved administrations, to ensure that legislation works for all parts of the UK and incorporate special provision for differing circumstances, if necessary.
A parliamentary debate is scheduled for 22 January to debate reforming the grocery supply code of practice to better protect farmers where the issues you’ve raised will be discussed.
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 steps he is taking to increase protections for farmers who sell produce to supermarkets.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has already launched a review to increase fairness in the fresh produce supply chain in December 2023, building on what we have already got underway to improve transparency and contracts in the pork and dairy markets and the. Following this, we will analyse the responses and consider the need for providing additional protections for farmers at risk of unfair practices.
This review seeks to understand issues relating to fairness in the supply chain across the whole of the UK. If responses indicate there are contractual issues that we believe we should seek to address, the powers in the Agriculture Act apply to the whole of the UK. If regulations are developed, we will engage widely with stakeholders, including the devolved administrations, to ensure that legislation works for all parts of the UK and incorporate special provision for differing circumstances, if necessary.
A parliamentary debate is scheduled for 22 January to debate reforming the grocery supply code of practice to better protect farmers where the issues you’ve raised will be discussed.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps he is taking to help grow Northern Ireland's economy.
Answered by Steve Baker - Minister of State (Northern Ireland Office)
The Government is committed to supporting Northern Ireland’s economy. The Northern Ireland Investment Summit in September 2023 welcomed 180 investors, and generous funding packages are creating jobs, developing skills, supporting businesses and attracting FDI, including through the £617m UK Government investment into the four City and Growth Deals in Northern Ireland and the British Business Bank’s £70m Investment Fund. Northern Ireland is now positioned for an era of transformational success with a financial package worth in excess of £3bn to a returning Executive, plus unique arrangements for trade across the UK, the EU and the world, together with a range of government packages of support.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department is taking steps to help reduce average processing times for cases with the Legal Ombudsman.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Under the Legal Services Act 2007, the legal profession in England and Wales, together with its regulators, operate independently of government. The oversight regulator for the legal services sector is the Legal Services Board (LSB). The Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) is the board responsible for administering the Legal Ombudsman Scheme (LeO), and as such, the OLC is required to report on the performance of the Legal Ombudsman to the LSB.
The OLC and LeO have been transparent that waiting times experienced by consumers and legal providers needing input from LeO remain too long. Against a backdrop of increasing demand, LeO has made progress in reducing waiting times in recent years. A key driver of improvements to date has been the introduction of early resolution approaches from 2022/23. Before this transformation, all complaints referred to LeO would have been put in a queue waiting to be assessed. Today, over half of complaints are resolved through early resolution and customers can expect to have their cases resolved within an average of 60 days.
Following a consultation process in 2021, new Scheme Rules were introduced on 1 April 2023. These rules were designed to enable the LeO to further improve the customers’ experience by increasing efficiency and removing obstacles to resolving complaints, helping to ensure they are able to give an outcome at the earliest possible stage. So far in 2023/24 44% of all cases have been resolved within 90 days. In 2021/22 80% were taking more than 180 days.
Further steps the LeO has taken to improve its efficiency, and in turn improve customers’ experience, are outlined in the OLC’s most recent annual report and accounts, draft strategy and business plan, published at https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/who-we-are/corporate-publications/. These include a focus improving the quality of legal providers’ own complaints handling, as one way of helping address rising demand for LeO’s service.
Asked by: Laurence Robertson (Conservative - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of delays in processing open cases by the Legal Ombudsman on the finances of people who have open cases.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Under the Legal Services Act 2007, the legal profession in England and Wales, together with its regulators, operate independently of government. The oversight regulator for the legal services sector is the Legal Services Board (LSB). The Office for Legal Complaints (OLC) is the board responsible for administering the Legal Ombudsman Scheme (LeO), and as such, it is required to report on the performance of the Legal Ombudsman to the LSB.
The LeO has a process for prioritising cases where a consumer’s circumstances mean that their complaint needs resolving urgently. Financial circumstances are one of the factors that can be considered. This information would be held on an individual case-by-case basis, but the LeO does not systematically holds records about consumers’ finances.
If the LeO decides that a consumer has experienced financial or non-financial loss as a result of a legal provider’s failings, then the remedy it awards will be assessed at the point the LeO directs it to be made. This would mean a consumer doesn’t lose out as a result of the length of time it has taken for their case to go through the LeO’s process, irrespective of the reasons for this.
The Ministry of Justice does not intend to assess the time taken by the Legal Ombudsman to process cases and the financial impact this may have on consumers. Instead, it continues to monitor the LeO’s ongoing performance through regular assurance letters provided by the OLC to the LSB. In an assurance letter provided to the LSB on 28 November 2023, the OLC stated that LeO’s operational performance continues to make progress with improvements in timelines and wait times. At the queue’s peak in 2022, customers could expect to wait up to 16 to 24 months before their complaint reached an investigator. Half of LeO’s customers’ cases are now resolved by early resolution, with no wait time. Latest figures (December 23) show the average journey time for customers whose complaints are resolved through early resolutions has fallen from 68 days in April 2023 to 42 days in December 2023. For those customers whose complaints are investigated, journey times have also reduced in the same period. Against a backdrop of an increase in demand, the LeO has made progress in reducing waiting times in recent years and anticipates a 30% reduction by the end of the year. So far in 2023/24 44% of all cases have been resolved within 90 days. In 2021/22 80% were taking more than 180 days.
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 (a) is and (b) plans to take steps to help increase the median survival rate for people with glioblastoma.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to improving the survival rates for all cancers. The Department and NHS England are working on implementing interventions to diagnose cancer early, when often there are more curative treatment options, is associated with better survival.
To find and diagnosed all cancers earlier, NHS England is streamlining cancer pathways to support diagnosis within 28 days by implementing non-symptom specific pathways for patients who present with non-specific symptoms that can indicate several cancers, as well as implementing timed cancer pathways.
Since 2019, cancer alliances have been developing new dedicated urgent diagnostic pathways for these patients so that every cancer patient with concerning, but non-specific symptoms, gets the right tests at the right time in as few visits as possible.
In May 2018, the Government announced £40 million for brain tumour research as part of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). This includes research into glioblastoma. NIHR has funded four projects into glioblastoma research since financial year 2018, with a combined total funding value of £2.7 million.
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, if she will make an estimate of the number of school-age children who have been waiting for an autism diagnosis for longer than six months; and if she will make an assessment with the Secretary of State for Education of the potential impact of delays in autism diagnoses on secondary school examinations.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Data on the number of school-age children who have been waiting for an autism diagnosis for longer than six months is not held centrally. The autism assessment waiting times data published on 14 September 2023 showed that the number of people aged between zero and 17 years old with an open referral for suspected autism was 84,054 in June 2023. The data also showed that, in June 2023, 6.7% of patients, or 4,581, aged between zero and 17 years old with an open suspected autism referral in the month, that has been open for at least 13 weeks, received a first appointment in 13 weeks or less. Data on the number of children and young people in this dataset is expected to be an underestimate. The subsequent waiting times publication is 14 December 2023.
Whilst we have no plans to make an assessment on the potential impact of delays in autism diagnoses on examinations in secondary schools, we recognise the importance of early identification of neurodiverse conditions, such as autism, so that an individual’s needs can be identified sooner, and support put in place earlier in life, including the support that autistic children should receive.
The Department of Health and Social Care is working closely with the Department for Education to ensure that children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND), including autistic children, receive the right support, in the right place, at the right time. We are doing this through working together to implement the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan, which was published on 2 March 2023.
On 22 November 2023, we announced the Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools programme. This new programme, backed by £13 million of investment, is a partnership between the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Education and NHS England, and will bring together integrated care boards (ICBs), local authorities, and schools, working in partnership with parents and carers to support schools to better meet the needs of neurodiverse children, including autistic children and those who are undiagnosed or awaiting an assessment.
In relation to examinations, access arrangements can be agreed with exam boards for candidates with specific needs, including special educational needs and disabilities, to help them access assessments to show what they know and can do without affecting the integrity of the assessment.
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 she is taking to ensure that NICE clinical guidelines on Brain tumours (primary) and brain metastases in over 16s reflects the latest data from clinical trials on (a) diagnosis and (b) management of patients.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for developing authoritative, evidence-based guidelines for the National Health Service on best practice based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. NICE keeps its guidelines under review and uses the best available evidence to develop its recommendations. Its surveillance programme proactively explores whether there is any new evidence to contradict, reinforce or clarify its guideline recommendations.
NICE’s guideline on brain tumours and brain metastases in people aged 16 years old or over was most recently updated in 2021 and makes recommendations on the management of grade IV gliomas. The NHS is expected to take NICE guidelines fully into account in ensuring that services meet the needs of their local populations.
In May 2018, the Government announced £40 million for brain tumour research as part of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research. This includes funding for glioblastoma research.
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 recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of (a) clinical trials and (b) other treatment options for glioblastoma.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for developing authoritative, evidence-based guidelines for the National Health Service on best practice based on an assessment of clinical and cost effectiveness. NICE keeps its guidelines under review and uses the best available evidence to develop its recommendations. Its surveillance programme proactively explores whether there is any new evidence to contradict, reinforce or clarify its guideline recommendations.
NICE’s guideline on brain tumours and brain metastases in people aged 16 years old or over was most recently updated in 2021 and makes recommendations on the management of grade IV gliomas. The NHS is expected to take NICE guidelines fully into account in ensuring that services meet the needs of their local populations.
In May 2018, the Government announced £40 million for brain tumour research as part of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research. This includes funding for glioblastoma research.