Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what plans he has to coordinate with his P5+1 partners a response to reports Iran has exceeded its permitted stockpile of low-enriched uranium.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
We are extremely concerned about Iran’s announcement. We will continue working with our Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) partners – in particular with Germany and France – to keep the nuclear deal in place. We have been consistently clear with Iran that our commitment to the JCPoA depends on full Iranian compliance. We urge Iran to reverse the steps it has taken. We believe maintaining the nuclear deal is in the best interests of Iran, the region and the UK.
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
What progress the Board of Trade has made on its work programme.
Answered by Liam Fox
The Board of Trade champions exports, as well as inward and outward investment to deliver economic growth and prosperity across the whole of the UK. The Board has met four times, has launched two successful programmes: the BOFTAs and the National Trade Academy Programme - celebrating innovative British exporters and encouraging young people to pursue careers in international trade.
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients have died whilst under the care of inpatient children and adolescent mental health services since January 2013.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Since January 2013, the National Health Service has reported 17 deaths of patients under the care of inpatient children and young people’s mental health services. Following the written statement to Parliament by the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Public Health and Innovation (Nicola Blackwood) on 20 January 2017 (HCWS 427), all deaths of patients under the care of inpatient children and young people’s mental health services are reported to Ministers and the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness which will include the figures in its annual reports.
Patient safety is a key priority for this Government and we published Learning from Deaths guidance to the NHS in 2017 to improve the way the NHS investigates and learns from deaths to prevent future tragedies. My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care also announced a zero suicide ambition for mental health inpatients in January this year, which is supported by £25 million of investment, so that every mental health provider of NHS services has a zero suicide policy in place.
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to ensure that people benefit from the economic growth delivered through the Northern Powerhouse.
Answered by Jake Berry
People who, like me, live in the North are seeing record investment in transport already, releasing the potential of our economy to be more than the sum of its parts. The Northern Powerhouse economy is larger than Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland’s combined: on its own, it would be the 8th largest economy in Europe.
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the timetable is for Greater Manchester to receive the powers set out in the Buses Act 2017.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Bus Services Act 2017 received Royal Assent on 27th April, and the majority of the provisions in the Act commenced on 27th June. Greater Manchester Combined Authority therefore now have access to the franchising and partnership powers set out in the Act.
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to increase the engagement of community organisations in decision making on Neighbourhood Plans.
Answered by Alok Sharma - COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
Over 2,100 groups have started the neighbourhood planning process in areas covering nearly 12 million people. Over 360 plans have successfully passed referendum.
The Neighbourhood Planning Act will further boost community engagement, providing a powerful set of tools for local people to get the development that their communities need.
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what assessment he has made of the contribution of the UK single market to Scotland.
Answered by David Mundell
I refer my honourable Friend to the answer I gave earlier today to the honourable members for Somerton and Frome, Ribble Valley, Pudsey and South Leicestershire.
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that sufficient care home places are available for people with dementia.
Answered by David Mowat
The Care Act (2014) placed duties on local authorities making them responsible for ensuring there is an effective pool of quality providers of social care in their area with capacity to meet the needs of their local population, this includes specialist care needed to support people with dementia. The Department is supporting local authorities to influence their local market through improved market facilitation and commissioning to ensure that local markets are effective.
Local authorities engage with their providers to signal changes needed in capacity including through publishing a Market Position Statement.
The Department has worked with Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, Local Government Association, the care sector and other partners to produce a wide range of guidance and support about market shaping and commissioning. We have brought this together in an on-line Hub that is now published on GOV.UK at the following link:
The Department continues to monitor capacity and effectiveness of the market.
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to provide assistance with the adoption process to British nationals who adopt foreign-born children.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Department for Education is responsible for legislation in relation to intercountry adoption; and provides guidance on the process. The Department does not provide advice on individual cases and independent legal advice may need to be sought. Prospective adopters habitually resident in the UK, who wish to undertake an intercountry adoption need to register with a UK adoption agency, who will lead them through the process.
Information on the intercountry adoption process can be found using the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/child-adoption/adopting-a-child-from-overseas
Asked by: Mary Robinson (Conservative - Cheadle)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of provisions in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Equality Act 2010 in improving access for self-employed disabled people to access professional networking events; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government carried out a post-legislative scrutiny review of the Equality Act 2010 (the Act) in 2015, which can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/post-legislative-memorandum-the-equality-act-2010
The review noted that, in the area of disability, the Act introduced a number of protections that had not been present in the Disability Discrimination Act. These included the extension of indirect discrimination to disability; the introduction of discrimination arising from disability (where a disabled person is treated unfavourably because of something that happens in consequence of their disability); and the extension of the duty on employers and suppliers of goods and services to make reasonable adjustments for disabled persons.
Under the Act, service providers have an anticipatory duty to make such adjustments. This means that where reasonable, they must identify and make the adjustments that disabled people might in future require in order to purchase or use their goods, facilities and services without being put at a substantial disadvantage compared to those that do not have a disability. This duty, which can ultimately be enforced in court, applies to the organisers of professional networking events in the same way as to other service providers.
More widely, the Government is fully committed to assisting disabled people access the labour market, for example through Access to Work. This is the Government’s scheme to fund practical support above and beyond the reasonable adjustments that an employer has a duty to make under the Equality Act 2010 for workers with a health condition or disability that affects the way they perform their job. Support is individually tailored and can include travel to work, support workers and specialist aids and equipment. The scheme is also open to self-employed disabled people.
Access to Work helped 36,470 individuals last year and the Spending Review provided for a real-terms increase in funding, starting in 2016/17, to enable the scheme to support an additional 25,000 people by the end of the Parliament.