Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of ring-fencing Medical Research Council funds for biomedical research on myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) in order to ensure that overall research funding for ME is proportional to that spent on research into similarly prevalent health conditions.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
I refer my rt. hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk on 20th March 2019 to Question 231931.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with medical training bodies on ensuring that training programs for doctors, nurses and other health professionals include the most up to date guidance on diagnosis and appropriate treatment of myalgic encephalomyelitis.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
There have been no recent discussions between Departmental Ministers and training bodies for doctors, nurses or other health professionals about myalgic encephalomyelitis.
National Health Service employers are responsible for ensuring staff they employ are trained to the required standards to deliver appropriate treatment for patients.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the debate of 24 January 2019 on Appropriate ME Treatment, what recent discussions his Department has had with NICE on the potential merits of fast-tracking the release of the revised NICE guideline on myalgic encephalomyelitis due to be published in October 2020.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department has had no such discussions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and responsible for developing its guidelines in accordance with its published methods and processes. NICE expects to publish its final updated guideline in October 2020 with a consultation on draft guidance starting in April 2020.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the debate of 24 January 2019 on Appropriate ME Treatment, what recent discussions his Department has had with NICE on the potential merits of issuing an interim warning on the potential dangers of graded exercise therapy as a treatment for myalgic encephalomyelitis prior to issuing its revised guideline myalgic encephalomyelitis in October 2020.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Department has had no such discussions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is an independent body and responsible for developing its guidelines in accordance with its published methods and processes. NICE expects to publish its final updated guideline in October 2020 with a consultation on draft guidance starting in April 2020.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, which nations that have trade agreements with the EU have agreed to continue those agreements with the UK after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Hollingbery
Discussions with all partner countries have demonstrated a commitment to finding a pragmatic way to ensure continuity of our existing international agreements.
As part of the Withdrawal Agreement, the EU agreed to notify its treaty partners that the UK be treated as a Member State for the purposes of EU international agreements during the Implementation Period (IP). This includes trade agreements.
A number have already publicly welcomed this approach (Library deposit of 13 September DEP2018-0926 provides a list of countries). Others are, understandably, waiting for the notification to be issued before responding formally.
The Government will continue to do the responsible thing and prepare for all eventualities with partner countries, including a ‘no deal’ scenario. However, when we reach agreement will depend on the progress of these ongoing discussions. The Government will inform Parliament and the public when agreements are signed.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has taken steps to encourage Clinical Commissioning Groups and local authorities to jointly commission (a) short breaks for respite and (b) other children’s palliative care services.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
NHS England and the Department expects clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and local authorities to work collaboratively to commission appropriate respite and palliative care services for children with life-limiting conditions, to make the most efficient and effective use of health and social care funding.
NHS England’s ‘Choice Commitment for end of life care’ document recognises that children’s palliative care is particularly dependent on this good collaboration between clinical and non-clinical services across a variety of settings. NHS England has also provided support to CCGs in this area in the form of a joint NHS 10 Point Efficiency Plan with NHS Improvement.
NHS England is also working with colleagues across the National Health Service and local authorities to ensure the health and care needs of specific patient groups, including children’s palliative care services, are planned collaboratively where appropriate. This includes working with commissioners, clinicians, voluntary, community and social enterprises, local authorities and people with lived experience to refresh the children’s palliative and end of life care service specification and the commissioning pathway to reflect collective responsibilities across health and social care. Work will continue on this until spring 2019.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what representations she has received on how section 106 of the Equality Act 2010 could be implemented; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
We have received a number of representations regarding section 106, as we have for other uncommenced provisions from the Equality Act 2010, and we continue to keep these provisions under review. Equality is never a one-time fix and it is right that we should keep re-examining the issues.
This Parliament is the most gender and LGBT diverse ever, but there is still more to do. Political parties are responsible for their candidate selection and should lead the way in improving women’s representation. Many are already doing so.
The Government’s Suffrage Centenary Fund is supporting a number of projects that aim to increase women’s participation in politics, and earlier this year we announced funding for disabled candidates to meet the costs of campaigning, primarily for the forthcoming English local elections in 2019.
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 14 September 2018 to Question 173568 on Refugees: Families and with reference to table as_21_q of the Home Office Asylum tables volume 5, how many of the refugee family reunion visas that were granted in 2017 were subsequently used.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The information requested is not published. The available information relates to refugee family reunion visa granted, published in the quarterly Immigration Statistics at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release .
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 14 September 2018 to Question 173569 on Refugees: Families and with reference to the Figure 4 of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report entitled A re-inspection of the family reunion process, focusing on applications received at the Amman Entry Clearance Decision Making Centre November 2017 – April 2018 published in September 2018, how many of the 81 family reunion applications referred for consideration for leave outside the rules in 2017 were subsequently granted.
Answered by Caroline Nokes
The information requested is not available. The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration’s report did not publish full data on the number of cases referred for consideration of leave outside the rules which were subsequently granted and this information does not form part of published immigration statistics.
Published Home Office statistics relating to family reunion applications can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2018/list-of-tables#asylum
Asked by: Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether all primary schools are required to deliver an LGBT-inclusive curriculum.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The national curriculum is designed to be accessible and relevant to all pupils. Schools are expected to ensure that teaching is inclusive of the needs of all pupils and must comply with the Equality Act.
The Department is making Relationships Education compulsory in all primary schools and Health Education compulsory in all state-funded primary schools. The Department has launched a public consultation on the draft regulations and guidance for these subjects. The draft guidance is clear that all pupils should feel that the content is relevant to them and that there should be an opportunity to explore the features of stable and healthy same-sex relationships.
The consultation, which closes on 7 November, can be found here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/pshe/relationships-education-rse-health-education/.
Independent schools are already required by the independent school standards to provide personal, social, health and economic education to all pupils of compulsory school age.