Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the UK will continue to test pork for the parasitic worm trichinae under the terms of a future UK-US trade agreement.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government is proud of the high food safety and animal welfare standards that underpin our high-quality Great British produce. The UK will maintain its high standards as part of any future free trade agreements.
Regulation 2015/1375 lays down specific rules on official controls for Trichinella in meat, including the testing of pig carcases, and will be transposed into national law to ensure food safety protection is maintained. This protection will continue after we leave the EU.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been deprived of British citizenship; how many of those people held dual-citizenship; and whether that dual citizenship was (a) current and (b) subject to a re-application since 2014.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The British Nationality Act 1981 provides the Secretary of State with powers to deprive a person of citizenship status. Section 40(2) allows the Secretary of State to deprive any person of British citizenship, should they deem it conducive to the public good to do so.
Three reports have been published to date in 2015, 2017 and 2018, which provide figures for section 40(2) deprivations, those where the Home Office has deemed that to deprive individuals of their citizenship is conducive to the public good. Figures for May 2010 to December 2014 are included in the 2015 report, figures for 2015 are in the 2017 report and the annual figures for 2016 and 2017 are listed in the 2018 report. The links to these reports are below:
In every decision taken under section 40(2), the Secretary of State was satisfied that the individual was a dual national at the point of deprivation and so was not left stateless, therefore no application was required.
Data relating to deprivation on fraud grounds under section 40 (3) is not currently published. Section 40(3) allows the Secretary of State to deprive a person who has obtained citizenship by naturalisation or registration, where the Secretary of State is satisfied that citizenship was obtained by means of fraud, false representation or concealment of material fact. The bar on rendering a person stateless following deprivation, does not apply to decisions taken under section 40(3).
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
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 ensure that the ban on gestation crates for pigs will remain in force in the event of a future UK-US trade agreement.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government is proud of the high food safety and animal welfare standards that underpin our high-quality Great British produce. The UK will maintain its high standards as part of any future free trade agreements.
In the UK, close-confinement stalls for breeding sows have been banned since 1999. The Welfare of Farmed Animals (England) Regulations 2007 requires all sows and gilts to be kept in groups. This protection will continue after we leave the EU.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether it is her Department's policy not to permit job centre staff to issue food bank referral forms to benefit claimants.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Jobcentre managers have discretion to work with a wide range of external partners, including food banks, where they are invited to do so. The Department has long-standing guidance in place which allows staff to signpost customers in writing to a food bank where they have expressed an interest in using one and if all sources of statutory support have been exhausted. We are also exploring how we can build on current good practice to make it as easy as possible for food banks to identify and refer back to the local Jobcentre any customers who may, for a variety of reasons, not be receiving the full formal support to which they are entitled.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what representations his Department has made to the Government of Pakistan on removing derogatory references to (a) Ahmadis and (b) other minorities from the education curricula in that country.
Answered by Alistair Burt
HMG regularly raises freedom of religious belief issues at the highest levels with Pakistan government counterparts. In January, I met the Hon Shafqat Mahmood, Pakistan Federal Minister for Education, and his provincial counterparts. The agenda for this meeting included ending discrimination and improving the inclusion of all children in Pakistan through education.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to help reform the education curricula in Pakistan to remove derogatory references to Ahmadis and other minorities.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Working with the provincial governments of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) DFID has supported improvements to primary English, Urdu, mathematics and general knowledge textbooks. In Punjab DFID has also supported the government to revise the primary curriculum in core subjects. HMG regularly raises freedom of religious belief issues at the highest levels with Pakistan government counterparts. DFID’s investments in education in Punjab and KP have supported 10 million primary and nearly 6 million secondary children.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of funding local government receives to deliver children’s services.
Answered by Rishi Sunak - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union
Funding for local government services, including children’s services, is set at Spending Review. The Chancellor has announced that the next Spending Review will be in 2019 and decisions about the future funding of local government will be taken in the round.
We are working with the Department for Education (DfE) and the sector to develop an understanding of children’s services costs and pressures, and to help local authorities innovate and reform services to achieve better quality and efficiency.
In preparation for the Spending Review, and as part of the Government’s review of relative needs and resources, new, up-to-date formulas are being developed to ensure funding distribution to councils is based on the best available evidence. DfE and MHCLG have commissioned an ambitious data research project from independent contractors to inform this work.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of total public expenditure is spent on children’s services delivered by local government.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
As outlined in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s October 2018 Economic and Fiscal Outlook, total managed expenditure was £793.8bn in 2017/18 and will increase to £812.8bn in 2018/19.
Local authority spending on children’s services in 2017/18 was £9.4bn. Councils have access to over £200 billion to deliver local services, including children’s services, between 2015/16 and 2019/20 and local government core spending power will increase in real terms next year.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the overspend on children’s services in the 2017-18 financial year; and how much additional investment for children’s services was announced in Budget 2018.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Local authorities are required under Section 251 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act (2009) to submit education and children’s social care budget and expenditure statements. This data is published in statistical releases annually. The most recent release shows a difference of approximately £1 billion in 2017 to 2018 when their planned spend is compared to their actual spend.
At Autumn Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extra £410 million to address pressures on adult and children social care services, along with £84 million over five years to support up to 20 local authorities to improve their social work practice and decision-making, enabling them to work more effectively with the most vulnerable children and their families. This builds on the £200 billion the government has already made available to councils up to 2020 to provide services in the best interests of local residents, including those for children and young people.
Asked by: Roger Godsiff (Labour - Birmingham, Hall Green)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the appropriateness of NHS trusts referring to debt collection agencies requests for payment by non-UK citizens of NHS maternity and other essential health care.
Answered by Stephen Hammond
The Department has recently reviewed the impact of changes introduced by the Amendment Regulations with a particular focus on the extent to which there are any unintended consequences for the most vulnerable. The outcomes of this review will be published in due course.
The Department does not collect data on the number of women who do not access maternity care because of concerns about National Health Service charging policies.
The national guidance is clear that NHS maternity treatment should always be considered as immediately necessary and provided to all patients regardless of whether or not they are entitled to receive it free of charge or there are doubts about whether they could pay if subsequently found to be chargeable under the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015, as amended.
Providers of NHS care need to ensure that they take necessary and appropriate steps to recover the cost of providing treatment to those not entitled to NHS-funded care. National guidance recommends that providers of NHS care should consider employing the services of a debt recovery agency that specialises in the recovery of overseas debt except in relation to persons whom it is clear to the relevant body will be unable to pay.