Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) are required to monitor the number and proportion of GP appointments in their commissioning area which are being delivered face to face.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
There is currently no target for the proportion of appointments in general practice which must be delivered face to face. However, practices should respect preferences for in person appointments unless there are good clinical reasons.
Commissioners use information collected locally alongside data gathered from other sources, such as the Quality and Outcomes Framework, to plan and improve general practitioner (GP) services. NHS Digital publishes GP appointment data, from planned activity recorded in GP appointment book systems, which includes face to face appointments at clinical commissioning group level. As set out in ‘Our plan for improving access for patients and supporting general practice’, NHS Digital is working to publish activity and waiting time data at individual practice level as soon as possible. This will include the proportions of appointment by different professions and by different appointment modality.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether there is a target for the proportion of GP patient appointments which are delivered face to face.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
There is currently no target for the proportion of appointments in general practice which must be delivered face to face. However, practices should respect preferences for in person appointments unless there are good clinical reasons.
Commissioners use information collected locally alongside data gathered from other sources, such as the Quality and Outcomes Framework, to plan and improve general practitioner (GP) services. NHS Digital publishes GP appointment data, from planned activity recorded in GP appointment book systems, which includes face to face appointments at clinical commissioning group level. As set out in ‘Our plan for improving access for patients and supporting general practice’, NHS Digital is working to publish activity and waiting time data at individual practice level as soon as possible. This will include the proportions of appointment by different professions and by different appointment modality.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many part-time volunteer major generals there are in the Army Reserve as of September 2021; and how many there are planned to be after the implementation of the Integrated Review.
Answered by James Heappey
Trained FR20 Reserves of Paid Rank Major General, as at 1 July 2021:
| Rank | Total |
| Major General | 5 |
Notes/ Caveats:
1. The Trained FR20 population in the table consists of Group A Army Reserves, some Sponsored Reserves and those personnel serving on FTRS contracts who were previously Army Reservists.
2. The figure above includes Major Generals that contribute towards the previously defined FR20 population and excludes those personnel who do not. E.g., those Reservists on service complaint panels and the Governor of Edinburgh Castle.
3. Figures are as at 1 July 2021 in line with the protocols for release of personnel statistics.
Detailed plans for the future structure of the Army are still being refined. There will be announcements made on our intent for both the regular and reserve force in due course.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many officers there are of rank major general or higher in the Regular Army as of September 2021; and how many there are planned to be after the implementation of the Integrated Review.
Answered by James Heappey
Trade Trained Regulars of Paid Rank Major General and above, as at 1 July 2021
| Rank | Total |
| General | 4 |
| Liutenant Genertal | 16 |
| Major General | 45 |
| Total | 65 |
Notes/ Caveats:
1. These figures are for the Trade Trained Regular Army only and therefore exclude Gurkhas, Full Time Reserve Service, Mobilised Reserves, Army Reserve and all other Reserves, but includes those personnel that have transferred from GURTAM to UKTAP.
2. Figures are as at 1 July 2021 in line with the protocols for release of personnel statistics.
Detailed plans for the future structure of the Army are still being refined. There will be announcements made on our intent for both the regular and reserve force in due course.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the food and drink sector's proposal for a covid recovery visa scheme.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Points Based System already provides for a range of roles in the food and drink sector, including roles such as Butchers, subject to the rules and requirements of the system being met, including on salary.
Beyond the Points Based Systems, employers can recruit those with general work rights including the millions of people who have been granted status under the EU Settlement Scheme, those who have arrived via our settlement route for British National (Overseas) normally resident in Hong Kong and their households, those who have arrived via a family visa and those in the UK under our Youth Mobility Schemes. They have full access to the UK labour market and are free to work in the UK and can undertake any role.
But recognising the extraordinary circumstances facing businesses currently, Government is providing visas as a time-limited, temporary measure for the food sector until longer term measures to improve the supply of skills domestically. start to have an impact. This includes visas for up to:
• 4,700 HGV food drivers who will be able to arrive from late October and leave by 28 February 2022 and;
• 5,500 poultry workers will arrive from late October and stay up until 31 December 2021.
However we must see long-term solutions delivered by employers through improved testing and hiring, with better pay and working conditions, as immigration routes do not provide a guarantee of being able to recruit in a competitive global market for skilled workers.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
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 has taken to coordinate (a) Police and Crime commissioners, (b) the Environment Agency and (c) local police forces to ensure that they are adequately responding to fly-tipping.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is committed to working with partners to stamp out the menace of fly-tipping wherever we can. Our 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy set out our strategic approach to tackling waste crime, including fly-tipping. Our focus is on enabling local action by providing a clear legal framework of rights, responsibilities and powers and setting national standards.
Local authorities and the Environment Agency are encouraged to work in partnership with national and local police bodies in carrying out their enforcement functions against fly-tipping. Defra are working with a wide range of interested parties through the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group (NFTPG) to raise awareness of fly-tipping and to develop a fly-tipping toolkit. Members of the NFTPG include local authorities, the National Police Chiefs Council and the Environment Agency. The toolkit will support partnership working, intelligence sharing, dealing with fly-tipping associated with unauthorised encampments and the use of technology to report fly-tipping.
In the Environment Bill, we are bringing forward measures to go further, giving agencies and authorities enhanced powers of entry and access to evidence to strengthen their ability to tackle waste crime, and enhancing our ability to track waste and to crack down on rogue operators.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the details available to farmers on the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
Last November, we published our Agricultural Transition Plan setting out all our future environmental land management schemes, starting with the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
We set out what we intend to achieve by 2028 and how we will help farmers manage the move away from Direct Payments over a seven-year transition period to give everyone time to plan and adjust.
In March of this year, we launched the pilot of the Sustainable Farming Incentive. This was so that we could test, at scale, the future scheme in real-world scenarios, with a wide range of farmers and land managers. Our goal is to collaborate with farmers and land managers to design and deliver a scheme that works best for them.
We are currently undertaking user research and surveys on these pilot applicants with a view to informing and improving the scheme. From this we will learn how farmers and land managers have fared in understanding the information presented to them.
In June, we published a progress update of the Agricultural Transition Plan. Here, we gave further details of the early rollout of the Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme and what it will pay for. We also set out clear guidance on the scheme’s eligibility criteria and how farmers can be rewarded for their environmentally sustainable actions when it opens in 2022.
We will be publishing more information about the Sustainable Farming Incentive in November, including confirmation of the standard payment rates.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what comparative assessment he has made of the support available to farmers (a) under environmental land management schemes and (b) in the countries with which the Government is pursuing free trade deals.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
We are undertaking an assessment of our proposed reforms to the agricultural industry as they are developed, including the impact of our future schemes that reward environmental land management. It is our intention to publish a comprehensive assessment in due course.
The Government also produces and publishes analysis for each new free trade agreement it pursues and is committed to publishing a full impact assessment following the conclusion of negotiations prior to implementation of an agreement.
The OECD publishes an annual agricultural policy monitoring and evaluation report which contains estimates of support to agriculture. One metric of particular interest from that publication is the ‘producer support estimate’ (PSE) as a percentage of receipts. As an example, it shows that for the UK the PSE is approximately 20% of receipts compared with 1% in New Zealand and 2% in Australia.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of whether the delivery timeline of environmental land management schemes will ensure timely access to new payments for farmers moving on from old payments.
Answered by Victoria Prentis - Attorney General
The first Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) pilot agreements will start this year. Then, next year we will start to rollout core elements of the SFI, expanding those elements until we have the full offer available in 2024/2025. Importantly, we are running Countryside Stewardship and the SFI in parallel, and both are open to new and existing scheme agreement holders, though we will not fund the same action twice.
The final round of Countryside Stewardship will open in 2023, with agreements starting on 1 January 2024. We plan to start a phased rollout of the Local Nature Recovery scheme from 2023. We will be launching at least ten Landscape Recovery projects between 2022 and 2024. This makes us confident that the full environmental land management offer will be on tap before the end of the transition period.
Asked by: Adam Holloway (Conservative - Gravesham)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, when she plans to publish the impact assessments of the UK-Australia Free Trade Agreement in Principle.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
A full impact assessment will be published following the conclusion of negotiations, prior to scrutiny by Parliament.