Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the protections under section 1(3A) of the Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953 for livestock and farmers where livestock have strayed onto a road or path.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Dogs (Protection of Livestock) Act 1953, as amended, covers livestock worrying incidents that take place on roads and paths, such as when animals are being moved from one field to another or where the person in charge of the dog causes it to attack straying livestock on a road or path.
This offers a proportionate balance between protecting livestock and ensuring dog owners are not unfairly criminalised in situations where livestock have escaped their enclosures. Farmers remain responsible for taking reasonable steps to prevent livestock from straying.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential benefits of a national strategy to manage financial restructuring across the higher education sector.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department recognises the concerns of higher education (HE) providers and their staff around the ongoing financial stability of their institutions.
While HE providers are independent from government and are responsible for the pay and provision of staff, we are committed to working with the sector to create a secure future for our world-leading sector. Our decision to raise tuition fees annually in line with inflation, alongside refocusing the Office for Students on monitoring the sector’s financial health, demonstrates this commitment.
We encourage providers to work with their staff to develop sustainable models that retain talent and expertise and provide stability for the workforce and the institution. We will continue to engage regularly with the sector, unions and the employer body to better understand issues affecting HE providers and staff.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the tapered annual allowance for pensions on the level of retention of senior NHS clinicians; and whether her Department plans to consider the potential merits of changing the taper to increase NHS workforce capacity.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The annual allowance limits the amount that an individual can save in all their pension pots before they have to pay a tax charge. It aims to ensure that the incentives for pension saving, which are costly to the taxpayer, are appropriately targeted across society. Tax policy, including the level of the annual allowance, is a matter for my Rt. Hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Increases to the level of the standard annual allowance, the adjusted income threshold, and the minimum tapered allowance were made in 2023. These reforms aimed to encourage highly skilled National Health Service staff to remain in the workforce for longer by easing the tax burden on the highest earners, reducing incentives for early retirement and supporting consultants to take on additional work, helping to increase capacity and reduce waiting lists.
Decisions about undertaking extra work are influenced by a range of personal and professional factors, making it difficult to isolate the specific impact of pension tax policy. There is no clear evidence from national NHS payroll data that the annual allowance pension tax regime constrains consultant activity in aggregate.
Where NHS staff have pension savings that exceed their annual allowance, they can carry forward any unused annual allowance from the previous three tax years. This will increase their current year’s allowance, reducing or potentially avoiding any annual allowance tax charge that is due.
Additionally, the NHS Pension Scheme offers a Scheme Pays facility which allows impacted members to pay charges using the value of their pension. This spreads the cost of paying a tax charge over the lifetime of the pension rather than requiring an immediate outlay. For most members, the growth in their pension benefits at retirement, even net of a charge, would still represent an excellent return on their pension contributions.
Information for members is available on the NHS Pensions website, which is available at the following link:
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/member-hub/annual-allowance
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure prisoners with severe mental health needs in Category C prisons receive timely access to appropriate care.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England commissions comprehensive healthcare services across all prisons in England, ensuring mental health provision is delivered to the principle of equivalence with community services. The National Service Specification for Integrated Mental Health outlines expectations and ensures that individuals have access to appropriate support from the point of entry into custody and throughout their sentence.
More specifically, mental health support is available to all people in prison at any stage of their sentence; providers must deliver a full range of appointments, including urgent mental health assessments where clinically required; health needs assessments are undertaken in each establishment to understand population‑specific mental health needs; and services are trauma informed.
NHS England is currently undertaking a review of the National Integrated Prison Service Specification to ensure it remains responsive to the evolving needs of the prison population and continues to support high‑quality, trauma‑informed, and integrated mental health provision.
Asked by: Alicia Kearns (Conservative - Rutland and Stamford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of cuts to Integrated Care Board funding on cancer patients in the East Midlands.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
In the recently published National Cancer Plan, we set out our commitment to meet all three cancer waiting time standards to ensure that all cancer patients, including those in the East Midlands, have timely access to high quality diagnostic and treatment services.
Our commitment to meeting the cancer waiting time standards will be supported by a £6 billion capital investment into diagnostics which will increase capacity, boost productivity, and streamline diagnostic pathways. This vital investment will modernise diagnostic services and reduce the time between initial diagnosis and starting treatment.
The plan also lays out how we will increase productivity and harness innovation to make systems more efficient and effective. We will utilise new tools such as artificial intelligence and liquid biopsy testing to speed up diagnosis and treatment decisions, strengthen the cancer workforce, improve turnaround times in histopathology, and give targeted support to the most challenged trusts.
Savings on integrated care board (ICB) spending on back-office costs will be reinvested into patient care, including cancer care, which will remain the primary focus of ICB funding and investment. National Health Service regions and Cancer Alliances will jointly identify underperforming trusts and provide intensive support including leadership intervention, peer‑to‑peer mentoring, seconding senior managers from stronger trusts, and access to £200 million of ring‑fenced cancer funding in 2026/27 to improve cancer pathway performance and reduce delays.