Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if the Government will take steps to tackle the abuse of anabolic steroids for image and performance enhancing purposes; and if she will bring forward legislative proposals to make the recreational use of such drugs illegal.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Information and advice about anabolic steroids, including the health risks associated with using anabolic steroids, is provided by Talk to FRANK and NHS Choices.
In July 2015, Public Health England published advice for local authorities on commissioning services to prevent and treat harms caused by image and performance enhancing drugs (http://www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/providing-effective-services-for-people-who-use-image-and-performance-enhancing-drugs.pdf).
Specified anabolic steroids are controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 as class C drugs. The Government has no current plans to review the legislative framework on anabolic steroids to include the possession offence. We are keeping the situation under review working closely with our independent experts, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the proposed A52 improvement programme.
Answered by John Hayes
Highways England, in accordance with its Delivery Plan, is delivering the A52 scheme in Roads Investment Strategy Period 1 (2015-2020) and plans to start construction by 2019/20. The scheme will deliver a package of measures to improve junctions along the A52 near Nottingham to assist with the development of the Nottingham Enterprise Zone adjacent to the A52.
Highways England has appointed design consultants to work up and assess a range of options and will be engaging stakeholders in the coming months.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress the Government has made on supporting women with perinatal mental health issues.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Government is fully committed to improving perinatal mental health services. Following an announcement by the Prime Minister in January, we are investing an additional £365 million by 2021 to improve services so that women are able to access the right care, at the right time and close to home.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will bring forward proposals to enable people who have previously undertaken university education to be eligible for funded apprenticeships.
Answered by Nick Boles
Currently the apprenticeship funding rules allow a university graduate to take an apprenticeship standard at a higher level than their current qualification. Further detail on the proposed funding rules that will apply from 2017-18 will be published shortly.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to improve under-performing schools in the East Midlands.
Answered by Edward Timpson
Eighty two percent of all schools in the East Midlands region are rated as Good or Outstanding by Ofsted, but there remain pockets of underperformance, and we are taking a range of actions to tackle them. The Education and Adoption Act gives us powers to intervene more quickly in failing schools and to tackle for the first time schools that have been coasting. Where a maintained school is judged inadequate by Ofsted it will immediately receive an academy order, leading to a sponsor taking responsibility for improving standards. The Act also provides consistent powers to take action in inadequate academies and the Regional Schools Commissioner for the East Midlands and Humber will not hesitate to intervene when academies under-perform.
We are also creating Achieving Excellence Areas in areas such as the East Midlands to create rapid and sustainable improvement. Further details are set out in: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational-excellence-everywhere
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that adequate funding is directed to local mental health bodies to reduce waiting times for child mental health care.
Answered by Alistair Burt
In total the Government has made available an additional £1.4 billion over the course of this Parliament to support significant transformation in children and young people’s mental health so that there is easy access to the right support from the right service when it is needed.
The key mechanism in delivering this transformation programme, as set out in the Future in Mind report, are the Local Transformation Plans (LTPs) that all clinical commissioning groups covering all local areas have produced. These plans should meet the needs of all the local population and cover the full spectrum of services needed to ensure that children and young people can access services when they need to.
NHS England’s Local Transformation Planning guidance issued in August 2015 and the robust assurance process around it, backed by a programme of regional and national support, are in place to ensure that the additional money will be spent for the purposes intended and that locally determined key performance indicators will be met. NHS England will continue to support local areas to refresh their LTPs to take and merge into the wider Sustainability and Transparency Planning process.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that deaf parents receive adequate support so that they can participate in their children's schooling and all related school activities undertaken by parents.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The Public Sector Equality Duty (at section 149 of the Equality Act 2010) requires public bodies, and those carrying out public functions, such as schools, to have due regard to the following aims when designing policies and delivering services:
This includes discrimination against people with a disability, such as deafness. Public bodies must be able to show how equality issues have been considered when they develop, implement, evaluate and review policies, services and processes.
We are committed to ensuring all parents have a more significant voice in all schools. Through the new Parent Portal, we will ensure parents have access to clear and simple information about the school system and how to support their child. This will work alongside the new performance tables website which is making it easier for parents to find out how well their child’s school is performing and to compare schools across a range of key measures.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will take steps to provide additional support to people with special educational needs so that they may better access apprenticeships.
Answered by Nick Boles
Supported internships offer young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities a clear pathway into employment, including apprenticeships, by equipping them with the skills they need for work. Since September 2013, all qualified post-16 education providers in England can deliver supported internships.
To encourage employers to hire apprentices, the Government funds apprenticeship training for all 16-18 year olds. This level of funding is extended for apprentices who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHC Plan) aged 19-24. Apprentices aged 19 to 24 without an EHC Plan, who have a learning difficulty and/or disability, can benefit from additional funding through Learning Support.
A Taskforce, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), has been looking at issues around apprenticeships for people with learning difficulties or disabilities. Ministers are currently considering its recommendations.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will take steps to facilitate and promote (a) work opportunities and (b) apprenticeships for people with both a physical and mental disability.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government is committed to halving the disability employment gap between disabled and non disabled people. Employers have a crucial role to play in this.
Disability Confident is encouraging employers to attract, recruit and retain disabled people who are eager to work and have the skills, talents and abilities that employers are looking for. Employers can register their interest in being Disability Confident and will then be sent advice, support materials and links to other resources. More than 600 employers have registered and the number continues to grow.
There are also DWP programmes that can provide practical assistance to disabled people in work, such as Access to Work. During 2014/15 Access to Work supported over 36,000 disabled people to take up or remain in employment.
We have expanded Access to Work’s Mental Health Support Service to conduct a two-year trial of targeted support for apprentices with mental health conditions. In addition a Taskforce, led by Paul Maynard MP, has been looking at issues around apprenticeships for people with learning difficulties or disabilities. Ministers are currently considering its recommendations.
Asked by: Amanda Solloway (Conservative - Derby North)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the level of risk of developing mental health conditions among remote combat pilots; and what safeguards his Department has in place to protect such pilots from any such risk.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
The Government is committed to improving the mental health of our Armed Forces and has long recognised that Service life can cause stress. Support to personnel has improved in a number of ways, including providing pre and post-operational stress management training, a wide range of psychiatric and psychological treatments and initiatives such as Decompression, Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) and Post Operational Stress Management.
Trained TRiM providers are embedded in both - 13 Squadron and 39 Squadron, the Royal Air Forces's (RAF) frontline Reaper units based at RAF Waddington and Creech AFB.
For Financial Year 2014-15, out of a total of approximately 180 personnel, there were fewer than five RAF personnel from 13 Squadron or 39 Squadron who were seen for an initial assessment at Ministry of Defence Specialist Mental Health Services. This is a lower rate than the military population as a whole.