Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the adequacy of the time taken for care providers to receive Certificates of Sponsorship for (a) overseas and (b) senior care workers.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The Defined Certificate of Sponsorship process for carers and senior carers from overseas is the same and frequently requires an assessment to establish whether or not the sponsor is able to offer a genuine vacancy. This usually requires the sponsor to submit additional documentation, while the timeframes involved are adequate for the purposes of preventing the exploitation of proposed migrant workers.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of the removal of (a) overseas and (b) senior care workers’ rights to bring dependants on main applicant flows for the health and social care visa.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We expect social care visa volumes will remain resilient to removing the eligibility for new care and senior care workers to bring dependants. This is in the context of a strong global labour supply, possible changes in migrant behaviour in response, and that a proportion of recruits are estimated to already come without dependants. The Home Office has published estimates of the impact these changes might have on the number of people applying to work in the sector from outside the United Kingdom, which are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/legal-migration-statement-estimated-immigration-impacts
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what her planned timetable is for the introduction of Liberty Protection Safeguards.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The situation remains as set out in April 2023. The implementation of the Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) has been delayed beyond the life of this Parliament. We will therefore not be publishing a timetable for the introduction of the LPS at this time.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of children who were looked-after in a (a) relative and (b) friend foster placement in each local authority in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The latest figures on children looked after who were cared for in a relative or friend foster placement by age, gender and ethnicity and at local authority level are shown in the attached tables. The department does not hold the data broken down separately into relative foster placements and friend foster placements, therefore the combined totals have been provided. Data has been provided for children looked after between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.
Full information on the former placement arrangements of children looked after who are in a relative or friend foster placement is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many of the looked-after children who were cared for in a relative or friend foster placement on 31 March 2023 had also been in (a) an unrelated foster placement, (b) another relative or friend placement, (c) a children's home and (d) other provision for looked-after children.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The latest figures on children looked after who were cared for in a relative or friend foster placement by age, gender and ethnicity and at local authority level are shown in the attached tables. The department does not hold the data broken down separately into relative foster placements and friend foster placements, therefore the combined totals have been provided. Data has been provided for children looked after between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.
Full information on the former placement arrangements of children looked after who are in a relative or friend foster placement is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the number of children by (a) age, (b) gender and (c) ethnicity who were looked-after in a (i) relative and (ii) friend foster placement in the 2022-23 financial year.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The latest figures on children looked after who were cared for in a relative or friend foster placement by age, gender and ethnicity and at local authority level are shown in the attached tables. The department does not hold the data broken down separately into relative foster placements and friend foster placements, therefore the combined totals have been provided. Data has been provided for children looked after between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023.
Full information on the former placement arrangements of children looked after who are in a relative or friend foster placement is not readily available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether any staff in (a) his Department and (b) 10 Downing Street sent messages to the media by (i) email, (ii) text, (iii) WhatsApp and (iv) other social media messaging services on the career of the Leader of the Opposition between 5 September 2023 and 8 February 2024.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
As has been the case under successive Administrations, the Prime Minister is assisted by special advisers in preparation for the Parliamentary exchanges at Prime Minister's Questions with the Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition.
All activity is undertaken in line with the Special Advisers’ Code of Conduct. Such exchanges are available to the hon. Member in the Official Report.
More broadly, such work is led by staff of the governing party (as evident by the answer of 6 June 2023, Official Report, PQ 186524; deposited paper DEP2023-0475).
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether any Downing Street (a) office space, (b) computer equipment, (c) printers and (d) stationery have been used in the (i) preparation, (ii) production and (iii) dissemination of research on the Leader of the Opposition.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
As has been the case under successive Administrations, the Prime Minister is assisted by special advisers in preparation for the Parliamentary exchanges at Prime Minister's Questions with the Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition.
All activity is undertaken in line with the Special Advisers’ Code of Conduct. Such exchanges are available to the hon. Member in the Official Report.
More broadly, such work is led by staff of the governing party (as evident by the answer of 6 June 2023, Official Report, PQ 186524; deposited paper DEP2023-0475).
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether government resources have been used for research on the Leader of the Opposition.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
As has been the case under successive Administrations, the Prime Minister is assisted by special advisers in preparation for the Parliamentary exchanges at Prime Minister's Questions with the Leader of His Majesty’s Opposition.
All activity is undertaken in line with the Special Advisers’ Code of Conduct. Such exchanges are available to the hon. Member in the Official Report.
More broadly, such work is led by staff of the governing party (as evident by the answer of 6 June 2023, Official Report, PQ 186524; deposited paper DEP2023-0475).
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many NATO-led (a) exercises and (b) operational deployments the armed forces participated in in each year since 2015.
Answered by James Heappey
Additional time is required to access this information from the Ministry of Defence archives. I will write to the hon. Member and place a copy of my letter in the Library of the House.