Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of requiring private parking providers to take (a) drivers' and (b) passengers' disabilities into account when (i) levying parking charge notices and (ii) considering appeals for parking charge notices.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is taking action to improve the regulation of the private parking industry and is committed to working with both consumer and industry groups to ensure the code comes into effect as quickly as possible. The Government has no plans to back date the code to 7 February 2022.
The Code will ensure the best possible protection for motorists and parking companies alike, for this reason it will require a need for a grace period to be in place at the end of a permitted parking period.
The Government is aware of the concerns being raised regarding the existing appeals services. Alongside the introduction of the new Private Parking Code of Practice, the Government will be establishing a new, second stage appeals service which is straightforward to use and accessible to all. We will monitor the effectiveness of the new service and take action to make improvements where necessary.
Additionally, operator staff will be required to undergo relevant training.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the Private Parking Code of Practice establishing grace periods during which a parking charge notice may not be levied.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is taking action to improve the regulation of the private parking industry and is committed to working with both consumer and industry groups to ensure the code comes into effect as quickly as possible. The Government has no plans to back date the code to 7 February 2022.
The Code will ensure the best possible protection for motorists and parking companies alike, for this reason it will require a need for a grace period to be in place at the end of a permitted parking period.
The Government is aware of the concerns being raised regarding the existing appeals services. Alongside the introduction of the new Private Parking Code of Practice, the Government will be establishing a new, second stage appeals service which is straightforward to use and accessible to all. We will monitor the effectiveness of the new service and take action to make improvements where necessary.
Additionally, operator staff will be required to undergo relevant training.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of backdating the new private parking code of practice to 7 February 2022.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is taking action to improve the regulation of the private parking industry and is committed to working with both consumer and industry groups to ensure the code comes into effect as quickly as possible. The Government has no plans to back date the code to 7 February 2022.
The Code will ensure the best possible protection for motorists and parking companies alike, for this reason it will require a need for a grace period to be in place at the end of a permitted parking period.
The Government is aware of the concerns being raised regarding the existing appeals services. Alongside the introduction of the new Private Parking Code of Practice, the Government will be establishing a new, second stage appeals service which is straightforward to use and accessible to all. We will monitor the effectiveness of the new service and take action to make improvements where necessary.
Additionally, operator staff will be required to undergo relevant training.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what his planned timetable is for publishing a new private parking code of practice.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government is taking action to improve the regulation of the private parking industry and is committed to working with both consumer and industry groups to ensure the code comes into effect as quickly as possible. The Government has no plans to back date the code to 7 February 2022.
The Code will ensure the best possible protection for motorists and parking companies alike, for this reason it will require a need for a grace period to be in place at the end of a permitted parking period.
The Government is aware of the concerns being raised regarding the existing appeals services. Alongside the introduction of the new Private Parking Code of Practice, the Government will be establishing a new, second stage appeals service which is straightforward to use and accessible to all. We will monitor the effectiveness of the new service and take action to make improvements where necessary.
Additionally, operator staff will be required to undergo relevant training.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he has made recent representations to his Spanish counterparts on proposals for a waste facility at the site of a mass grave close to Fuencarral Cemetery in Madrid.
Answered by Leo Docherty - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces)
The FCDO are aware of this proposal and consider it to be a matter for the competent local Spanish authorities, who we understand have paused the project to investigate the land in question. We will continue to monitor developments.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) shortest, (b) median and (c) longest waiting times for a child maintenance service liability order were in each of the last five years.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) continues to take rigorous action to collect maintenance, combining robust negotiation activity with the highly effective use of its extensive range of Enforcement Powers. This approach is driven by the Payment Compliance strategy, increasing CMS compliance influencing activities to tackle non-paying cases and challenge non-compliant behaviours.
We move cases swiftly to Legal Enforcement, securing a Liability Order for 11k cases in the courts, in 2023.
CMS does not measure a) shortest, (b) median waiting times to secure a Liability Order but does measure an average of (c) longest. The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
CMS applies a Continuous Improvement focus to the Enforcement strategy and processes. The planned introduction of the Administrative Liability Order in 2024 will remove the need to apply to the courts and will reduce the average time of 22 weeks to secure a Liability Order to 6 weeks.
The published statistics below provides data, excluding waiting times, to September 2023: Section 9 Enforcement and National tables 7.1.
Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to September 2023 - GOV.UK(www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his planned timetable is to respond to his Department's consultation entitled Child Maintenance: Accelerating Enforcement.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance “Accelerating Enforcement” consultation concluded on 24 November 2023, the Government is carefully considering the feedback and a response will be published shortly.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, with reference to the Oral Statement of the Minister of State of 29 January 2024, on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Official Report, columns 620-622, if he will publish the dates when (a) his Department and (b) other Government departments had scheduled payments to be made to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) before the announcement of a temporary pause in funding on 27 January 2024.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Payments have been as per our Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). We are not aware of other UK Government Departments having any scheduled payments for UNRWA.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the future of those resident in the UK on Ukrainian sponsorship schemes beyond the schemes' expiration.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The UK Government is, of course, mindful that permission for the first arrivals under the Ukrainian schemes will start to expire from March 2025, and that Ukrainians in the UK, as well as their hosts and sponsors, are understandably seeking more certainty to help them continue to settle in the UK and live independently.
The Home Office continues to work closely with colleagues across government, our European counterparts and the Ukrainian Government, on options for the future of theUkraine schemes. We will ensure that Ukrainians here in the UK are informed about the options available to them in good time before the expiry of the first Ukraine scheme visas.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the Insolvency Service's publication entitled, Commentary - Individual Insolvency Statistics October to December 2023, published on 30 January 2024, if he will make an assessment of the reasons for the increase in breathing space registrations under the Debt Respite Scheme in 2023 as compared with 2022.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government launched the Breathing Space scheme on 4 May 2021. The aim of the scheme is to encourage earlier access to debt advice and enable people in problem debt to get their finances back on track. As of December 2022, over 200,000 people in problem debt have benefited from Breathing Space protections.
The Government is committed to supporting individuals in problem debt. At the Autumn Statement, further support to protect struggling families with the cost of living was announced. This brings the total support for households over 2022/23 to 2024/25 to £104 billion – an average of £3,700 per household. In addition, the Government continues to maintain record levels of funding for the Money and Pensions Service to provide debt advice in England, bringing their debt advice budget to £92.7 million in 2024.