Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of court cases in Bury South constituency.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
We are pursuing a number of measures at a national level that will contribute to the reduction of cases in the Bury South constituency, to tackle the outstanding caseload across all jurisdictions.
Over 90% of all criminal cases are heard at the magistrates’ court, where we heard 100,000 cases a month on average across 2023. While the outstanding caseload in the magistrates’ courts has slightly increased in recent months due to an increase in the number of cases coming to court, the caseload remains well below its pandemic peak and stood at 353,900 at the end of September 2023, and cases continue to be progressed quickly.
To aid our efforts in the magistrates’ courts, we have invested over £1 million in a programme of work to support the recruitment of new magistrates, and launched a new marketing campaign to target a more diverse pool of potential magistrates and raise the overall profile of the magistracy.
At the Crown Court, we remain committed to reducing the outstanding caseload.
We have introduced a raft of measures to achieve this aim. We are on course to deliver over 100,000 sitting days this year for the third financial year running, alongside recruiting more than 1,000 judges across all jurisdictions.
Judges have worked tirelessly to complete more cases, with disposals up by 9% during Q3 in 2023 compared to Q4 in 2022 (25,700 compared to 23,700). However, an increase in cases coming before the Crown Court throughout 2023 has caused the outstanding caseload to increase, and it stood at 66,500 at the end of September 2023.
Data on the outstanding caseload at Crown Court centre level is published by the Ministry of Justice on a quarterly basis. Receipts, disposals and the outstanding caseload for individual Crown Court centres can be found at: Criminal court statistics quarterly: July to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
We are also investing more in our criminal courts. In August 2023, we announced we are investing £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of our court buildings across the next two years, up to March 2025.
In the Family Court, we are working closely with system partners to drive forward a cross-cutting programme of work to address delays and inefficiencies in the system and to ensure cases are ready to be heard when they reach court.
We are committed to meeting the 26-week statutory requirement for public law cases, and the Government is investing an extra £10 million to develop new initiatives to support this.
In addition, we remain committed to supporting more families to reach agreement on their children and finance arrangements earlier and, where appropriate, without court involvement. As of February 2024, over 25,400 families have successfully used the Family Mediation Voucher Scheme to attempt to resolve their disputes outside of court. We are investing up to £23.6 million, which we intend will allow for its continuation up to March 2025.
With regards to civil cases, we are taking action to ensure those that do need to go to trial are dealt with quickly. We have launched the biggest ever judicial recruitment drive for District Judges, are digitising court processes and holding more remote hearings, and are increasing the use of mediation.
We announced in July 2023 that we would introduce a requirement for small claims in the county court to attend a mediation session with the Small Claims Mediation Service, starting with specified money claims. This requirement will start in the spring and is expected to help parties resolve their dispute swiftly and consensually without the need for a judicial hearing.
With regards to tribunals, we continue to work with the Department for Business and Trade on further measures to address caseloads in the Employment Tribunal, where the deployment of legal officers, recruitment of additional judges and a new electronic case management system have already contributed to the caseload falling and remaining below its pandemic peak.
We are working on completing the programme of reform in the Immigration and Asylum Chamber of the First-tier Tribunal, and the judiciary have recently introduced a virtual region pilot to provide additional judicial capacity and flexibility in how appeals are heard and disposed of.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he has had discussions with the Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) on the findings of the report published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education entitled UNRWA Education: Textbooks and Terror, published in November 2023.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
We have discussed issues relating to the curriculum and textbooks with counterparts in United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the Palestinian Authority. This specific report has not been discussed with the Commissioner-General, however we are aware of the findings. We take any allegation of the promotion of racism and discrimination extremely seriously. Any allegations of breaches of UN staff regulations and rules, including neutrality breaches, are reported to FCDO and investigated. We continue to urge all parties to condemn incitement wherever and whenever it occurs.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of flood defences.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Since 2010, the Government has invested over £6 billion to better protect more than 600,000 properties. Government investment in flood defences and action taken by the Environment Agency helped protect over 139,000 properties during storms Babet and Ciarán, and 102,000 properties during storm Henk.
No properties were flooded by Storms Babet and Ciarán because of any flood defences being below required condition.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department (a) is taking and (b) plans to take steps to ensure that children with severe epilepsy are able to access cannabis-based medications through the NHS.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Licensed cannabis-based medicines, that have been proved effective in clinical trials and judged cost-effective by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), are routinely available on the National Health Service, including for certain types of epilepsy. However, clinical guidelines from NICE demonstrate a clear need for more evidence to support routine prescribing and funding decisions for unlicensed cannabis-based medicines.
We continue to call on manufacturers to conduct research to prove if their products are safe and effective and we are working with regulatory, research and NHS partners to establish clinical trials to test the safety and efficacy of these products.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help reduce the number of young people who are vaping.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is concerned about the rise in vaping among children - youth vaping has tripled in the last three years. Vaping is never recommended for children and carries significant risk. The active ingredient in most vapes is nicotine which, when inhaled, is a highly addictive drug. Evidence suggests that in adolescence, the brain is more sensitive to the effects of nicotine, so there could be additional risks for young people.
The Government is fully committed to bringing forward legislative proposals to tackle youth vaping as part of the Tobacco and Vapes bill which was announced in the King’s Speech on 7 November. The Bill will restrict the sale and marketing of vapes to children – and we have consulted UK-wide on regulating vape flavours, packaging and shop displays. We have also consulted on restricting the sale and supply of disposable vapes.
The Government will respond to the consultation on these policies shortly.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what her planned timeframe is for a decision on whether there will be a public inquiry relating to the Edenfield Centre.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
In November 2022, NHS England announced an independent review into the unacceptable incidents which took place at the Edenfield Centre at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust last year. The independent review team has met with over 400 people and has submitted its draft report to NHS England, the trust, and other relevant parties. Publication of the investigation’s final report is expected in early January 2024. We will carefully consider the report’s findings before deciding what, if any, next steps may be needed.
More widely, we are working with the newly established Health Services Safety Investigations Body to prepare for the launch of a series of investigations into mental health inpatient care settings in England to identify where improvements can be made, increase the quality of care and reduce the risk to patient safety.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that private providers contracted to run asylum accommodation services deliver on their contractual obligations.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We have a robust governance framework in place to manage service delivery of the Asylum Accommodation Support Contracts (AASC). Details of the AASC can be found at:
New asylum accommodation contracts awarded - GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-asylum-accommodation-contracts-awarded
The Statement of Requirements sets out the delivery standards providers are required to meet. It also sets out provider obligations in adherence to legislation such as the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 as well as duties such as under section 55 of the Border, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, and the children’s duty, to safeguard children from harm and promote their welfare.
The Home Office has published Key Performance Indicator statistics covering the contractual obligations accommodation providers and others working in the asylum sector are required to deliver. This has been done since April 2020. This data is available on .gov.uk.
In all proposed accommodation sites, our accommodation providers work through a standardised regulatory checklist to verify the appropriateness of the site, including a detailed risk-assessment in advance of use. We work with our providers to carry out due diligence checks which include all relevant health and safety checks to ensure a site is able to operate in a legally compliant manner with all relevant standards met. We have also recently invested in ensuring these checks consider the mental and wellbeing aspects of asylum seekers and we are committed to working with all relevant providers to improve and build on the high service standards we expect.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that the safety and wellbeing of asylum seekers is prioritised while in asylum accommodation.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
We have a robust governance framework in place to manage service delivery of the Asylum Accommodation Support Contracts (AASC). Details of the AASC can be found at:
New asylum accommodation contracts awarded - GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-asylum-accommodation-contracts-awarded
The Statement of Requirements sets out the delivery standards providers are required to meet. It also sets out provider obligations in adherence to legislation such as the Human Rights Act 1998, the Equality Act 2010 as well as duties such as under section 55 of the Border, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, and the children’s duty, to safeguard children from harm and promote their welfare.
The Home Office has published Key Performance Indicator statistics covering the contractual obligations accommodation providers and others working in the asylum sector are required to deliver. This has been done since April 2020. This data is available on .gov.uk.
In all proposed accommodation sites, our accommodation providers work through a standardised regulatory checklist to verify the appropriateness of the site, including a detailed risk-assessment in advance of use. We work with our providers to carry out due diligence checks which include all relevant health and safety checks to ensure a site is able to operate in a legally compliant manner with all relevant standards met. We have also recently invested in ensuring these checks consider the mental and wellbeing aspects of asylum seekers and we are committed to working with all relevant providers to improve and build on the high service standards we expect.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will make an estimate of the average level of profit that private providers have made running asylum accommodation in the most recent period for which data is available.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
It would not be appropriate to comment on commercial arrangements with suppliers.
All Home Office commercial contracts are designed to ensure the best value for tax payers and the Home Office closely monitors its contractors performance, including financial results. Any profits above the agreed contractual margins come back to the Home Office.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce childhood obesity.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Regulations on out of home calorie labelling for food sold in large businesses, including restaurants, cafes, and takeaways, came into force in April 2022. Restrictions on the placement of products high in fat, sugar or salt in key selling locations, came into force on 1 October 2022. We will be implementing restrictions on the sale of less healthy products by volume price such as ‘buy one get one free’ or ‘3 for 2’ and will introduce restrictions on the advertising of less healthy products before 9pm on TV and paid for less healthy product advertising online. We are also working with the food industry to ensure it is easier for the public to make healthier choices and make further progress on reformulation.
In addition, we are supporting more than three million children through the Healthy Foods Schemes and helping schools boost physical activity to help children maintain a healthy weight and good overall health through the Primary School PE and Sport Premium and the School Games Organiser Network.