Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
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 impact of the provisions on National Development Management Policies of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill on the UK's obligations under Article (a) 6 and (b) 7 of the Aarhus Convention.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government remains committed to the Aarhus Convention and its requirements for public participation in decision making relating to the environment. The Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill will improve opportunities for public involvement in planning by making procedures more accessible and digital, while maintaining opportunities to comment on plans and planning applications. National Development Management Policies will also be subject to appropriate and any necessary consultation before they are introduced.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
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 impact of the provisions of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill on the UK's obligations under Article (a) 6 and (b) 7 of the Aarhus Convention.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government remains committed to the Aarhus Convention and its requirements for public participation in decision making relating to the environment. The Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill will improve opportunities for public involvement in planning by making procedures more accessible and digital, while maintaining opportunities to comment on plans and planning applications. National Development Management Policies will also be subject to appropriate and any necessary consultation before they are introduced.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of using the appointee scheme to support disabled young people who do not have the mental capacity to access the money in their Child Trust Fund accounts.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The DWP appointee system gives access to social security benefits only. It does not give access to monies held in Child Trust Funds. Where the child is incapable of accessing the funds themselves, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 provides for how a third party can do that on the child’s behalf, namely, through the Court of Protection. There are no current plans to change this approach.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his Department's planned timescale is for simplifying the Court of Protection process for families wanting to access savings in Child Trust Funds for disabled children.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
According to management information provided by the Court of Protection for the period 2020 to date it has received and dealt with 70 successful applications where a Child Trust Fund is the sole asset. This does not include those cases where a Child Trust Fund may be one of several assets owned by the young person lacking capacity.
The online process to streamline and speed up processing times for property and affairs applications was made available to all court users in February. We continue to review and revise the process and the court will continue to identify areas to simplify and remove duplication on court forms, including uploading to the online process many of the forms required for a property and affairs applications.
It is for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to consider the potential merits of using their Appointee scheme to cover Child Trust Fund accounts for disabled young people that lack mental capacity.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many applicants have successfully applied to the Court of Protection to access their Child’s Trust Fund savings in the past three years.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
According to management information provided by the Court of Protection for the period 2020 to date it has received and dealt with 70 successful applications where a Child Trust Fund is the sole asset. This does not include those cases where a Child Trust Fund may be one of several assets owned by the young person lacking capacity.
The online process to streamline and speed up processing times for property and affairs applications was made available to all court users in February. We continue to review and revise the process and the court will continue to identify areas to simplify and remove duplication on court forms, including uploading to the online process many of the forms required for a property and affairs applications.
It is for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to consider the potential merits of using their Appointee scheme to cover Child Trust Fund accounts for disabled young people that lack mental capacity.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of using the Department for Work and Pensions Appointee scheme to cover Child Trust Fund accounts for disabled young people that lack mental capacity.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
According to management information provided by the Court of Protection for the period 2020 to date it has received and dealt with 70 successful applications where a Child Trust Fund is the sole asset. This does not include those cases where a Child Trust Fund may be one of several assets owned by the young person lacking capacity.
The online process to streamline and speed up processing times for property and affairs applications was made available to all court users in February. We continue to review and revise the process and the court will continue to identify areas to simplify and remove duplication on court forms, including uploading to the online process many of the forms required for a property and affairs applications.
It is for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to consider the potential merits of using their Appointee scheme to cover Child Trust Fund accounts for disabled young people that lack mental capacity.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department plans to increase the maximum amount that can be awarded through the Disabled Facility Grant in the context of the rise of the cost of materials and labour.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave to Question UIN 180284 on 24 April 2023.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will outline the (a) decision-making process and (b) eligibility criteria used to determine which NHS Trusts received funding for Breast Cancer Screening Units in the financial year 2022-23.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
All National Health Service Breast Screening services were eligible for the fund, if there was commitment in agreement with NHS England, to increase breast screening activity and improve efficiencies and programme resilience.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what eligibility criteria his Department plan to use to determine (a) where new Community Diagnostic Centres are located and (b) the order in which they are rolled out.
Answered by Will Quince
To identify appropriate locations, integrated care systems (ICSs) are required to ensure that proposed sites meet the specifications of being separate from acute diagnostics and are able to accommodate minimum community diagnostic centre (CDC) services.
All proposed CDCs go through an approvals process led by systems and NHS England, prior to approval by Ministers.
NHS England’s ambition is that each ICS will have at least one standard or large model CDC.
The first CDCs to open were early adopter sites that could be stood up quickly with no capital investment requirements, to add much-needed additional diagnostic capacity to address the diagnostic backlog. Where required, these temporary sites are being replaced. There are no other eligibility criteria on the order in which CDCs are being rolled out.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he plans to bring forward legislative proposals to help protect grassroots music venues through the planning system.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government is supportive of ensuring that existing facilities, including music venues, do not have unreasonable restrictions put on them because of changes in their area due to new developments. That is why the National Planning Policy Framework includes the 'agent of change' principle. This sets out that planning policies and decisions should ensure that new development can be integrated effectively with existing business and community facilities. This policy includes a specific mention of music venues.
The Government continues to engage with the sector on how local music and cultural venues can be protected through our wider reforms to planning policy.