Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal steps his Department is taking to support small businesses in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. Small businesses across the West Midlands will benefit from the £105 million the area has received from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which ramps up to £1.5bn this coming year. This will enable the West Midlands to invest in business support, people and wider regeneration.
The Government also funds a network of 37 Growth Hubs across England to give free support and advice to businesses. Additionally, the Made Smarter Adoption programme, which has been operating in multiple regions including the West Midlands, helps manufacturing SMEs adopt advanced digital technology and is being expanded to further regions in England in 2025/26.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how many families with children were housed in temporary accommodation for more than (a) six months, (b) one year and (c) two years in (i) Coventry North East constituency, (ii) Coventry, (iii) the West Midlands and (iv) England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Statutory homelessness statistics for England are published quarterly. This is data from local authorities and includes families in temporary accommodation at the end of each quarter, including for the hon. Member’s local authority area. Data can be found at Statutory homelessness in England: April to June 2023 - GOV.UK. Details of the length of time families with children are housed in temporary accommodation is published annually and can be found at Statutory homelessness in England: financial year 2022-23.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what estimate he has made of the number of families with children living in temporary accommodation in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England in each of the last three years.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Statutory homelessness statistics for England are published quarterly. This is data from local authorities and includes families in temporary accommodation at the end of each quarter, including for the hon. Member’s local authority area. Data can be found at Statutory homelessness in England: April to June 2023 - GOV.UK. Details of the length of time families with children are housed in temporary accommodation is published annually and can be found at Statutory homelessness in England: financial year 2022-23.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 reduce waiting times for NHS treatment in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Cutting National Health Service waiting lists is one of the Government’s top priorities.
To facilitate this across elective services in England, we are increasing activity, with plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, expanding capacity though creating a network of community diagnostic centres (CDCs), and maximising all available independent sector capacity. We are managing demand through specialised advice in primary care and giving patients more control over where they receive their care, and we are increasing productivity through: transforming outpatient services; developing new surgical hubs to increase theatre productivity, funded by part of £1.5 billion; and working actively with trusts to support and challenge on their performance.
We recognise that local areas were affected by COVID-19 differently, resulting in variation in elective waiting times across different parts of the country. Tackling inequalities in access to elective care has therefore been a key component of the Department’s and NHS England’s approach to recovery. This is supported by the creation and expansion of CDCs and surgical hubs. There are currently 94 surgical hubs and 136 CDCs operational across England.
In the West Midlands there are 16 surgical hubs and six operational CDCs. In Coventry North East Constituency there is one surgical hub and one CDC.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of increases in the cost of living on the number of households in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England that have fallen into rent arrears with (i) private landlords and (ii) social housing providers.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The English Housing Survey 2022 to 2023 Headline report provides data on the percentage of private and social renters in rent arrears. Further information can be found at the following link.
Further breakdowns of headline measures will be published next summer.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 improve access to mental health services in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Through the NHS Long Term Plan, we are investing an additional £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to expand these services for adults, children and young people in England, including in Coventry North East constituency, Coventry and the West Midlands.
On top of this we provided an extra £500 million in 2021/22 to accelerate our expansion plans and address waiting times for mental health services, give more people the mental health support they need, and invest in the National Health Service workforce.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of benefit claimants are in rent arrears in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England; and what steps his Department is taking to help support benefit claimants who are in rent arrears.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not held by the Department. For those UC claimants struggling with their single monthly rent payment, payment of housing costs can be made direct to landlords.
For 2022/23 we are projected to have spent almost £30 billion to support renters with their housing costs.
As announced in the Autumn Statement on 22 November, Local Housing Allowance rates will be increased from April 2024 to the 30th percentile of local market rents at a cost of £1.2 billion. This will mean 1.6 million private renters in receipt of Housing Benefit or Universal Credit (UC) will gain on average around £800 a year in additional help towards their rental costs in 2024-25.
For those who face a shortfall in meeting their housing costs and need further support Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are available from local authorities. Since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.7 billion in DHP funding to local authorities.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 improve patient access to primary care in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
We recognise that despite the hard work of general practice teams, some patients are still struggling to access care in a timely way. That is why we have published our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care. The plan has two central ambitions to improve access both nationally and in Coventry and West Midlands, namely to tackle the 8am rush and reduce the number of people struggling to contact their practice, and for patients to know on the day they contact their practice how their request will be managed.
We will achieve this by modernising telephone systems which can help practices to better match their capacity to patient demand, backed by £240 million in retargeted funding. All practices have now signed up to transition to new digital systems. The plan will empower patients to do more themselves, cutting bureaucracy for general practitioners and building capacity to deliver more appointments. We have invested £1.5 billion and created an additional 50 million general practice appointments by increasing and diversifying the workforce.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 improve waiting times for cancer treatment in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Reducing cancer treatment waiting times is a priority for this Government. The Department is working jointly with NHS England on implementing the delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlogs in elective care. The Government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25 to help drive up and protect elective activity, including cancer diagnosis and treatment activity.
In the 2023/24 Operational Planning Guidance, NHS England announced it is providing over £390 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances in each of the next two years to support delivery of the strategy and the operational priorities for cancer which includes increasing and prioritising diagnostic and treatment capacity for cancer.
Additionally, the Government recently published the Major Conditions Strategy Case for Change and Our Strategic Framework on 14 August 2023 which sets out our approach to making the choices over the next 5 years that will deliver the most value in facing the health challenges of today and of the decades ahead, including for cancer.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what recent estimate her Department has made of the proportion of households in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England that spent more than 10% of their income on energy costs in each of the last three years.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The latest official Fuel Poverty Statistics for England were published in February 2023 on gov.uk here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fuel-poverty-statistics#2022-Statistics
In addition to reporting against the official fuel poverty metric for England, these statistics included an affordability measure of the number of households required to spend more than 10 per cent of their income on domestic energy. These can be found in Annex D: Affordability measures for England, of the annual report.
Affordability measure estimates are not held at sub-national level. Figures are available at sub-national level for fuel poverty under the Low-income Low energy efficiency (LILEE) metric, on gov.uk here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sub-regional-fuel-poverty-data-2023-2021-data