Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of payouts from maternity services were rated by Care Quality Commission as (a) outstanding, (b) good, (c) requires improvement and (d) inadequate on safety in 2025.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to allocate funding to innovative diagnostics to tackle antimicrobial resistance.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The United Kingdom’s 2024 to 2029 antimicrobial resistance (AMR) national action plan (NAP) highlights the importance of accurate diagnostic testing to guide effective antibiotic use.
Outcome six of the NAP commits to cross-sector working to develop diagnostics as a tool to tackle AMR. The Department, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), has invested over £16 million into programme funding for AMR diagnostics research. The Department also funds the NIHR HealthTech Research Centres, which accelerate development of healthcare technologies, including diagnostics.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will host the Global Ministerial Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance in 2028.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department of Health and Social Care has indicated that it will not be possible to answer this question within the usual time period. An answer is being prepared and will be provided as soon as it is available.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the (a) potential implications for her policies of trends in the number of and (b) effectiveness of the response from local authorities in tackling stray dogs.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government regularly meets with stakeholders to understand the issues and trends affecting the sector. This includes the impact of the rising cost of living on pet owners and welfare organisations, as well as issues local authorities may face in meeting their obligations related to stray dogs under the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the press notice entitled More lost pets to return home as microchipping system reformed, published on 29 March 2024, what progress her Department has made on introducing a central portal to search pet microchip records.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Department is working closely with the Association of Microchip Database Operators to explore the development of an industry-led solution that would make it easier for authorised users to access information contained on the databases digitally.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to include all low-grade (a) Astrocytomas and (b) gliomas that eventually become high-grade terminal cancers in its forthcoming cancer plan.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Cancer Plan is to be published this year and will include further details on how outcomes will be improved for all cancer patients, including those with astrocytoma and other brain tumours.
The plan will include further details on speeding up diagnosis and treatment, ensuring patients have access to the latest treatments and technology, and ultimately driving up this country’s cancer survival rates.
The Government recognises the significant impact of rare cancers, such as glioma brain tumours, on patients and on their families and carers, and has invested in new lifesaving and life-improving research, supporting those diagnosed and living with brain tumours, and increasing life expectancy.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve support for family carers.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our 10 Year Health Plan will boost support for family carers via digital tools like MyCarer, and include them in care planning and shared decision-making processes.
We have already taken action. We have raised the Carer’s Allowance earnings limit to £196 per week - the biggest increase since 1976. We have also launched an independent commission into adult social care, to shape adult social care and address unpaid carers’ needs.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the identification of young carers by adult mental health services.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Local authorities are required by law to take reasonable steps to identify young carers in their area that need support, and to undertake an assessment of need, where appropriate. To support local authorities in their child protection duties, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which was introduced to Parliament in December 2024, contains provisions that will strengthen multi-agency working with children and families by introducing a new duty on safeguarding partners, including local authorities, police, and health services.
We recognise that, when someone is admitted to a mental health hospital or detained under the Mental Health Act, young carers are not always appropriately identified by adult mental health services. To improve this, as part of the reforms to the Mental Health Act, we plan to encourage individuals to make the presence of any young carers known in their Advance Choice Document. This document is intended to be a source of key information for mental health professionals if the individual experiences a mental health crisis.
Furthermore, provisions in the Mental Health Bill aim to ensure that people who care for a patient’s welfare, such as young carers, are proactively involved in the patient’s statutory care plan by the clinician. We will include guidance in the revised Mental Health Act Code of Practice to help ensure young carers are appropriately involved and supported.
NHS England is working to support the identification of young carers and has recently published guidance for general practitioners. NHS England is also utilising data to help support greater joined up work between health, education, and social care.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, how many and what proportion of start-ups have relocated to Silicon Valley in the last ten years.
Answered by Feryal Clark
There is currently no available dataset that accurately provides the number or proportion of start-ups that have relocated to Silicon Valley. The UK remains Europe’s top tech ecosystem and the third most valuable globally. However, the Government knows that start-ups can face difficulties when scaling here. Our ambitious Industrial Strategy sets out our vision to make the UK, by 2035, one of the top three places in the world to create, invest in and scale-up a technology business. This includes an ambition to create the UK’s first trillion-dollar technology business by 2035. The government will achieve this through reforming the business environment by addressing the need for greater investment, skills, infrastructure, planning reform, regulatory reform and access to international markets.
Asked by: Danny Chambers (Liberal Democrat - Winchester)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to support victims of economic abuse when applying for monies that they are entitled to through the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) takes the issue of domestic abuse extremely seriously and recognises that domestic abuse can take many forms including physical, emotional, or financial abuse, violent or threatening behaviour and coercive control.
The CMS has procedures in place to ensure victims and survivors of domestic abuse can use its services safely. CMS caseworkers will also signpost, where needed, to suitable domestic abuse organisations, if domestic abuse is raised or suspected.
All CMS caseworkers have extensive training, equipping them to be able to comprehensively act on a range of scenarios. For our most challenging and complex case groups, caseworkers complete and receive regular refresher training on specific aspects of customer service situations such as domestic abuse, advanced customer support and supporting vulnerable customers.
Specialist Case Team is one of the measures CMS have introduced to manage cases with the most challenging or complex domestic abuse concerns. This has minimised the need for parents to recount their history of domestic abuse and caseworkers to deliver support to some of the most vulnerable customers.
For parents using the Direct Pay service, the CMS can act as an intermediary to facilitate the exchange of bank details to help ensure there is no unwanted contact between parents and can provide information on how to set up bank accounts with a centralised sort code, which reduces the risk of a parent’s location being traced.
The Government has announced plans to reform the Child Maintenance service, replacing the existing Direct Pay Service and moving to a service where the CMS collects and transfers all payments. This will remove any requirement for victims and survivors to provide evidence of domestic abuse, which we know can be difficult and traumatising. It will also remove any need for contact between parents and remove the need for receiving parents to report missed or late payments. The CMS will monitor all payments and take swift action as soon as payments break down.
Managing all CMS cases in one service will allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster, and better support victims and survivors of domestic abuse who use the CMS.