Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
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 waiting times for autism spectrum disorder assessments for children.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We expect integrated care boards (ICBs) to have due regard to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines on autism, when commissioning services. It is the responsibility of ICBs to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, in line with these NICE guidelines.
In 2023 NHS England published a national framework and operational guidance for all age autism diagnostic assessment services. This guidance will help the National Health Service improve all age autism assessment services and improve the experience for people referred to an autism assessment service.
We have invested in improving autism assessment services over recent years, including £2.5 million in 2022/23 to support local areas with improvements in autism assessment pathways. For 2023/2024, £4.2 million of funding is available across England to improve services for autistic children and young people, including autism assessment services.
NHS England publishes quarterly data on how many people are waiting for an autism assessment and for how long. While these are experimental statistics, the data does provide useful information nationally and locally, to support local areas in improving their performance and reducing assessment waiting times.
Each ICB in England is expected to have an Executive Lead for learning disability and autism, supporting the board in planning to meet the needs of its local population of people with a learning disability and autism, including in relation to appropriate autism assessment pathways. NHS England has published guidance on these roles.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many children are waiting for (a) an assessment and (b) a diagnosis for autism spectrum disorder.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The latest autism assessment waiting times data drawn from the Mental Health Services Dataset was published on 14 March 2024. This data showed that the number of people aged zero to 17 years old with an open referral for suspected autism was 102,024 in December 2023. The data also showed that, in December 2023, 6.3% of patients, or 5,443 patients, aged zero to 17 years old received a first contact appointment within 13 weeks.
Data on children and young people in this dataset is expected to be an underestimate. Caution should be used when interpreting these statistics since they are experimental rather than official statistics. The majority of children assessed for autism in the United Kingdom are seen in child development services, which are out of the scope of this dataset. This means the published figures will underestimate the volume of referrals or diagnoses and the associated impact on health services. NHS England continue to conduct exploratory analysis into the Community Services Dataset, with a view to include autism waiting times data from this dataset. This should improve the coverage of this data.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the Green Heat Network Fund for supporting shared ground loop installations.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Shared ground loop installations which satisfy the eligibility criteria for the Green Heat Network Fund can apply to the scheme for support. To be eligible, applicants must demonstrate that their networks can deliver a minimum of 2GWh per year of heat. Typically, shared ground loops serve a smaller number of homes than other heat networks and will often fall below this requirement unless they are aggregated into larger, combined projects. However, small-scale shared ground loop installations can receive support from other schemes, such as the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will remove the Boiler Upgrade Scheme's exclusion of larger shared ground loop systems.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Shared Ground Loops are an effective solution for reducing the costs associated with installing Ground Source Heat Pumps, and are currently eligible for support under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme.
To support their installation, the Government has announced it will increase the capacity limit under the scheme from 45kW to 300kW, increasing the number of properties able to transition to low carbon heat at the same time and reduce costs.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of shared ground loops in decarbonising heat.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government already recognises the merits of shared ground loops in decarbonising heating. To support their installation, the Government has announced that it will increase the capacity limit for shared ground loops under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme from 45kW to 300kW. Additionally, we have supported the installation of shared ground loops under the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to paragraph 6.48ff of the report by the Office for Tax Simplification entitled Property income review: simplifying income tax for residential landlords, published on 25 October 2022, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a brightline test to provide tax reliefs where property letting activities subject to income tax would qualify as a trade.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The suggestion by the Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) for a brightline test would create an arbitrary dividing line, and potential preferential tax treatment for those able to afford to buy more properties, as opposed to considering whether an activity constitutes trading or property letting on its merits. The OTS suggestions also had the effect that more activities would be considered trades. As a result the Government decided not to take that suggestion forward, but does keep all aspects of tax policy under review.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions his Department has had with the accountancy services sector on the enforcement of Managed Service Company legislation against chartered providers of accountancy services.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
HMRC officials have and continue to discuss the Managed Service Company rules with professional accountancy organisations, workers’ representative bodies and other tax professionals. HMRC officials in collaboration with stakeholders are exploring how HMRC’s guidance could be enhanced to enable taxpayers to understand whether certain services are Managed Service Company schemes.
Asked by: Derek Thomas (Conservative - St Ives)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average time is for her Department to approve mergers between pre-schools and primary schools; what steps her Department is taking to (a) reduce that time and (b) help ensure (i) safeguarding during transition and (ii) continuity of funding for childcare; and how many mergers between pre-schools and primary schools her Department has approved in the last 12 months.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Local authorities are responsible for making decisions on statutory proposals to alter the age range of maintained schools, including by the addition of a nursery.
Academies wishing to alter their age range must submit an application for a significant change to the department. In the last 12 months, the department received over 100 significant change applications to change the age range at an academy. The current data collection does not break this down further to enable the department to provide information on the number of schools that have requested to change their age range to add provision for nursery age children. The department does not collect data on the average length of time taken to reach a decision as applications can differ in their complexity.
The department has published revised guidance which will come into effect from the end of April 2024. The guidance sets out an updated application process that will allow low risk changes to progress to a decision more quickly following the necessary checks, which will streamline the application process. When implemented, the department will also be introducing a new data collection system to track application information in more detail.
With regards to safeguarding, schools must continue to have regard to the statutory guidance, ‘Keeping children safe in education’, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64f0a68ea78c5f000dc6f3b2/Keeping_children_safe_in_education_2023.pdf. All early years settings must follow the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework throughout any transition period.
Local authorities remain responsible for the continuation of funding, as they are required to ensure sufficiency of childcare places in their areas. Early years entitlements funding for children in nursery classes up to reception age would continue until those children moved into reception.