Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, entitled Voices of the hungry, published in April 2016, what steps his Department plans to take to (a) initiate regular annual monitoring of adult and child food insecurity in the UK and (b) determine a precise estimate on which to base action to reduce food poverty.
Answered by Philip Dunne
Food insecurity is a global problem which the United Nations (UN) agreed to confront at the World Food Summit in 1996 and has framed subsequent sustainable development goals. Getting accurate and informative data was the motivation for the ‘Voices of the Hungry’ project. This project has established an annual universal metric to measure lack of access to food and the severity of this in over 150 countries, and help inform UN policy. The Department for International Development has provided financial support to enable the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to take this forward.
The United Kingdom is committed to the Sustainable Development Goals and to the data the FAO commissions and manages. There are therefore no plans for the Department of Health to independently monitor food insecurity going forward, or determine a precise estimate on which to base action to reduce food poverty.
The Government is committed to tackling childhood obesity and launched Childhood Obesity: A Plan for Action on 18 August. A copy of the plan is attached and is also available at:
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/546588/Childhood_obesity_2016__2__acc.pdf
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, entitled Voices of the hungry, published in April 2016, whether tackling dietary inequality will be a focus of the forthcoming childhood obesity strategy.
Answered by Philip Dunne
Food insecurity is a global problem which the United Nations (UN) agreed to confront at the World Food Summit in 1996 and has framed subsequent sustainable development goals. Getting accurate and informative data was the motivation for the ‘Voices of the Hungry’ project. This project has established an annual universal metric to measure lack of access to food and the severity of this in over 150 countries, and help inform UN policy. The Department for International Development has provided financial support to enable the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to take this forward.
The United Kingdom is committed to the Sustainable Development Goals and to the data the FAO commissions and manages. There are therefore no plans for the Department of Health to independently monitor food insecurity going forward, or determine a precise estimate on which to base action to reduce food poverty.
The Government is committed to tackling childhood obesity and launched Childhood Obesity: A Plan for Action on 18 August. A copy of the plan is attached and is also available at:
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/546588/Childhood_obesity_2016__2__acc.pdf
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what account he plans to take of dietary inequality and food insecurity in the planned childhood obesity strategy.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Our Childhood Obesity Strategy, which will be launched in the summer, will look at everything that contributes to a child becoming overweight and obese.
Asked by: Eilidh Whiteford (Scottish National Party - Banff and Buchan)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost of compulsory redundancy payments for staff of all NHS employers in England was in each year from 2009-10 to 2013-14.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The costs of compulsory redundancy payments for staff of all National Health Service employers are shown in the following table. There are currently 21,000 fewer admin staff working in the NHS since 2010 and 13,500 more front line clinical staff.
The Government is proposing that highly-paid staff who receive a redundancy pay-out and then return to the same part of the public sector within a year will be required to repay part of the total amount. It is proposed that contracts will contain a standard clause that states that individuals will have to pay back a proportion of the payment to their previous employer dependent upon the length of time between jobs.
NHS | Cost of Compulsory Redundancies |
| £000s |
2013-14 | 109,485 |
2012-13 | 265,379 |
2011-12 | 150,577 |
2010-11 | 118,344 |
Source: Audited Summarisation Schedules
Notes:
1. Figures from the audited statutory accounts of NHS organisations are collected centrally.
2. We have interpreted “NHS employers” to comprise Strategic Health Authorities, Primary Care Trusts, NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts in 2010-11 to 2012-13. For 2013-14 however, due to reorganisation, the figures comprise NHS Trusts, Foundation Trusts and NHS England (including the NHS England entity, Regional Teams, Area Teams, Commissioning Support Units and Clinical Commissioning Groups).
3. The NHS Manual for Accounts does not define what is included within the compulsory redundancy heading and as such it is not possible to clarify whether it includes related costs for employers of early retirement on the grounds of redundancy.
4. Information in respect of compulsory redundancies was not separately identified prior to 2010-11 and as such no comparable information can be provided.