Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when she plans to publish the recovery plan for NHS dentists; and what interim provision she is making for people unable to obtain NHS dentistry treatment locally.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Patients in England are not registered with a National Health service dental practice, although many NHS dental practices do tend to see patients regularly. There is no geographical restriction on which practice a patient may attend, allowing patients the choice of where they would like to receive a course of treatment.
Patients unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through an NHS dental practice are advised to contact NHS 111 for assistance. NHS dentists are now required to update their NHS website profiles at least every 90 days, to ensure patients have access to up-to-date information on where they can access care.
We are working on our Dentistry Recovery Plan, to be published shortly, which will address how we can significantly improve access, particularly for new patients; and how we make NHS work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver NHS care.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much and what proportion of the funding for the National Rural Crime Unit will be allocated to Humberside Police in each of the next five years.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Government is committed to driving down rural crime. Whether someone lives in the countryside or a town or city, they should get the same service from the police if they fall victim to a crime.
The Home Office has provided £200,000 funding this financial year to help set up the National Rural Crime Unit, with an additional £100,000 from DEFRA. The National Rural Crime Unit has secured over £1m of funding from industry for the next three financial years, including from NFU Mutual, Network Rail and Construction and Equipment Association.
The National Rural Crime Unit aims to help police forces tackle rural crime priorities through the provision of specialist operational support, as well as through sharing best practice and encouraging regional and national approaches to tackling rural crime. Funding provided by the Government for the National Rural Crime Unit is not allocated to individual forces.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he plans to take to support farmers in areas of Yorkshire affected by recent flooding.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has triggered the Flood Recovery Framework in Gloucestershire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, West Northamptonshire, Wiltshire and Worcestershire, to provide funding for affected households and businesses as a result of severe flooding caused by Storm Henk. Farmers in these areas are likely to be eligible for a number of these funds, including the Business Recovery Grant (for up to £2,500 per SME business), the Property Flood Resilience grant (up to £5,000 per flooded property) and Business Rate relief.
We are currently assessing the impact of the flooding caused by Storm Henk on farmland to enable us to confirm eligible areas for the Farming Recovery Fund. Eligible areas will be within the same areas announced for the wider Flood Recovery Framework, which does not currently include areas in Yorkshire.
We are monitoring the situation closely and further guidance on support for farmers affected by the flooding will be published on gov.uk.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to (a) publish the results of the Driver2020 research project and (b) bring forward policy proposals based on that project.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
We plan to publish the results of the Driver 2020 project soon; this is an evaluation of interventions to improve the safety of young novice drivers, in partnership with the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). This project commenced in January 2019 and over 28,000 learner and novice drivers were recruited. This project, the progress of which has been delayed by Covid, includes a telematics trial. It aims to make young drivers safer, more confident, and more skilful in their first year of driving through non legislative, technical or educational measures with potential to lower their risk of collisions.
We are awaiting publication of outcomes before considering further measures we can take to improve road safety for young drivers.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with Highways England on (a) potholes and (b) defects on the southbound carriageway north of junction 7 of the A1 (M); and when this stretch of carriageway will be repaired and resurfaced.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Departmental officials have regular dialogue with National Highways about maintenance on the Strategic Road Network. In the last 3 months, National Highways (NH) has carried out repairs and addressed defects on the A1(M) southbound approach to junction 7.
National Highways has a comprehensive road inspection and maintenance programme to maintain safe roads and to reduce the potential for potholes and other surface defects.
Further work will be done between 12 and 16 February. Subsequently, NH has plans to carry out further permanent road surface patch repairs within a 2km stretch of the A1(M) southbound approach to junction 7.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an estimate of the number of households in the East Riding of Yorkshire that are located on estate roads that have not been adopted by their local authority as of 1 January 2024.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The requested information is not held by the department.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
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 help increase (a) recruitment and (b) retention of staff in NHS organisations in East Yorkshire constituency.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce that meets the changing needs of the population over the next 15 years. It will put the workforce on a sustainable footing for the long term.
To boost recruitment, the Government is backing the plan with over £2.4 billion over five years to fund additional education and training places. This is on top of increases to education and training investment, reaching £6.1 billion over the next two years.
By significantly expanding domestic education, training and recruitment, we will have more healthcare professionals working in the NHS. This will include more doctors and nurses alongside an expansion in a range of other professions, including more staff working in new roles.
The Long Term Workforce Plan also builds on the People Plan, setting out how to improve culture and leadership to ensure that up to 130,000 more staff are retained within the NHS over the next 15 years. This includes ensuring staff can work flexibly, have access to health and wellbeing support, and work in a team that is well led. These interventions apply across staff groups and geographical regions.
These recruitment and retention initiatives apply across the country, including in the East Yorkshire constituency.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress he has made on field trials of bovine TB vaccination of cattle; and what his planned timescale is for a full roll-out of a vaccine.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Developing a vaccine against TB in cattle is one of the government’s top priorities. Defra aims to have a deployable cattle TB vaccine (‘CattleBCG’) and a new companion DIVA skin test (to detect infected among vaccinated animals) in the next few years. Field trials of the CattleBCG vaccine and the DIVA skin test started in 2021 and are ongoing.
Final deployment will rely on the success of the ongoing field trials, achieving UK Marketing Authorisations from the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) (for both CattleBCG and the companion DIVA skin test), gaining international recognition through the World Organisation of Animal Health (WOAH) and our trading partners for both products, an IT system to record and trace vaccinated cattle, and acceptance of vaccination from stakeholders across the supply chain. Defra is working closely with industry to co-design policy proposals.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to help ensure the protective equipment supplied to fire-fighters is up to date.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Fire and Rescue Authorities are responsible for the health and safety of their employees.
It is for individual fire and rescue authorities, as employers with responsibility for health and wellbeing, to ensure that firefighters receive the appropriate equipment and training they need to safely respond to the wide range of incidents which they attend, based on their assessment of local risk. Research being commissioned on carcinogens.
Asked by: Greg Knight (Conservative - East Yorkshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding available to education authorities covering largely rural areas.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The schools national funding formula accounts for the challenges faced by small schools in rural areas through the ‘sparsity’ factor. This recognises that some schools are necessarily small because they are remote and do not have the same opportunities to grow or make efficiency savings as other schools, and that such schools often play a significant role in the rural communities they serve.
Given the importance of local schools to rural communities, the government has made changes to the sparsity factor, including reforms which mean that more schools are now eligible for this funding. Following these reforms, the total funding allocated through the sparsity factor has increased from £42 million in the 2021/22 financial year to £98 million in the 2024/25 financial year.