Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average time taken is for an award of employment support allowance to be made to an applicant suffering from cancer.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the level of per pupil funding for each child in (a) primary and (b) secondary education in Warrington in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The revenue funding allocated for schools for each financial year from 2009 to 2019 for Warrington local authority are shown in the attached table. For financial year 2019/20, only the dedicated schools grant (DSG) has been allocated at this time, though this makes up the bulk of schools funding. The DSG for Warrington this year is £166.7 million. Other grants will be allocated at later points in the year.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much per pupil funding was spent on each student over 16 and in full-time education in Warrington in each year since 2010.
Answered by Anne Milton
16 to 19 funding is based on a national funding formula with a standard base rate of £4,000 for a full-time 16 or 17 year old student, and additional funding related to the characteristics of students and their learning programmes. This formula has operated since 2013/14. A different national funding formula operated before that, but the figures for the 2 are not consistent.
The average 16 to 19 funding per student for institutions in Warrington is shown below:
Year | Average Funding Per Student |
2013/14 | £4,547 |
2014/15 | £4,446 |
2015/16 | £4,441 |
2016/17 | £4,439 |
2017/18 | £4,441 |
2018/19 | £4,383 |
The table is based on formula funding per student derived from annual allocations covering 16 to 19 provision, to institutions based in Warrington (excluding special schools). Further funding is provided through student support, for high needs provision and from 2018/19 onwards the industry placement capacity and delivery fund.
Note that this figure includes both full- and part-time students as we do not allocate funding separately for these 2 groups. The vast majority of 16-19 year old students are full-time.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much high needs funding was allocated to Warrington in each year since 2010.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Local authorities are required to provide schools with sufficient funds to enable schools to meet the additional cost of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities, up to the value of £6,000. This funding comes from the schools’ block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG).
When the costs of additional support required for a pupil with SEN exceed £6,000, the local authority should also allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This top-up funding, and funding for special schools comes from the local authority’s high needs budget. In December 2018, we announced an additional £250 million in high needs funding up to 2020, bringing Warrington’s total high needs funding to £20.278 million in 2019-20.
In 2013, the schools and high needs budgets within the DSG were created. As the DSG includes other budgets such as the early years budget, the department is unable to provide comparable figures before 2013-14.
The schools and high needs allocations for Warrington since 2013-14 can be found at the following links:
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent discussions he has had and with whom on the standard of proof required for a conclusion of suicide in a coroner's court; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Coroners are independent judicial office holders and, as such, it would be inappropriate to speculate on issues directly relating to the conclusions they record. The Ministry of Justice collects annual data, from each coroner area, on the number of inquest conclusions recorded. The most recent data are available at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/706047/coroners-statistics-2017-csvs.zip.
Since the High Court judgment in R (Maughan) v Her Majesty’s Senior Coroner for Oxfordshire of July last year, coroners have applied the civil standard of proof in suicide conclusions, but this will shortly be considered by the Court of Appeal. I have not had any recent discussions on the standard of proof issue as it would be inappropriate for me to do so while the matter is before the courts.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the number of suicides which have not been recorded as such due to the standard of proof required by a coroner's court in each of the last three years for which information is available.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Coroners are independent judicial office holders and, as such, it would be inappropriate to speculate on issues directly relating to the conclusions they record. The Ministry of Justice collects annual data, from each coroner area, on the number of inquest conclusions recorded. The most recent data are available at: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/706047/coroners-statistics-2017-csvs.zip.
Since the High Court judgment in R (Maughan) v Her Majesty’s Senior Coroner for Oxfordshire of July last year, coroners have applied the civil standard of proof in suicide conclusions, but this will shortly be considered by the Court of Appeal. I have not had any recent discussions on the standard of proof issue as it would be inappropriate for me to do so while the matter is before the courts.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time for a non-emergency GP appointment was in Warrington at the last date for which figures are available.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The time between booking an appointment with a general practice and having the appointment in days for Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) is presented in the following table for January 2019, the latest data available. A 12 month average from February 2018-January 2019 has also been added.
Time between booking an appointment with a general practice and having the appointment (days) | Percentage of appointments Warrington CCG | |
January 2019 | Average over the 12 months February 18 – January 19 | |
Same Day | 45.1% | 46.1% |
1 Day | 8.0% | 7.8% |
2 to 7 Days | 18.1% | 17.1% |
8 to 14 Days | 13.0% | 12.9% |
15 to 21 Days | 6.6% | 7.3% |
22 to 28 Days | 3.9% | 4.2% |
More than 28 Days | 5.1% | 4.7% |
Total | 100.0% | 100.0% |
The time between booking an appointment with a general practice and having the appointment in days for Warrington CCG is presented above for the last published month January 2019 and as a 12 month average from February 2018 - January 2019.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what his policy is on proposals for new stations within the greenbelt.
Answered by Andrew Jones
We would expect any proposal for a new station to follow the same process as any other development in the greenbelt. This would include call-in to the Secretary of State for Planning for a decision on whether to grant or refuse the application.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what his policy is on dealing with proposals from transport authorities for new stations which do not fall within that authority's area.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Department will become involved with proposals for new stations if Government funding is sought to support the new station or if franchised train services are planned to call. By that stage we would expect to see evidence of a strong business case, value for money and support from relevant stakeholders, including all affected local authorities.
Asked by: Helen Jones (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what comparative assessment he has made of the potential economic benefits for the North of England of (a) electrifying the Trans-Pennine line and (b) upgrading but not electrifying that line.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The department has undertaken an assessment of the benefits of a range of potential investments in the route. Within the £2.9bn available in this control period, this work has enabled us to direct funding to the interventions where
it will deliver the best value to customers including the provision of more capacity and greater reliability. It is planned that electrification will take place on the busiest sections into Leeds and Manchester.