Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on health of missed dental appointments as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
No such assessment has been made.
Dental practices have been able to open for face to face care from 8 June, with urgent provision backed up by over 600 urgent dental care centres across the country. The Department is working closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement and the Chief Dental Officer for England to increase levels of service, as fast as is safely possible.
NHS England and NHS Improvement have set out guidance that dentists should focus on care that is urgent, care to vulnerable groups and then overdue routine appointments. In circumstances where patients are unable to access an urgent dental appointment directly through a National Health Service dental practice, they should contact NHS 111 for assistance.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect on public health of the closure of gyms as a result of covid-19 restrictions.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government considers the impact restrictions may have on public health.
Whilst we recognise that exercise is important for people’s mental and physical health, gyms are high risk settings for spreading COVID-19.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress he is making on plans for the safe return of students on heavily vocational BTEC courses to colleges.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
To support the return to college of all students from 8 March, the department has worked closely with Public Health England to develop and refresh the system of controls for education settings to reduce and mitigate the risk of transmission of COVID-19. New measures include asymptomatic testing and recommending the increased use of face coverings.
In addition, to prepare for return, colleges should update their risk assessments and ensure they are implementing the system of controls, this includes assessing the risks particular to their setting and provision.
For those students whose courses are more vocational in nature (for example, for courses that require close contact, require access to specialist equipment or are taught in non-traditional classroom environments such as workshops), the further education COVID-19 guidance sets out additional steps and considerations colleges can take, details of which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-further-education-provision. Colleges are advised to put greater emphasis on the other measures outlined in the systems of controls, such as increased use of face coverings, increased ventilation, in addition to the use of screens or barriers and follow the relevant working safely during COVID-19 guidance to reduce the risk of transmission, details of the guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the financial effect of covid-19 on self-employed musicians.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government recognises the significant challenge the current pandemic poses to many individuals and freelancers working in the music industry.
The Government has carried out an assessment of access to the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) for individuals’ working in the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation Sector:
For SEISS round 1: 76,000 individuals given an average of £2,700
For SEISS round 2: 72,000 individuals given an average of £2,400
For SEISS round 3: 66,000 individuals given £2,700
We are working very hard to help freelancers in those sectors access support, including through the Self Employment Income Support Scheme and funding from Arts Council England.
The Government has and will continue to look for ways to improve the Self Employment Income Support Scheme grant and existing support.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that local authorities prioritise the development of brown field sites over green belt and green field sites.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The National Planning Policy Framework expects local authorities to prioritise brownfield land for development wherever possible. Local authorities are best placed to assess the potential of individual sites, and each authority is required to publish a register of its developable brownfield suitable for new homes.
Brownfield redevelopment is supported by funding including the £4.1 billion Housing Infrastructure Fund, the £400 million Brownfield Fund, and the Home Building Fund, which had a £450 million funding boost last year taking the total to £4.95 billion. In addition, details of the new Brownfield Land Release Fund, which will unlock brownfield sites and release serviced plots on local authority owned land, will be announced shortly.
Consultation on the White Paper Planning for the Future closed on 29 October 2020. My Department is undertaking further detailed policy development on individual elements of the reform proposals. However, we have made clear that local authorities would still have responsibility for protecting the Green Belt and other valued greenfield land.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the cumulative total is of Government funding in response to covid-19 that has been provided to Wigan Council.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the Hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave on 26 February 2021 to question 153417.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many of the 20,000 police officers recruited as part of the national campaign will be recruited to Greater Manchester Police.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government is committed to increasing the number of police officers by 20,000 by March 2023.
As at 31 December 2020, 6,620 additional officers had been recruited in England and Wales as a result of the Police Uplift Programme with Greater Manchester Police having recruited an additional 266 additional officers against the force’s year one allocation of 347.
For year 2 of the Programme, Greater Manchester has an uplift allocation of 325 police officers to be recruited by March 2022.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what financial support the Government plans to provide to rugby league clubs to ensure the safe return of local sport following the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
To date, the government has provided an unprecedented £300 million Sport Winter Survival Package to give a lifeline to organisations that would otherwise not survive the winter as a result of the restriction on spectators announced from 1 October. This included a provisional allocation of £12 million to support rugby league which is in addition to the £16 million cash injection government announced in May 2020 to safeguard the immediate future of the sport for the communities it serves.
Furthermore, rugby league clubs will have benefitted from the £220m of National Lottery and Exchequer funding committed by Sport England since March 2020 to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic. This sector support was recently boosted by an extra £50million to help grassroots sports clubs and organisations as part of Sport England’s new strategy Uniting the Movement. Further details of Sport England funding including the organisations that have benefited can be found at: https://www.sportengland.org/why-were-here.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what the cumulative total is of covid-19 related funding allocated to Wigan Council.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
Wigan Council has so far received almost £28 million of emergency grant funding since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of its share of the £4.6 billion of unringfenced support to councils across the country.
Wigan has also received £9.3 million through the Contain Outbreak Management Fund, £5.7 million through the Infection Control Fund, £3.1 million via the sales, fees and charges income support scheme and £1.1 million via the Covid Winter Grant Scheme. This additional £19.2 million of support alongside almost £3 million of other grant funding to Wigan comes to a cumulative total of £50.1 million of funding since the start of the Pandemic.
In addition, Wigan Council will receive over £9 million in unringfenced funding to address the impacts of COVID-19 in the next financial year. This is alongside an increase in settlement Core Spending Power up to over £11 million.
Source of COVID-19 Support | Allocated to Wigan (£m) |
Total COVID-19 Additional Funding for LAs for 2020/21 (£m) | 28.0 |
Further Direct Support - 20/21 | |
COMF - Test and Trace Service Support Grant (£m) | 2.4 |
COMF - Additional Surge Funding (£m) | 6.9 |
ASC Infection Control Fund(Round 1 and 2)(£m) | 5.7 |
ASC Workforce Capacity Fund (£m) | 0.8 |
ASC Rapid Testing Fund (£m) | 0.7 |
Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) Funding (£m) | 0.2 |
Compliance and Enforcement Grant (£m) | 0.2 |
Reopening High Streets Safely Fund (£m) | 0.3 |
Provisional Rough Sleeping emergency funding (£m) | 0.006 |
Next Steps Accommodation Programme (NSAP) (£m) | 0.3 |
Local Authority Emergency Assistance Grant for Food and Essential Supplies (£m) | 0.4 |
DWP Covid Winter Grant Scheme (£m) | 1.1 |
Sales, Fees and Charges Compensation Scheme (£m) | 3.1 |
Total direct COVID-19 funding for Wigan for 2020/21 (£m) | 50.1 |
Settlement | |
Annual Change (£m) | 11.3 |
Annual Change (%) | 4.7% |
21/22 Funding | |
Additional Unringfenced Tranche Funding for 2021/22 | 9.5 |
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding opportunities he plans to make available for investment in rail and light rail improvements.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
As part of the Spending Round in 2020 over £2 billion of funding has been confirmed in 2021-22 for rail services, which builds on the estimated £12.8 billion of support for transport services that the government has already committed to provide in 2020-21.
As part of the levelling-up agenda, the Government announced in January 2020 that it has pledged £500 million for the Restoring Your Railway Programme to start reopening lines and stations, regenerating local economies and improving access to jobs, homes and education.
Between 2019 and 2024, approximately £38 billion has been allocated for investment in operations, maintenance and renewals of the rail network, of which around £20 billion is for Network Rail’s renewals programme.
To date, the Government has announced over £150 million of emergency grant funding to support the Light Rail sector. This funding has ensured that light rail services continue to run throughout the pandemic, enabling essential journeys such as those made by NHS staff and other key workers.
As announced in the 2020 Budget and confirmed in the Spending Review, the government is investing £4.2 billion in the transport networks of eight city regions across England from 2022, including Greater Manchester. These intra-city transport settlements will be based on plans put forward by city regions and could be used to fund light rail improvements.
In addition, the Transforming Cities Fund is a £2.5 billion fund focused on public and sustainable transport infrastructure. It is currently providing funding for light rail improvements in some cities, including Greater Manchester.