Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) the NHS and (b) other public services will be excluded from future trade deals.
Answered by George Hollingbery
I refer [the Honourable Friend for Sheffield Hallam] to the answer I gave to [the Member for Midlothian] on 26 February 2019, UIN 224362.
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the effect of recent bank branch closures on (a) rural and suburban communities and (b) the community of Sheffield Hallam constituency.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Treasury does not make assessments of the bank branch network. The decision to close a branch is a commercial issue for the management team of the bank. However, Government believes it is important the impact on communities must be understood, considered and mitigated where possible.
The Financial Conduct Authority undertook an analysis of branch closures as part of their Strategic Review of Retail Banking Business Models. This analysis can be found in Annex 1 of the final report (https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/multi-firm-reviews/strategic-review-retail-banking-business-models-final-report.pdf)
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
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 is taking to ensure that the research and observation exemption claimed by people hunting deer with dogs under section 9 of the Hunting Act 2004 is legitimately claimed; and what information his Department holds on whether any such research has been published.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Section 9 of the Hunting Act 2004 does not relate to the research and observation exception under the Act. Paragraph 9, Schedule 1 of the Hunting Act 2004 sets out an exception for research and observation. The Department does not hold information on the application of that exemption or any research published under or relating to it.
Anyone who has information about individuals illegitimately relying on the research and observation exemption should report the matter to the police, as they deal with complaints of illegal hunting.
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has plans to increase the level infrastructure spending on schools in Sheffield Hallam constituency.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department’s priorities for investment in the school estate are to ensure there are enough school places and that the school estate is safe.
The Department has committed £7 billion to deliver new school places between 2015-2021, on top of the investment in the free school programme.
Local authorities are under a statutory duty to ensure that there is a school place available for every child. Sheffield received £95.5 million to provide new school places from 2011-2018 and has been allocated a further £22 million from 2018-2021. Funding for school places is based on local authorities’ own data on school capacity and pupil forecasts. There is, therefore, no shortfall between the number of places funded and those that councils say they need to create.
Since 2015, the Department has allocated £6 billion in condition funding to those responsible for maintaining school buildings across the country. Included within this, Sheffield local authority receives an annual school condition allocation to invest in maintenance priorities across its schools. In 2018-19, they received £2.7 million and voluntary aided (VA) schools in the area were allocated £210,000.
Maintained schools in Sheffield also received their own direct capital allocations totalling £2 million in 2018-19 and £109,000 for VA schools. This includes their allocation from the additional £400 million of capital funding announced at Budget 2018. These figures do not include academies, which receive separate funding.
In addition, the Priority School Building Programme is rebuilding or refurbishing buildings in the worst condition at over 500 schools across England, including 4 schools in Sheffield City Council’s area.
The Department is collecting updated data on the condition of the school estate in England which is due to be completed in autumn 2019 and will help inform future funding policy. The Department will also continue to look carefully at capital funding in preparation for the next Spending Review, along with all its priorities for the education system.
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans the Department have to replace the sixth form places lost as a result of the closure of Bradfield School Sixth Form in Sheffield Hallam.
Answered by Anne Milton
Local authorities are responsible for making sure that provision meets the needs of young people in their area.
The statutory duty to secure sufficient suitable education and training provision for all young people in their area lies with local authorities. Therefore, it is for Sheffield City Council to decide if there is a gap in provision or if students are able to access sufficient suitable places at other providers. If the local authority is able to provide evidence of a gap in provision, it should contact the Education and Skills Funding Agency to discuss options for filling that gap. This could include commissioning additional places if necessary.
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on the National Funding Formula on (a) the number of school places, (b) spending per pupil, (c) school spending reserves and (d) sustainability of school funding in Sheffield Hallam constituency.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The national funding formula allocates the significant majority of funding for schools on a per pupil basis. Where the number of places increases, and those places are filled, the formula will allocate more funding accordingly. Similarly, if the number of pupils (and school places) decreases, less funding is allocated.
On average, schools in Sheffield Hallam constituency will attract 6.0% more funding per pupil by 2019-20, compared to 2017/18 – an increase of £248 per pupil. Total funding will increase by 7.6% when rising pupil numbers are also taken into account. These figures are based on 2018/19 pupil data.
The national funding formula came into force in April 2018. The Department does not collect data on school balances for the 2018/19 financial year, and therefore cannot draw conclusions about its effect on school reserves.
It is recognised schools have faced cost pressures in recent years. This is why a strategy has been announced setting out the support, current and planned, to help schools make the most of their available resources. The strategy can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/supporting-excellent-school-resource-management.
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has to facilitate commercial discussions between manufacturers and NHS England at an early stage in its evaluations of highly specialised technologies.
Answered by Steve Brine
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) it has recently set up a commercial function that specifically focuses on engaging in discussions around commercial arrangements - The Commercial and Managed Access Programme. Through this function, NICE will provide companies with opportunities to engage in commercial and managed access conversations with both NICE and NHS England.
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the introduction of a cost-effectiveness threshold in the NICE highly specialised technologies appraisal process, what steps he is taking to ensure equity of access to treatment for different subgroups of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Answered by Steve Brine
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) evaluates all medicines referred to its highly specialised technologies (HST) programme, including medicines for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, consistently in accordance with its published methods and processes. In 2017, following public consultation, NICE introduced an assessment of cost-effectiveness into its HST methodology that provides a consistent and transparent mechanism for evaluating technologies while recognising the need for greater flexibility in the evaluation of very high cost drugs for the treatment of very rare diseases.
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what strategy his Department has to tackle the use of synthetic cannabinoids in prisons.
Answered by Rory Stewart
We have formed a Drugs Taskforce working with law enforcement and health partners across government to reduce substance misuse including psychoactive substances (PS) in prisons. The Taskforce is developing a Prison Drugs Strategy for publication this autumn which supports and complements the National Drugs Strategy published by the Home Office in 2017. Our approach is centred around the same three objectives: restricting supply, reducing demand and building recovery. We are supporting prisons in reducing all types of drug use, with a particular focus on PS and the unique challenges they bring. In September 2016, we became the first prison service in the world to introduce innovative mandatory drug tests for psychoactive substances, a significant step in tackling the supply and use of them. We have made it a criminal offence to possess psychoactive substances in prison and trained more than 300 sniffer dogs specifically to detect these drugs. We will shortly be providing guidance on how to counter the evolving methods used by suppliers such as impregnated paper. The creation of a new specialist Financial Crime Unit to identify and disrupt the organised crime gangs fuelling drug dealing in prisons was announced by the Secretary of State for Justice at the Conservative Party Conference. The unit is staffed by members of the Police and Prison Service and is able to freeze bank accounts linked to organised crime and to make arrests. This action will cut the supply of drugs to prisoners and prevent money reaching criminal kingpins. We are supporting Bim Afolami MP’s Private Member’s Bill on substance testing in prisons. This legislation will simplify and strengthen the drug testing framework, allowing us to test for all psychoactive substances, as well as prescription-only and pharmacy medicines, helping to identify where they are being abused. |
Asked by: Jared O'Mara (Independent - Sheffield, Hallam)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to protect and support prison staff from abuse.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Our prison staff work incredibly hard and we are under no illusions about the challenges they face. We are taking urgent action to make prisons safer, and assaults on our hardworking staff will never be tolerated. That is why we are working with the Police and Crown Prosecution Service to ensure successful prosecutions of those who assault them. It is also why the Government supported the recently passed Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act, which increases sentences for those who attack emergency workers, including prison officers.
We are taking further measures to protect our staff, including investing in 5,600 body-worn cameras and in rigid-bar handcuffs. Early next year we will begin to equip every prison officer in the adult male prison estate with PAVA incapacitant spray. PAVA can help to prevent serious harm to staff and prisoners alike, as well as being a tool to persuade prisoners in the act of violence to stop. It will be deployed only in prisons that have rolled out the key worker scheme, and in which staff have been properly trained.