Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps with Cabinet colleagues to make the NHS Pension Scheme a tax unregistered scheme to help increase senior consultant retention.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Government has no plans to introduce a tax unregistered pension scheme for the National Health Service. The majority of NHS Pension Scheme members can build their pensions tax-free and an unregistered arrangement would remove this tax relief on contributions and a tax-free lump sum of up to 25% of the value of their pension on retirement. The Government has asked NHS England to work with NHS organisations to introduce schemes to allow recycling of employer pension contributions to high earners who opt out of the NHS Pension scheme due to the impact of pension tax.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the commitment by the Prime Minister in October 2020 to make 70 per cent of PPE in the UK, how much and what proportion of PPE is being made in the UK; and how much and what proportion of Government spending on PPE is on PPE made in the UK.
Answered by Edward Argar
‘Personal protective equipment (PPE) strategy: stabilise and build resilience’, published in September 2020, committed to ensure that for the following winter, the supply of United Kingdom manufactured PPE would be sufficient to meet 70% of demand for all categories, except gloves. In that period, UK manufactured goods met 82% of demand. The Department has ordered over 36 billion items of PPE, of which 3.9 billion or approximately 11%, was ordered from UK manufacturers. The total cost was £14.4 billion, of which £1.3 billion or 9%, was for orders with UK manufacturers.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Health and Social Care, whether the Government undertook a modern slavery impact assessment before procuring PPE overseas in the context of evidence of modern slavery in PPE supply chains in Malaysia and China.
Answered by Edward Argar
The Government uses standard contracts, which include clauses on modern slavery. Labour standards are a part of the NHS Supply Chain Coordination Limited framework suppliers contract award process.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether foreign dignitaries are able to travel to the UK without proof of receipt of a UK-approved covid-19 vaccine.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Exemptions from mandatory testing may apply in limited circumstances to representatives of a foreign country or territory and representatives of the Government of a British overseas territory, travelling to the United Kingdom (UK) to conduct official business with the UK. But For public health reasons they are strongly encouraged to take tests on days two and eight after arrival.
Foreign dignitaries may also be eligible for exemption from quarantine if they are amber arrivals and can show proof of being fully vaccinated under any of the following:
Those without proof of vaccination will need to take a COVID-19 test on day two and day eight after arrival in England unless they are issued with an exemption by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Asked by: John McNally (Scottish National Party - Falkirk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to onshore personal protective equipment manufacturing.
Answered by Jo Churchill
Lord Deighton is leading the Government effort to unleash the potential of British industry to manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE) for the health and social care sectors. This will maximise opportunities for United Kingdom-based companies to fulfil orders of PPE.
We are building up UK manufacturing with signed contracts to manufacture over three billion items of PPE through UK-based manufacturers, including facemasks, visors, gowns and aprons.
It is anticipated that around 20% of all PPE will be manufactured in the UK by the end of the year.