Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to support young people unable to attend school as a result of having long covid.
Answered by Damian Hinds
Regular attendance at school is vital for children’s education, wellbeing, and long-term development. School attendance is mandatory, and parents have a duty, under section 7 of the Education Act 1996, to ensure that their child of compulsory age receives an efficient full-time education between ages five and sixteen.
The department recognises that some children may face barriers to attendance due to diagnosed medical conditions, such as long COVID. Long COVID is an umbrella term for symptoms that persist or develop after someone recovers from COVID-19. The severity of these symptoms can vary significantly and the support for pupils should recognise this.
The department’s new attendance guidance makes it clear that children with long term medical conditions may require additional support and that schools should provide this support where necessary to help them access their full-time education. This should include having sensitive conversations with pupils and parents, making reasonable adjustments where necessary, and considering additional support from external partners (including the local authority or health services). The department expects schools to work with families to develop specific support approaches for attendance and ensuring effective pastoral support is in place.
In some circumstances, pupils’ symptoms may be so severe that they are unable to attend mainstream education. The guidance entitled ‘Ensuring a Good Education for Children who cannot attend school because of health needs’ sets out that a local authority must arrange suitable full-time education (or as much education as the child’s health condition allows) for children of compulsory school age who, because of illness, would otherwise not receive suitable education. A link to the guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/education-for-children-with-health-needs-who-cannot-attend-school.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many miners were recipients of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme in (a) Selby and Ainsty constituency and (b) nationally in November 2023.
Answered by Graham Stuart
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 14 September 2023 to Question UIN 198552.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many universal credit claims were subject to deductions in the most recent month for which data is available in Selby and Ainsty constituency.
Answered by Jo Churchill
In August 2023, 2,200 Universal Credit households in the Selby and Ainsty constituency had one or more deductions from their award.
Notes:
1. The number of claims for Selby and Ainsty are rounded to the nearest hundred.
2. Deductions include advance repayments, third party deductions and all other deductions, but exclude sanctions and fraud penalties which are reductions of benefit rather than deductions.
3. Household level figures have been provided as deductions are applied at the household level.
4. Data for August 2023 has been provided in line with the latest available UC Household Statistics.
5. Unknown parliamentary constituency accounts for 0.4% of all UC households.
6. Figures are provisional and are subject to retrospective change as later data becomes available.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to increase the retention of (a) GPs and (b) other primary healthcare staff in North Yorkshire.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
We are working with NHS England to increase the general practitioner (GP) workforce in England, including North Yorkshire. This includes measures to boost recruitment, address the reasons why doctors leave the profession, and encourage them to return to practice. NHS England has made available several recruitment and retention schemes to boost the general practice workforce. This includes the GP Retention Scheme, the GP Retention Fund, the National GP Induction and Refresher, the Locum Support Scheme, and the Supporting Mentors Scheme.
Through the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme, Primary Care Networks and practices have recruited over 34,000 additional staff including nursing associates, pharmacists, physiotherapists, and social prescribing link workers, hitting the Government's target to recruit 26,000 a year ahead of the March 2024 target.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, published earlier this year by NHS England, sets out the steps the National Health Service and its partners need to take to deliver an NHS workforce, including GPs and other primary healthcare staff, 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.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to increase the availability of dental care appointments for veterans.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
In July 2022, we announced a package of improvements to the National Health Service dental system, detailed in Our plan for patients. This outlined how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to NHS dental care through several improvements to the 2006 contract. These changes were designed to improve access for all that need it, including veterans.
A key principle of the Armed Forces Covenant is that the Armed Forces community experiences no disadvantage in accessing healthcare. The NHS takes its responsibilities under the Covenant very seriously.
We are working on our Dentistry Recovery Plan which will address how we continue to improve access, particularly for new patients; and how we make NHS work more attractive to ensure NHS dentists are incentivised to deliver more NHS care.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans his Department has to support rural bus services in (a) Selby and Ainsty constituency and (b) Yorkshire.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government is investing over £2 billion in funding for Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) to deliver their Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs). This includes £1 billion from redirected HS2 funding to level up bus services in the North and Midlands as part of Network North.
The support provided for bus services (including rural bus services) in Yorkshire is £137million. This includes:
Area | BSIP funding up to March 2025 (£million) | BSIP (Plus) funding up to March 2025 (£million) | Network North BSIP funding up to March 2025 (£million) |
North Yorkshire council |
| 2.9 | 3.5 |
East Riding of Yorkshire council |
| 2.3 | 1.9 |
Hull City council |
| 1.5 | 1.5 |
South Yorkshire MCA |
| 6.3 | 7.8 |
West Yorkshire CA | 70 | 7.8 | 13.4 |
City of York council | 17.4 |
| 1.2 |
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to mitigate the impact of bank branch closures in Selby and Ainsty constituency.
Answered by Bim Afolami
Decisions on opening and closing branches are taken by the management team of each bank on a commercial basis with which the Government does not interfere.
Nonetheless, the Government believes that the impact of branch closures should be mitigated where possible so that all customers, wherever they live, continue to have access to appropriate banking services.
The Government supports industry working together to provide alternative banking and cash services, such as Banking Hubs. To date, industry has committed to delivering new shared Banking Hubs in over 90 communities. Further alternative options to access everyday banking services can be via telephone banking, through digital means such as mobile or online banking and via the Post Office. The Post Office Banking Framework allows 99% of personal banking and 95% of business customers to deposit cheques, check their balance and withdraw and deposit cash at 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK.
Guidance from the Financial Conduct Authority also sets out its expectation of firms when they are deciding to close their branches. Firms are expected to carefully consider the impact of a planned closure on their customers’ everyday banking and cash access needs and consider possible alternative access arrangements. This seeks to ensure the implementation of closure decisions is done in a way that treats customers fairly. The Consumer Duty also requires that firms deliver “good outcomes” for customers.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps he has taken to improve the accuracy of the information collected on parent finances by the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Paul Maynard
As a principal part of the service design the Department uses data from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) and its own benefits data to assess 91% of Paying Parents earned income and benefit status, which are key parts of the maintenance calculation. We also receive evidence of income directly from Universal Credit where a customer is in receipt of Universal Credit with earnings.
Primarily, calculations are based on historic income amounts from the latest available tax year, provided via interface by HMRC, where a complete tax year is available within the last 6 years. Where historic tax year information is unavailable, or a customer requests a supersession on the basis that PP income is 25% different from the historic amount, we have two routes based on the PP employment circumstances:
Where a paying parent receives unearned income which can be legally considered in assessing child maintenance either parent can request a variation to the normal maintenance calculation. Cases involving suspected misrepresentation or fraudulent behaviour can be investigated by the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU). This is a specialist team which can request information from financial institutions to check the accuracy of information the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is given.
Where a change to current income is applied, CMS will further verify this against HMRC evidence at Annual Review, and again at a Periodic Current Income Check (+11 months from change to Current Income) to re-verify the income evidence with RTI. This provides comprehensive assurance as it is independent of the Paying Parent and directly interfaces with HMRC, reducing the opportunity for misrepresentation or inaccuracies. We have increased the proportion of changes where we automatically interface with RTI, including changes instigated by Receiving Parents.
In October 2023, the Government announced intentions to introduce legislation so that unearned income can be taken into account automatically when the maintenance calculation is made to ensure a paying parent’s maintenance calculation reflects their ability to pay. We are currently engaging with stakeholders on how best to implement this.
The National Audit Office accuracy figures are published on their website and confirm CMS achieved better than 99% for the last 6 years (2016/17 to 2021/22) however, they are still auditing 2022/23 accuracy.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help people with limited internet capability access online health services.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
In September 2023, NHS England published a framework for action on digital inclusion to help the system design and implement inclusive digital approaches and technologies. Additional help is provided by community organisations and local partners by providing free devices and mobile data to digitally excluded people; for example, the National Device Bank and a National Data Bank run by the Good Things Foundation.
Patients unable to use digital channels will continue to be able to access services via telephone and through traditional face to face services.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of rates of Approved Mileage Allowance Payments, in the context of increases in the cost of fuel.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
Approved Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAPs) are used by employers to reimburse an employee’s expenses for business mileage in their private vehicle. These rates are also used by self-employed drivers to claim tax relief on business mileage (simplified motoring expenses). The AMAP rates are not mandatory, and employers can choose to pay more or less than the AMAP rate. It is therefore ultimately up to employers to determine the rate at which they reimburse their employees.
Like all taxes and allowances, the Government keeps the AMAP rate under review, and in considering changes to the AMAP/simplified motoring expenses rates, the Government has to balance support for individuals with the responsible management of public finances, which fund our essential public services. Any changes will be announced at a future fiscal event.
However, the Government recognises that transport is a major cost for individuals and families. At Spring Statement 2022 the Government announced a temporary 12-month cut to duty on petrol and diesel of 5p per litre. In order to continue supporting all motorists, the Government extended the 5p fuel duty cut, which is worth £100 to the average driver over the year.