Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that the next stage of its Challenge on Dementia builds on the progress made by (a) the Dementia Research Institute and (b) other such initiatives.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The Government remains strongly committed to supporting research into dementia and dementia care and the United Kingdom research community is playing a significant role in the global effort to find a cure or a major disease-modifying treatment by 2025.
We are now reaching the end of our current dementia strategy ‘the Challenge on Dementia 2020’. The Department has begun work with a range of stakeholders, including from the research community, to develop a new dementia strategy for England for the period 2020 to 2025. We expect to publish this early next year.
Research is one of the themes of the current dementia strategy. It will remain central to the post-2020 vision for dementia.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to inform people entering the UK of the dangers of bringing in meat from areas affected by African swine fever.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra, together with the devolved administrations, pig industry and veterinary bodies, has been working on a communications campaign to raise awareness of the risks of the introduction of African swine fever (ASF) to the UK and what can be done to reduce the risk of entry into the UK pig herd or feral wild boar populations. Messaging has targeted key audiences including transport operators, tourists to specific regions, and other people returning from affected regions. Additionally, we have been speaking to both professional and backyard pig keepers about the dangers and risk of ASF, to encourage best practice and ensure disease prevention.
We have also run a targeted communication campaign to raise awareness of the particular risks of bringing pork products into the UK from affected areas, including the emphasis on the importance of safely disposing of any unwanted pork products.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what additional resource has been allocated to UK border force to (a) provide communications to the public on and (b) increase surveillance of imported meat products from areas affected by African swine fever.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra is working with Border Force to focus communications on passengers travelling through ports and airports when returning to the UK from the EU and Asia. We are in the process of developing a set of communications that will be distributed across UK ports and airports informing people of the disease risk and asking that they do not bring personal pork imports into the UK. These messages will be communicated through a combination of posters, leaflets, and social media.
Defra and the Animal and Plant Health Agency routinely provide UK Border Force with information and risk assessments on countries where there is a heightened risk of animal diseases such as African swine fever. The information is used to target the specially trained sniffer dogs to detect illegally imported meat and high risk products of animal origin. Defra is currently working with UK Border Force to improve this intelligence sharing and targeting.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an economic assessment of the potential effect of African Swine Fever being identified in the UK on (a) the public purse and (b) pig producers’ incomes.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government has estimated that the economic effect of a reasonable worst case scenario outbreak of African Swine Fever could cost the UK up to £90 million at 2019 prices. This total estimate includes costs to the industry of up to £85 million, which reflects the lost value of animals from culling, movement bans and trade restrictions, and costs of up to £5 million for the Government for disease control activities.
While this estimate represents an informed assessment of the potential impact of an outbreak, exact costs would be determined by a large number of factors including geographic location, the husbandry system, epidemiology of the outbreak and whether wildlife was involved.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether the Government has plans to strengthen biosecurity arrangements on imported meat products after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Our high biosecurity standards are of critical importance to the UK and we are committed to ensure those standards are maintained when we leave the UK.
As a member of the European Union we share standards of biosecurity with other Member States. This has facilitated the free movement of these goods between member states.
In the short term those standards will not change. Therefore, to ensure minimum disruption at the borders, we will not introduce new import controls on these goods imported from the EU.
To ensure we remain vigilant, we will require advance notification of imports of high-risk food and feed from the EU. This includes products of animal origin and high-risk food and feed not of animal origin. The Food Standards Agency will be in a position to monitor those notifications so that in the event of a food incident occurring involving imported food or feed, it will be able to respond effectively to safeguard public health by swiftly identifying the point of entry to the UK and the spread of a problem. We will also be reviewing our imports regime once we leave the EU.
For imports from countries outside the EU we will maintain the current controls and consignments of animal products will continue to be required to enter at Border Inspection Posts for veterinary checks. Notification will be required using the UK Import of Products, Animals and Food and Feed System. These controls will also apply to products of animal origin that come from outside the EU but travel through the EU before arriving in the UK.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
suggested redraft: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate his Department has made of the potential effect on the viability of rail freight of a 25 per cent reduction in (a) mode shift revenue support and (b) waterborne freight grant.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Government provides grants worth £15.6m per year to support rail and water freight services which deliver environmental and economic benefits over road transport, but whose operating costs are higher. This level is net of a significant efficiency saving implemented since 2015.
Rail flows of intermodal freight continue to be healthy and the grants deliver high value for money. A research project is underway to inform decisions about future funding and operation of the grants and will consider stakeholder feedback.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government plans to (a) restrict or (b) remove the charitable status of Churches and other faith-based organisations who express and practise historic orthodox beliefs on the doctrine of marriage.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
To be a charity, institutions, including Churches and other faith-based organisations in England and Wales, must meet the legal test for charitable status set out in the Charities Act 2011. This requires the institution to have a wholly charitable purpose for the benefit of the public. The advancement of religion has long been recognised as a charitable purpose. There is no presumption that a particular charitable purpose is for the public benefit.
The Charity Commission, as the independent regulator of charities in England and Wales, is responsible for assessing if an institution meets the legal test for charitable status.
There are no plans to change the legal test for charitable status which applies to Churches and other faith-based organisations who express and practise historic orthodox beliefs on the doctrine of marriage.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people in each profession will constitute the 20,000 additional staff guaranteed to Primary Care Networks by 2023-24; and what criteria his Department uses to calculating the demand for those posts.
Answered by Seema Kennedy
The new GP contract framework, published on 31 January 2019, set out plans for an ‘Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme’ in Primary Care Networks. This will provide guaranteed funding for up to an estimated 20,000 additional staff by 2023/24 and will fund new roles for which there is both credible supply and demand. The funding available will be phased and will meet a recurrent 70% of costs for additional clinical pharmacists, physician associates, first contact physiotherapists and first contact community paramedics; and 100% of the costs of additional social prescribing link workers. The actual distribution of the workforce increase across these five roles will depend on the choices that individual networks make, working with their system partners, and taking in to account their existing workforce.
From 2020/21, each network will be allotted a single combined maximum reimbursement sum, covering all five staff roles, offering Primary Care Networks flexibility to decide how many of each of the reimbursable staff they wish to engage, within their Additional Roles Sum.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether he has plans to make representations to his Iranian counterpart on the freedom of religion or belief for (a) Baha’is and (b) Christians in that country; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Mark Field
I refer the hon. Member to the answer of 15 January 2019 (PQ 206031). In addition, at the Human Rights Council in March 2018, the UK strongly supported the renewal of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran. We called on Iran to allow the UN Special Rapporteur access to the country so that he can carry out his mandate.
Asked by: Martin Vickers (Conservative - Cleethorpes)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has plans to reform the rail ticketing and settlement agreement to enable a more (a) transparent, (b) innovative and (c) simpler fares and ticketing system.
Answered by Andrew Jones
The Ticketing and Settlement Agreement (TSA) is maintained and managed by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) on behalf of the train operators. It is for the industry to propose changes to the TSA, and for Secretary of State to approve those changes where he is required to do so. The RDG has submitted to the Williams Rail Review its proposals for reform of the fares system, including reform of the TSA, and we are ready to work with the industry to consider how its proposals might work and be tested in the real world.