Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to ensure holiday caravan owners have the same protections under the Mobile Homes Act 2013 as residential park home owners.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The protections under the Mobile Homes Act 1983 apply to park home owners living on caravan sites with planning permission for residential use.
The protections do not extend to owners of caravans on holiday caravan sites, because the planning permission granted permits the use of those sites for holiday and recreational purposes only.
Holiday caravan owners have protections under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will provide additional funding for charities that support women who are victims of domestic violence.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Through the Safer Streets and Safety of Women at Night Funds, the Home Office has invested over £150 million to deliver interventions to tackle violence against women and girls, anti-social behaviour and neighbourhood crime.
In 2023/24, the Ministry of Justice provided £21 million for community-based serious violence and domestic abuse services, and £38 million for Independent Sexual Violence Advisors and Independent Domestic Violence Advisors posts. In all, the Ministry of Justice is quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10.
And at Autumn Statement 2023, the government announced £10 million of additional funding available in 2024/25 for projects that aim to understand the impacts of domestic abuse on the labour market, support victims of domestic abuse in the workplace or prevent victims experiencing further abuse.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to protect the titles for all (a) psychologists, (b) psychotherapists, (c) counsellors and (d) other psychological therapy providers.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
All professional healthcare regulators have protected titles, relating to the professions they regulate. There are currently 64 protected titles across 10 professional health and care regulators, including nine protected titles relating to the practitioner psychologist profession, regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council.
Titles can only be protected for statutorily regulated professions. There are no plans to statutorily regulate psychologist, psychotherapist, counsellor, or other psychological therapy provider roles.
The Government keeps the professions subject to statutory regulation under review and in 2022 published the consultation, Healthcare regulation: deciding when statutory regulation is appropriate, seeking views on the criteria used to decide when regulation is necessary, and whether there are any unregulated professions that should be brought into statutory regulation. The Government will publish its response to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to ensure swift justice for victims of violence against women and girls.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
The Government is taking concerted action to ensure swift justice for victims of VAWG.
This includes delivering the end-to-end Rape Review Action Plan to improve the justice system’s response to adult rape, which has seen Crown Court receipts more than double since 2019.
The Department has also been increasing capacity in the Crown Court, including delivering over 107,000 additional sitting days in Crown Courts; opening two permanent ‘super courtrooms’ in Manchester and Loughborough; increasing criminal legal aid spending by £141 million per year; investing over £220 million for essential modernisation and repair work of court buildings; and investing further in judicial recruitment and retention.
Further to this, we are doing more than ever to ensure victims receive the support they need, including quadrupling funding for victim and witness support services by 2024/25, up from £41 million in 2009/10.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the impact of the tuition fee-based funding model on the financial stability of the higher education sector.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
As autonomous organisations, higher education (HE) providers have a high degree of financial independence and it is for them to make appropriate and necessary decisions around income, funding, spending and borrowing which ensure their continued financial viability and sustainability.
The department believes that the current fee freeze achieves the best balance between ensuring that the system remains financially sustainable, offering good value for the taxpayer and reducing debt levels for students in real terms.
The Office for Students (OfS), as the regulator of HE in England, is responsible for monitoring the financial sustainability of registered HE providers. The department continues to work closely with the OfS and other parties including providers, mission groups and other government departments to understand the ongoing impacts and changing landscape of financial sustainability across the sector.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of reports of alleged settler violence in the village of Um al-Khair in the southern West Bank.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK continues to take a strong stance against settler violence. Extremist settlers, by targeting and attacking Palestinian civilians, are undermining security and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians.
On 12 February, the Foreign Secretary announced new sanctions against four extremist Israeli settlers who have violently attacked Palestinians in the West Bank. These measures are part of wider UK efforts to support a more stable West Bank, which is vital for the peace and security of both Palestinians and Israelis.
We continue to urge Israel to take stronger action to stop settler violence and hold the perpetrators accountable. We will consider additional actions, including further sanctions, as necessary. The UK continues to work with allies and partners, including across the region, to find a path towards a sustainable ceasefire and permanent peace.
Asked by: Mary Kelly Foy (Labour - City of Durham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has placed a ban on all inter-year transfers to St Leonard's Catholic School in City of Durham.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The Secretary of State for Education would not have powers to place a ban on inter-year transfers to St Leonard's Catholic School in the City of Durham.
Parents can apply for a place for their child at any school at any time. An application after the start of the school year for a place in the normal year of entry (usually Year 7 in a secondary school), or for any other year group, is called an “in-year” application. The School Admissions Code sets out requirements in relation to in-year admissions.
Where an application is received for a year which is not the normal year of entry, the admission authority can only refuse if the admission of another child would “prejudice the provision of efficient education or efficient use of resources”.
Where in-year applications are received for the normal year of entry, the admission authority must admit children up to the Published Admission Number (PAN).
If an admission authority (in this case, Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Academy Trust) wishes to change the PAN for Year 7, they would need to submit a request to vary the published admission arrangements (which include the PAN) to the Secretary of State for Education.