Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of plans to replace the segregation unit at HMP Bedford.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The design brief for the new care and separation unit at HMP Bedford was to identify a suitable location for a facility which would address HMIP concerns while minimising the impacts on operational capacity, security and regime. The proposal agreed with the Prison was to covert part of B wing into the new unit in place of place the old one.
The care and separation unit is due to be completed in early March 2024, however additional works are required in B wing before the wing can be put back into use. While the programme for this is not yet finalised, the aim is for the new unit to open before the end of the year.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to respond to Question 8086 tabled by the hon. Member for Bedford on 5 January 2024 on hornets.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A response was published on 12 February 2024. I apologise for the delay in responding to the hon. Member.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
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 is taking steps to help eradicate Asian hornets from the UK before spring 2024.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
In 2023 the National Bee Unit (NBU) – part of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) - located and destroyed 72 Asian hornet nests. The NBU has been taking action against Asian hornet since 2016 and has a fine-tuned response. They frequently find a nest within a day of an initial sighting being reported. Previously the highest number of nests the NBU had dealt with in one year was 4. Nevertheless, the NBU drew on further resources from wider APHA to provide an effective response to this unprecedented number of Asian hornet nests.
Asian hornet is inactive over winter, normally between November and March. During this period any new queens released from nests in the autumn hibernate. Only a proportion of these will survive and go onto create new nests in spring. Therefore, no further contingency action will be taken until the spring when the hornets start becoming active.
We are developing further plans for 2024 which will be announced prior to the spring. The NBU will continue to respond to credible sightings of Asian hornet and eradicate any nests that are located.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions he has had with Mitre on the potential merits of employing instructors to train staff on how to direct asylum-seekers on to planes for Rwanda in Bedfordshire.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Since 2015, the Government has had training facilities to ensure escorts can respond professionally to the challenges of removing people with no right to be in the UK. This includes practical sessions, so escorts have the skills they need to deal with different scenarios.
As we continue to remove those with no legal right to be here, we will continue to ensure new escorts have the required high quality training and facilities as necessary.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will review the fairness of the eligibility criteria for the activation of the Storm Henk Flood Recovery Framework for people who live in lead local flood authorities areas where fewer than 50 properties were flooded during that storm.
Answered by Simon Hoare - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
I extend my sympathy to all those affected by the impacts of Storm Henk, flooding is a devastating experience for anyone impacted.
Following flooding which took place in 2020, and considering feedback from areas impacted at that time, the framework’s eligibility criteria were reviewed and a move to holding the count at Lead Local Flood Authority (LLFA) level, rather than at district level was agreed for all future activations. For Storm Henk the 50 flooded properties at LLFA level figure was agreed by Ministers across the three Departments responsible for the Framework’s schemes who considered it to be appropriate and to uphold the principles that the FRF is based upon:
DLUHC have committed to reviewing the scheme in the spring.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of allowing (a) local authorities and (b) police forces to retain revenues from speeding fines.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
No recent assessment has been made.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how she plans to measure the effectiveness of the SEND change programme.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In March 2023, the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan committed to testing a suite of SEND and AP policy proposals. The Change Programme is a vehicle for testing these proposals. Since the Change Programme launched in September 2023, the department has been working with the Change Programme authorities, including Bedford which is the lead local authority for the East of England Change Programme Partnership (CPP).
The effectiveness of the Change Programme will be measured through a formal independent evaluation for which the department has appointed an independent evaluator to conduct a process and implementation evaluation of the SEND and AP Change Programme as a whole. The evaluation will help the department understand which elements of the change programme are working well or less well and help shape suitable recommendations for improving ongoing delivery and future policy and practice.
As the Change Programme partnerships test the reforms they will feedback as to what is and is not working.
This feedback loop, led by the department and the change programme delivery partner, REACh, will not only help understand effectiveness but will also allow the department to share any early insights into the effectivity of reforms more widely. Feedback is received through the department’s frequent meetings with REACh.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what plans she has to support (a) the Ants Group and (b) other renewable energy companies to help achieve the Government’s net zero targets by 2030.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government recognises the important roles that renewables developers, contractors and suppliers play in contributing to the achievement of its net zero targets.
The Government has provided significant additional funding for renewable energy projects this autumn. Provisions include support via the next Contracts for Difference Allocation Round, funding for renewables manufacturing, and investment tax measures.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of allowing future childcare costs to be met in advance through Universal Credit rather than being recovered retrospectively.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government recognises that high childcare costs can affect parents’ decisions to take up paid work or increase their working hours which is why on June 28, 2023, the Department started providing even more help with initial upfront childcare costs when parents move into work or increase their hours.
This means that a parent who needs this additional financial help can now be provided with funding towards both their first and second set of costs (or increased costs), upfront, thereby easing them into the UC childcare costs cycle.
Asked by: Mohammad Yasin (Labour - Bedford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure adequate levels of supply of medication prescribed for (a) epilepsy, (b) hormone replacement therapy and (c) ADHD.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department has well-established procedures to deal with medicine shortages and works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the pharmaceutical industry, NHS England and others operating in the supply chain to help prevent shortages and to ensure that the risks to patients are minimised when shortages do arise.
We are aware of a current supply issue with generic lamotrigine 5mg dispersible tablets for epilepsy. We have issued comprehensive management guidance to the National Health Service highlighting the availability of alternative products.
There have been issues with the supply of a limited number of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) products, primarily due to very sharp increases in demand, but the supply position for many of those products has improved considerably over the last year. Only one of the 23 Serious Shortage Protocols issued since April 2022 remains in place. We continue to engage with suppliers individually to address these issues and improve resilience in the short, medium and long term. We are also holding quarterly roundtables with manufacturers, wholesalers and community pharmacists to monitor progress and agree what more needs to be done to ensure supply is sufficient to meet demand. The eighth HRT supply roundtable is expected to be held in January 2024.
We are aware of disruptions to the global supply of medicines used for the management of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Some issues are now resolving. However, we know that there are currently disruptions to the supply of some other medicines, primarily driven by issues which have resulted in capacity constraints at key manufacturing sites. We are working intensively with the respective manufacturers to resolve the issues as soon as possible and to ensure patients have continuous access to ADHD medicines in the United Kingdom, in the short and long term.