Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to improve diagnosis times for those affected by brain tumours.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has taken steps to significantly invest in diagnostics through additional funding for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography capacity across all National Health Service healthcare settings over this Spending Review period. This includes the acceleration of the Community Diagnostic Centres programme which will further release imaging capacity to reduce the waiting times for all patients including patients with clinical indication of a brain tumour. There has also been investment in MRI Acceleration technology which will improve the daily throughput per upgraded MRI scanner by reducing the scan times required per patient and improve the patient experience by reducing the scan times for patients.
Improvements to GP Direct Access pathways will support general practitioners referring directly for MRI brain scans, where they have concerns about symptoms that could indicate an incidental finding of a brain tumour. In addition, all patients referred for an imaging diagnostic scan with the clinical indication of cancer/tumour would be treated as an urgent cancer referral. These referrals are triaged, appointed and reported within two weeks of referral.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
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 raise public awareness of the signs and symptoms of brain tumours.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England is delivering a range of interventions to support general practitioners (GPs) in diagnosing brain cancer earlier, therefore the Department is not running any additional public awareness campaigns at this stage.
In April 2020, NHS England introduced the “early cancer diagnosis service specification” for Primary Care Networks. This is designed to support improvements in rates of early cancer diagnosis by requiring Primary Care Networks to review the quality of their practices’ referrals for suspected cancer and take steps to improve this.
NHS England is also working with Cancer Alliances and GPs to diagnose more cancers earlier by making funding available to embed clinical decision support tools within general practice and give them access to a wider range of diagnostic tests. This includes brain MRIs, for patients with concerning symptoms, but who fall outside the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline threshold for an urgent suspected cancer referral. These tools and tests are expected to support the earlier detection of a range of cancers including brain cancer.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the evidential basis is for her Department's statement in the Equality Impact Assessment for the Illegal Migration Bill, published on 26 April 2023, that the Bill should have a deterrent effect which can result in fewer unaccompanied children arriving in the UK by dangerous and unlawful means.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The purpose of the Illegal Migration Bill is to prevent and deter all unlawful migration, and in particular migration by unsafe and illegal routes. Those who arrive illegally will be liable to detention and will be swiftly removed to their home country or to a safe third country. The duty to make arrangements for removal will apply to unaccompanied children once they turn 18 and there is a power to remove them in limited circumstances prior to them reaching adulthood. The organised people smuggling criminal gangs can be expected to exploit any exceptions or loopholes in the scheme provided for in the Bill.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has taken steps to produce an updated version of the Student Income and Expenditure Survey.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The Student Income and Expenditure Survey (SIES) 2021 to 2022 has been commissioned and the report will be published in due course.
The last published SIES survey (2014 to 2015) can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/student-income-and-expenditure-survey-2014-to-2015.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to extend the eligibility criteria for free school meals to cover all children from households in receipt of Universal Credit and equivalent benefits.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Since 2010, the number of pupils receiving a free school meal (FSM) has increased by more than two million. This increase in provision is due to the introduction of Universal Infant Free School Meals and generous protections put in place as benefit recipients move across to Universal Credit. Over a third of pupils in England now receive FSM, compared with one in six in 2010.
The Department believes that the current eligibility threshold level, which enables children in low income households to benefit from FSM, while remaining affordable and deliverable for schools, is the right one. The Department does not have plans to change the current eligibility conditions for FSM, but will continue to keep eligibility under review to ensure that these meals are supporting those who most need them. The Department continues to monitor the consequences of the rising cost of living and is working with other Government Departments to provide support to disadvantaged families.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that university students in private rental accommodation (a) are receiving or (b) have received payment from the Energy Bills Support Scheme.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The government recognises the additional cost of living pressures that have arisen this year and impacted students.
All households will save on their energy bills through the Energy Price Guarantee and the £400 Energy Bills Support Scheme discount. Students who buy their energy from a domestic supplier are eligible for the energy bills discount.
The Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding will provide £400 support to those households without a direct relationship to a domestic electricity supplier in England, Scotland, and Wales, who have faced increased energy bill costs since 1 October 2022. This will include students in privately rented accommodation, where they receive their energy from an intermediary, such as a landlord or letting agency, who holds a commercial electricity contract.
The Energy Prices Act passed on 25 October 2022 includes the provision which requires landlords to pass any benefits they receive from energy price support onto end users, as appropriate.
Tenants should not need to take action to receive this benefit as the obligation is on intermediaries, such as landlords, to pass through the benefit and provide the information necessary to do so. If a student believes this obligation has not been met, they are advised to contact their landlord or an intermediary to resolve this in the first instance. Within the regulations, there is also scope to pursue enforcement through civil proceedings.
Further guidance on the pass-through requirement can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pass-through-requirements-for-energy-price-support-provided-to-intermediaries/guidance-on-the-pass-through-requirements-for-energy-price-support-in-great-britain-provided-to-intermediaries.
Students in purpose-built student accommodation are not eligible to receive support under the scheme. With fixed rental fees set ahead of the academic year, these students have not been exposed to unexpectedly higher energy bill costs this winter.
For students living in university or private halls, businesses, including those providing student accommodation, are covered by the Energy Bill Relief Scheme which provides energy bill relief for non-domestic customers in Great Britain.
The Energy Bill Relief Scheme will provide a price reduction to ensure that all businesses and other non-domestic customers, including universities and private purpose-built student accommodation providers, are protected from high energy bills this winter.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether her Department offered support to Royal Mail to help resolve the ransomware attack on 10 January 2023; and whether her Department had discussions with Royal Mail on (a) compensation for sub-postmasters who lost trade arising from the ransomware attack and (b) sustaining sub-postmasters income as they offer more services online.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The cyber incident affecting Royal Mail is an operational matter for the business to address. Royal Mail has been working with the National Cyber Security Centre and law enforcement partners to resolve the incident.
The Department has had no discussions with Royal Mail on compensation for sub-postmasters or sustaining sub-postmasters’ income. These are contractual matters for the two businesses.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his polices of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Bill for democracy and human rights in Zimbabawe.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK is monitoring the progress through [Zimbabwe's] parliament of so-called "patriotic" amendments to Zimbabwe's criminal code, which could be used to target critics of the state, if passed into law. We regularly raise human rights issues, including freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, with the Government of Zimbabwe, in concert with other embassies. The former Minister for Africa [Vicky Ford MP] discussed these issues with Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister [Frederick Shava] last June and our Ambassador publicly underlined the UK's commitment to the right to peaceful assembly and association on 2 October.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many requests for legal assistance made by asylum applicants during the first instance procedure in 2022 resulted in a grant of legal assistance.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the total number of requests for this type of legal assistance is not held. Such assistance, where provided by legal aid, is funded under the ‘Legal Help’ scheme. Decisions about eligibility for this form of services are delegated to legal aid providers. As such, applications are not made directly to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA). Consequently, the LAA does not hold data regarding overall volumes of requests for assistance or the number of requests for assistance that are refused.
Asked by: Paul Blomfield (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many requests for legal assistance were made by asylum applicants during the first instance procedure in 2022.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the total number of requests for this type of legal assistance is not held. Such assistance, where provided by legal aid, is funded under the ‘Legal Help’ scheme. Decisions about eligibility for this form of services are delegated to legal aid providers. As such, applications are not made directly to the Legal Aid Agency (LAA). Consequently, the LAA does not hold data regarding overall volumes of requests for assistance or the number of requests for assistance that are refused.