Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of levels of neighbourhood policing.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government is giving policing the resources it needs to police local communities and fight crime. At the end of March 2023, we successfully delivered our commitment to recruit 20,000 additional officers in England and Wales, which means we now have the highest number of officers on record.
Decisions about how these officers are deployed are for Chief Constables, who are accountable to locally elected Police and Crime Commissioners and mayors with these functions.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
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 support the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of General Practice Nurses.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government has committed to increasing the primary care workforce. We are on track to reach 50,000 additional nurses, with over 46,000 more nurses in July 2023 compared with September 2019, including nurses in general practice. We are working to achieve the 50,000 nurses target by improving retention as well as by diversifying our training pipeline and ethically recruiting internationally.
In July 2022, Chief Nursing Officer Ruth May and Em Wilkinson-Brice, National Director of People at NHS England, wrote to trusts to set out the principles and high impact actions that will support the retention of nurses and midwives.
The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan sets out the ambition to increase adult nursing training places by 92%, taking the number of total places up to nearly 38,000 by 2031/32. To support this ambition, we will increase training places to nearly 28,000 in 2028/29.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps she has taken to improve the recruitment and retention of teachers in secondary schools.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Recent data shows that there are now over 468,000 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers in state funded schools in England, which is an increase of 27,000 (6%) since 2010. This makes it the highest number of FTE teachers on record since the School Workforce Census began in 2010.
The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and ensuring teachers across England stay and succeed in the profession.
The Department recently announced that the School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendations for the 2023/24 pay award for teachers and head teachers have been accepted in full. This means that teachers and head teachers in maintained schools will receive a pay award of 6.5%. This is the highest pay award for teachers in over thirty years. The award also delivers the manifesto commitment of a minimum £30,000 starting salary for school teachers in all regions in England.
The Department announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting Initial Teacher Training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.
The Department is also providing a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within Education Investment Areas (EIAs). The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.
The Department has created an entitlement to at least three years of structured training, support and professional development for all new teachers, underpinned by the Initial Teacher Training (ITT), Core Content Framework (CCF) and the Early Career Framework (ECF). Together, these ensure that new teachers will benefit from at least three years of evidence-based training, across ITT and into their induction. The Department is currently reviewing the evidence base of the frameworks to ensure they are informed by the latest developments to provide the best up to date support for teachers at the start of their careers. Further information on the CCF can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/initial-teacher-training-itt-core-content-framework and more information on the ECF is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-career-framework.
To support teacher retention, the Department has worked with the education sector and published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing and to support schools to introduce flexible working practices. This includes the workload reduction toolkit and the education staff wellbeing charter. More than 2,800 schools have signed up to the charter so far. The education staff wellbeing charter is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. The workload reduction toolkit is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit.
The Department recently announced that it will also convene a workload reduction taskforce to explore how we can go further to support trusts and head teachers to minimise workload.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to help (a) specialist disability providers and (b) other social care services in Birmingham Erdington constituency (i) recruit and (ii) retain care workers.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Adult Social Care Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund is providing £562 million over this financial year, of which £13.1 million is going to the City of Birmingham. Local authorities can choose to use their allocation to address local workforce capacity pressures in adult social care through retention activity.
On 4 April 2023, we published our plans for investing £250 million on workforce reforms to improve career progression and access to learning and development opportunities to help reduce turnover. We will continue to engage with care commissioners and employers to consider how best to support workforce retention and recruitment.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will have discussions with (a) Uber and (b) other private hire operators on their practices for deactivating drivers’ accounts.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
While the Government is unable to comment on the working practices of individual companies, we are clear that everyone deserves to be treated fairly at work and rewarded for their contribution to the economy.
The Supreme Court’s judgment on Uber was clear that those who qualify as workers under existing employment law are entitled to core employment rights. Anyone who needs help determining their employment rights may wish to seek advice from the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), who deal with questions from employers, individuals, and others about a wide range of employment relations matters.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an estimate of the number of (a) occasions that schools in Birmingham, Erdington constituency have screened pupils using metal detectors and (b) weapons that have been recovered as a result of screening pupils in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department does not collect data on how many schools use screening or how many weapons are collected as a result of screening.
The Department updated its guidance, ‘Searching, screening and confiscation’, in July 2022.
Headteachers are encouraged to consult with local police who may be able to advise on whether installation of screening devices is appropriate. Any weapons that are found as a result of screening or a search must be passed to the police.
Schools are advised that any search for a prohibited item by a member of staff or police officers should be recorded in the school’s safeguarding reporting system. This allows the designated safeguarding lead to identify possible risks and initiate a safeguarding response if required.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many instances of knife crime have been recorded in (a) the West Midlands, (b) Birmingham and (c) the Birmingham, Erdington constituency, in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the Hon lady Parliamentary Question of 30th March is attached.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps she is taking to educate (a) workers and (b) businesses on ways to reduce negative health impacts of night-time work.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Working Time Regulations provide specific protections to night workers. Before someone starts working at night, they must be offered a free health assessment to see if they are fit to work nights before they become a night worker and on a regular basis after that. A record of this must be kept by the employer. Employers must also make sure that night time workers do not work more than an average of 8 hours in a 24-hour period. Employers can make collective or workforce agreements to change or exclude this limit.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the press release entitled £500 million to develop the adult social care workforce, published by his Department on 5 April 2022, and in the context of the repeal of the Health and Social Care Levy, what steps he is taking to provide funding for the improvement of (a) recruitment, (b) retention, (c) progression and (d) staff wellbeing in the adult social care sector; and when this funding will be made available.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is making available up to £7.5 billion over two years to support adult social care and discharge, with up to £2.8 billion available in 2023/24 and £4.7 billion in 2024/25.
In spring 2023, the Government will publish a plan for adult social care system reform. This will set out how we will build on the progress so far to implement the vision for adult social care set out in the People at the Heart of Care White Paper. This includes our plans to reform the social care workforce.
Asked by: Paulette Hamilton (Labour - Birmingham, Erdington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Social Care of 6 December 2022, Official Report, col 188-190, what steps he plans to take to reform the social care workforce.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is making available up to £7.5 billion over two years to support adult social care and discharge, with up to £2.8 billion available in 2023/24 and £4.7 billion in 2024/25.
In spring 2023, the Government will publish a plan for adult social care system reform. This will set out how we will build on the progress so far to implement the vision for adult social care set out in the People at the Heart of Care White Paper. This includes our plans to reform the social care workforce.