Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle the (a) criminal, (b) health and (c) licensing issues arising from the sale of illegal vapes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is concerned about the increase in the number of illicit vapes in the United Kingdom’s market, as well as the access and availability of these vapes to children. In April of last year, we provided £3 million of funding for a new enforcement unit to tackle the illegal and underage sale of vapes, which has conducted targeted inspections in retail outlets and ports, upskilled trading standards officers, and piloted online underage test programmes.
Whilst there are no current plans to introduce a licensing scheme, we have also recently announced a further £30 million of additional funding per year to tackle illicit and underage sales of tobacco and vape products. This additional funding in England will boost agencies such as local trading standards, to enforce the new age of sale and vaping restrictions.
Alongside this package of funding, we are also taking assertive action to reduce youth vaping more generally. We recently published our response to the smoking and vaping consultation, which sets out plans to reduce the appeal and availability of vapes to children, through introducing restrictions on flavours, packaging, and point of sale display. Our response to the consultation is available at the following link:
We have also announced that we will ban the sale and supply of disposable vapes, and have set out plans to introduce a £100 fixed penalty notice for underage sales of tobacco and vaping products. The Government will introduce legislation as soon as possible.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
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 support Local Authorities with the (a) collection and (b) disposal of disposable vapes.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Changes are currently underway to the Producer Balancing System (PBS) under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations to ensure the costs of treating waste disposable vapes that arise at local authority waste sites are apportioned equitably amongst vape producers. The PBS also provides a guarantee to local authorities that all the waste arising at their sites, including disposable vape waste, will be collected.
On 28 December 2023, we published a consultation on reviewing the WEEE Regulations to ensure that we drive up levels of separately collected WEEE, including vapes, and that the costs of recycling are met fairly by manufacturers, importers and distributors of electrical equipment.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) foreign and (b) dual nationals who have been (i) convicted of an offence subject to more than 12 month imprisonment and (ii) deported in each of the last five years.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The information requested is not available from published statistics.
The Home Office does publish information on a quarterly basis on FNOs returns and can be found at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Foreign offenders should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them and more than 16,600 have been removed since January 2019 to September 2023. We make no apology for this vital work.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of guidance issued to register office staff on supporting families with a bereavement.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The General Register Office for England and Wales is responsible for ensuring that all deaths occurring within England and Wales are registered in accordance with the law. This forms part of the UK’s system of civil registration. Register office staff are required to record certain personal details of the deceased, such as their name and date of birth/age, place, date, and cause of death.
The General Register Office has no responsibility to provide register office staff with guidance to support families following a bereavement.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 31 January 2024 to Question 11541 on Children in Care, what assessment she has made of the reasons for the higher proportion of looked after children per head of population in the North East; and what steps she is taking to remedy those causes.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The number of looked after children across local areas varies for a range of reasons.
In February 2023, the department set out the ambitious and bold plans to reform children's social care through 'Stable Homes, Built on Love'.
The department’s strategy focuses on six pillars of action to transform children’s social care, including to help families overcome challenges at the earliest stage, keep children safe from significant harm, and make sure children in care have stable loving homes, long-term loving relationships and opportunities for a good life.
As part of this, the department is investing over £36 million this Spending Review to deliver a fostering recruitment and retention programme so foster care is available for more children who need it. This includes working with local authorities across the North East to co-design the North East Fostering Pathfinder to develop a foster care recruitment and retention programme of support, which launched in September 2023.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of availability of follow up MRI scans for women who have undergone mastectomies to tackle lobular breast cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
£2.3 billion was awarded at Spending Review 2021 to transform diagnostic services over the next three years. Most of this will help increase the number of community diagnostic centres up to 160 by March 2025, expanding and protecting elective planned diagnostic services. The remainder of the funding will increase capacity for imaging, including MRI scans, endoscopy as well as lung and mammography screening, and improve digital diagnostics.
Growth in the MRI asset base and increased use of MRI acceleration software is creating additional capacity for approximately 572,000 MRI examinations per annum within the NHS in England.
The Department and NHS England have taken steps to improve the treatment of invasive lobular breast cancer (ILBC) but are aware that more needs to be done. In September 2022, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre announced funding from NHS England and the Welsh Government of £5.4 million to support delivery of six new national cancer audits. Two of these focus on breast cancer, one on primary and one on metastatic, and include ILBC.
Additionally, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) supports breast cancer research funded by research partners in the charity and public sectors. Over the last five years, the NIHR Clinical Research Network has supported 10 ILBC-related studies.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2024 to Question 10927 on Mental Health Services: Children and Young People, what the average waiting time was from referral to assessment for a child referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in the latest period for which data is available; and how many children are on a waiting list in each local authority within the NHS North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board area.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The information regarding the average waiting time from referral to assessment for a child referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, in the latest period for which data is available, as well as how many children are on waiting lists in each local authority within the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board, is shown in the attached tables.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2024 to Question 10925 on Liver Diseases: Darlington, how much and what proportion of the £30,000 for County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust will be spent in Darlington.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The breakdown of funding requested is not held by the Department.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what research the Government is funding on tackling lobular breast cancer.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department invests over £1 billion per year in health research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), with NIHR expenditure for all cancers being £121.8 million in 2022/23.
Current NIHR research into breast cancer includes a £1.3 million project to determine whether an abbreviated form of breast magnetic resonance imaging can detect breast cancers missed by screening through mammography, such as lobular breast cancer. The NIHR also supports research on lobular breast cancer through its research infrastructure, including Biomedical Research Centres which are undertaking research on early detection and genetic aspects of breast cancer. It is difficult to attribute research infrastructure funding allocations to specific disease and therapy areas as the staff and facilities funded through the NIHR infrastructure supports research across disciplines.
Additionally, the NIHR supports breast cancer research funded by research partners in the charity and public sectors through the NIHR’s Clinical Research Network (CRN). Over the last five years the CRN has supported delivery of 10 lobular breast cancer-related studies.
Research on the underpinning science to understand the mechanisms of cancer, including lobular breast cancer, is funded through the UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Medical Research Council who spend £125 million annually on cancer research. The NIHR also works closely with research funding partners including Cancer Research UK, Breast Cancer Now, Medical Research Council, and other cancer charities.
Asked by: Peter Gibson (Conservative - Darlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the adequacy of the support provided by local authorities for care leavers.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Supporting care leavers to make a successful transition from care to independence is a priority for this government. Care leavers face barriers to securing and maintaining affordable housing, which is why the department committed to delivering the actions within ‘Mission 5’ of the Care Review implementation plan to increase the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce care leaver homelessness by 2027.
This commitment includes bringing forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, for ‘Staying Put’ to support young people for longer and for ‘Staying Close’ to be a national entitlement, recognising that young people in the general population are leaving home at older ages. The department will also bring forward legislation, when parliamentary time allows, to remove the local connection requirement for care leavers seeking access to social housing at the next available opportunity.
The government is providing funding for the following programmes in the current spending review period (2022/2025) to support care leavers to find suitable accommodation. This includes:
Ofsted inspects the adequacy of the support provided by local authorities for care leavers. In January 2023, Ofsted introduced a new, separate judgement in the inspection framework for local authority children’s services, specifically assessing the experiences and progress of care leavers.
Alongside this, a care leaver Ministerial Board, co-chaired by the Secretaries of State for the Department for Education and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, brings together relevant Ministers from across government to consider what more can be done to improve outcomes for care leavers and to help to achieve the five care-leavers-related ‘Missions’ as set out in the government’s children’s social care strategy, ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’. This includes looking to increase the number of care leavers in safe, suitable accommodation and to reduce care leaver homelessness.