Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of violent crime in the last year was linked to (a) drug and (b) alcohol use.
Answered by Edward Argar
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the hon. Member's Parliamentary Question of 8th September is attached.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will (a) instruct all resilience forums to establish a plan for tackling extreme heat, including checks on vulnerable residents and cool rest facilities, and (b) publish guidance his Department has issued on this prior to the period of extreme heat in July 2022.
Answered by Edward Argar
This instruction should, and does, come from the Department for Health and Social Care as the lead department on the Heatwave Plan for England (through the UKHSA) rather than the Cabinet Office. As part of this, their officials and ministers liaise with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Local Communities to share policy guidance for Local Resilience Forums.
UKHSA’s Heatwave Plan for England contains the following:
“The plan focuses on the effects of severe hot weather on health and well-being, however, severe and extended heatwaves can also cause severe disruption to general services. For this reason, multi-agency Local Health Resilience Partnerships (LHRPs) and Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) will have a critical role in preparing and responding to heatwaves at a local level, working closely with Health and Wellbeing Boards on longer term strategic planning.
At local level, emergency planning arrangements run by local government and the NHS are brought together in the Local Resilience Forum (LRF), which have many years of experience with heatwave plans and heat-health alert system. LHRPs have been established to bring together the local health sector organisations to support in strategic planning.
Health Services and local authority commissioners, together with multi-agency LRFs, should satisfy themselves that providers and stakeholders take appropriate actions according to the heat-health alert levels.”
The Heatwave Plan for England also contains resources that provide guidance, recommendations and advice for the public and professionals. Given the health threat and the impacts observed in summer 2021 additional work has been taken forward by UKHSA and Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to raise awareness of the health consequences of hot weather and enable professionals, organisations and individuals to plan, mitigate and respond to hot weather episodes effectively. These include:
Updating the materials related to hot weather risks on the Heatwave Plan for England collection page. These provide sector specific guidance on actions to take during a heatwave to safeguard patients and service users.
Publishing the 2022 Heatwave communications toolkit and social media assets which have been shared with UKHSA regional communications, cross-government partners and local government to support consistent and clear messaging on heat-health.
Coordinating all of the previously circulated guidance will pose a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what contingency planning he has carried out on dealing with periods of extreme heat.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Cabinet Office has been overseeing the cross-government response to the current heatwave, running daily COBR meetings and ensuring appropriate situation reporting to inform contingency plans and decision making.
Individual departments are responsible for the preparedness and contingency plans of their sectors, including ensuring that plans are in place to handle the impacts of extreme heat.
The UK Government has activated a number of pre-agreed contingency plans to cope with the current heatwave, using the Met Office’s National Severe Weather Warning service and the UK Health Security Agency’s Heat Health Alerts as triggers for contingency plan implementation. For example, in response to the forecast, the rail network has introduced widespread speed restrictions and the NHS has taken steps outlined in the National Heatwave Plan.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of (a) underlying health conditions, (b) age or another protected characteristic and (c) vaccination status on mortality rates of covid-19.
Answered by Heather Wheeler
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
A response to the hon. Member’s Parliamentary Question of 29 June is attached.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will take steps to help ensure that (a) all public bodies undertake annual diversity reviews and (b) those annual reviews include an assessment of the progression of people with protected characteristics.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
Regulation 4 of the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017 already requires many public authorities to publish, every year, information relating to those of their employees who share a relevant protected characteristic. This helps the authorities to demonstrate their compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty.
The Government is committed to reforming Arm’s-Length Bodies to ensure they are necessary, accountable, efficient and effective. To achieve this vision the Government has launched a Public Body Review Programme. The guidance includes an expectation that:
“All Arm’s-Length Bodies shall, in the management of its workforce:
Meet its legal obligations as a public sector employer.
Follow the Public Sector Pay Policy.
Report their gender pay gap, if meeting the reporting threshold.
Adhere to diversity action plans in place”.
Additionally, the Cabinet Office has published a new ‘Sponsorship Code of Good Practice’. As part of the Code, Arm’s-Length Bodies are challenged to have a diversity action plan.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he takes to measure the performance of Government against its (a) manifesto commitments, (b) proposed legislative programme and (c) other proposed programmes of work.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Government regularly tracks and reviews the delivery of its commitments and legislative programme.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether it is his policy that the Procurement Bill will help ensure that the auditing of contracts let as part of his levelling up agenda is (a) transparent and (b) accessible to the public.
Answered by Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Procurement Bill will deliver a step change in transparency and openness, with notices mandated for direct awards and publication requirements extended from planning to termination, including contract performance.
A single central platform for contract data will give everyone wider access to procurement information, strengthening the new Procurement Review Unit’s ability to investigate concerns around both awards and transparency.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to help ensure that people appointed to public bodies reflect the diversity of the UK.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Government is committed to making sure that these important opportunities are available to talented people across the UK. Work to support this includes a number of virtual and face-to-face events held across the UK and the phased rollout of a new digital system that will make it easier for anyone to apply for these roles. The Cabinet Office also publishes annual data on public appointments diversity. The latest figures, published on 21st October 2021, show that compared to the previous year there were more women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds, and people from outside London and the South East in these vital roles.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he has made a recent assessment of the effectiveness of the scrutiny of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is an office holder, established to provide an independent complaint handling service for complaints that have not been resolved by the NHS and UK Government departments.
The Ombudsman is accountable to Parliament through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, who hold an annual scrutiny session to evaluate his performance.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the findings of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman Stakeholder (PHSO) Survey 2021, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of reforming the operation of the PHSO.
Answered by Michael Ellis
The government has no plans at this time to introduce an Ombudsman Bill to Parliament.
Whilst the government will consider specific proposals on Ombudsman reform, we do not currently view more large scale Ombudsman reform as a priority for this Parliament.