Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help local authorities tackle substance misuse.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the Government’s 10-year drug strategy, local authorities are receiving £532 million of additional investment through to 2024/25 to improve drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services. This funding is in addition to the Public Health Grant.
The Department is actively supporting local authorities to develop and implement their local plans for drug and alcohol treatment and are monitoring outcomes through the national outcomes framework. This support includes the Commissioning Quality Standard, published in August 2022, which provides guidance for commissioning effective alcohol and drug treatment and recovery services. The Department also published guidance on Recovery support services and lived experience initiatives to support regions to develop and improve recovery-orientated systems of care, to help people to achieve and sustain recovery. The guidance is available at the following link:
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of high-profile use of snus on young people's health.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Snus is banned in the United Kingdom and we have no plans to introduce additional tobacco products to the UK market. Alternative tobacco-free products exist, such as nicotine pouches, which are sometimes referred to as snus. Research suggests that, although nicotine pouch use is low among adults, with 0.26% or 1 in 400 users in Great Britain, it is increasingly popular with younger male audiences. We will continue to monitor the evidence on these products.
In our recent consultation, Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping, the Government explored whether further regulatory measures are needed for other nicotine consumer products such as nicotine pouches. The consultation closed on 6 December 2023 and we will publish a consultation response shortly.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department (a) has made an assessment of and (b) holds data produced by commissioned research on the potential impact of changes proposed by the Renters (Reform) Bill on the number of private residential landlords.
Answered by Jacob Young - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Renters (Reform) Bill will deliver the government’s commitment to ‘a fairer private rented sector’.
The Bill’s green rated impact assessment estimated the gross costs of reforms amount to just £10 per rented property annually – approximately 0.1% of mean annual rents.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has had recent discussions with his counterpart in (a) the Ivory Coast, (b) Ghana, (c) Central African Republic, (d) Gabon, (e) Cameroon and (f) other countries in the region on taking further steps to help tackle the poaching of forest (i) elephants and (ii) elephant calves.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). We are increasing our funding and will invest a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025.
Defra Ministers and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials at Posts regularly discuss important conservation matters including poaching of elephants. For example, the UK signed a letter of intent in December 2023 with Cameroon’s Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection, and Sustainable Development to deliver the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund.
Defra provides support for a variety of different projects that support rangers and protect elephants through the IWT Challenge Fund and direct programming, which are detailed below.
Information on total number of rangers is not available as we do not aggregate this data.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
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 with (a) international counterparts, (b) charities and (c) rangers to help tackle the poaching of elephants.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). We are increasing our funding and will invest a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025.
Defra Ministers and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials at Posts regularly discuss important conservation matters including poaching of elephants. For example, the UK signed a letter of intent in December 2023 with Cameroon’s Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection, and Sustainable Development to deliver the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund.
Defra provides support for a variety of different projects that support rangers and protect elephants through the IWT Challenge Fund and direct programming, which are detailed below.
Information on total number of rangers is not available as we do not aggregate this data.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many rangers received funding from his Department to help tackle the poaching of elephants in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK is committed to combatting the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). We are increasing our funding and will invest a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025.
Defra Ministers and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials at Posts regularly discuss important conservation matters including poaching of elephants. For example, the UK signed a letter of intent in December 2023 with Cameroon’s Minister of the Environment, Nature Protection, and Sustainable Development to deliver the Biodiverse Landscapes Fund.
Defra provides support for a variety of different projects that support rangers and protect elephants through the IWT Challenge Fund and direct programming, which are detailed below.
Information on total number of rangers is not available as we do not aggregate this data.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
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 help tackle the illegal trade of ivory.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK Government is committed to protecting endangered animals and plants from poaching and illegal trade to benefit wildlife, local communities and the economy while protecting global security.
The UK Ivory Act 2018 came into force in June 2022, making it illegal to deal in items made of or containing elephant ivory, and in May this year we announced that the Act will be extended to other ivory bearing species. The Act contains offences for those who breach the ban, with a mix of civil and criminal sanctions, with a maximum fine of £250,000 or five years’ imprisonment.
The UK Government plays a leading role in tackling illegal wildlife trade and we are increasing funding by a further £30 million between 2022 and 2025. We have committed funding through the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund on multiple projects to support protections for elephants, including £1 million to PAMS Foundation to strengthen law enforcement in Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Malawi to secure effective wildlife criminal prosecutions.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the need for health services to support local authorities that provide transport to school for children with complex health needs.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department’s school travel policy aims to make sure that no child is prevented from accessing education by a lack of transport. When a local authority makes travel arrangements for a child with medical needs, they should consider whether and how those needs might affect them during their journey to and from school and, where necessary, put in place proportionate arrangements to manage those needs.
Local authority school travel teams may need to work with local partners to make suitable travel arrangements for children with medical needs, and should be able to expect the support of their local authority’s special educational needs team, local health partners, and the schools to which they arrange travel.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it is her Department's policy to restrict the future availability of Snus and vapes.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The sale of oral tobacco, such as Snus, is banned in the United Kingdom under the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016.
Vapes are less harmful than smoking because they do not contain tobacco, and therefore can be an effective tool in supporting smoking cessation. Vaping is already estimated to contribute to an extra 50,000 to 70,000 smoking quits per year in England. Ensuring that vapes continue to be available to current adult smokers is vital to reducing smoking rates.
However, the number of children using vapes has tripled in the past 3 years. To tackle this, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill will introduce measures to restrict the appeal and availability of vapes to children.
To support this, we recently consulted on a set of proposals to reduce youth vaping, ensuring we get the balance right between protecting our children and supporting adult smokers to quit. We will respond to the consultation in the coming weeks.
Asked by: Ranil Jayawardena (Conservative - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, pursuant to the Answer of 5 December 2023 to Question 4484 on Housing: Birmingham, what estimate he has made of the level of demand for new homes in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority area.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Places for Everyone, the joint strategic local plan for 9 out of the 10 Greater Manchester local planning authorities is at examination. With this in mind it is not possible for the Secretary of State to comment on the plan itself due to his quasi-judicial role in the planning system.