Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has provided recent guidance to local authorities on consulting with affected children on proposed changes to (a) the provision of accommodation and (b) other services for (i) children in care and (ii) care leavers.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is vital that children in care and care leavers are properly consulted on the decisions that affect their lives. Local authorities must give due consideration to a child’s wishes and feelings before making any decisions about their care. This is clearly set out in the care planning guidance, which can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1000549/The_Children_Act_1989_guidance_and_regulations_Volume_2_care_planning__placement_and_case_review.pdf. Every child must be appointed an Independent Reviewing Officer, who has a duty to ensure that care plans have given proper consideration to a child’s wishes and feelings and that the child fully understands the implications of changes to their care plan.
In addition, the Children Act 1989 sets out the responsibilities of local authorities to support care leavers to make a successful transition from care to independent living. This includes a requirement on local authorities to appoint a Personal Adviser to support the young person up to at least age 21, and up to age 25 if the young person requests it. The Personal Adviser is required to work with the young person to develop a mandatory Pathway Plan that sets out the young person’s aims and ambitions across seven domains, including accommodation, and the support that the local authority will provide to support them. The Pathway Plan must be reviewed at least every six months, or whenever the young person moves accommodation.
The department consults widely with children in care and care leavers on changes to national policy which might affect them. The department has established the National Implementation Board which includes people with lived experience of the children’s social care system, to challenge and support implementation and delivery of the reform programme, and has awarded contracts to Barnardo’s and Coram Voice until Spring 2024 who are working with policy officials to facilitate engagement with care experienced young people. Topics covered to date have included fostering, family help, corporate parenting and the national framework and dashboard.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that enforcement action is taken against water companies that discharge sewage on dry days.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Last year the Government launched the most ambitious plan to reduce sewage discharges from storm overflows in water company history, driving £56 billion capital investment over 25 years. Water companies will have to achieve targets which mean that, by 2050, no storm overflows will be permitted to operate outside of unusually heavy rainfall or to cause any adverse ecological harm.
The Environment Agency (EA) carries out investigations to determine when a dry spill has occurred. Storm Overflows, in general, should not spill on dry days. There is then a process of further investigation on a site-by-site basis to determine, for example, that the accuracy of certain rainfall monitors and drain down times are correct, as well as other factors. After this thorough process has been conducted, it can be determined if a breach has occurred with sufficient evidence for compliance and enforcement.
If overflows operate outside of permit conditions, the Agency will not hesitate to use all options for robust enforcement action. This can include criminal prosecution by the Environment Agency for which there can be unlimited fines. On 12 July we began legislating to introduce unlimited civil penalties.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help ensure councils have the necessary funding to tackle the presence of Asian hornets.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Asian hornet is a Non-Native Invasive Species which could have a significant impact on honey bees and wild pollinators if it were to become established in the UK.
For this reason Defra and Welsh Government developed the Asian hornet contingency plan which outlines the government response and what actions will be taken when incursions of Asian hornet occur.
The response to Asian hornet is delivered by the National Bee Unit (NBU) - part of the Animal and Plant Health Agency.
We have taken contingency action against all credible sightings of Asian hornet that have been reported in the UK since the first occurred in 2016. As of 12th September 2023, the NBU have located 43 Asian hornet nests this year.
So currently there is no requirement for local councils to take action against Asian hornets. Nevertheless raising awareness is a key aspect of the response so if local councils are made aware of Asian hornets in their area we would ask them to report it through the Asian hornet app or online. By ensuring we are alerted to possible sightings as early as possible, we can take swift and effective action to stamp out the threat posed by Asian hornets.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to support the farming industry with changes in the level of milk price payments to primary producers.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government recognises that dairy farmers have faced a range of challenges in recent years including the impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As a result, output prices reached record highs in 2022 and early 2023 due to the exceptional increase in input costs, although these have since fallen back to more historic levels. We have provided a range of support to the dairy sector during this period. This has included the advance of Basic Payment Scheme payments, a delay to the implementation of an industry-led scheme relating to the use of urea fertiliser, cuts to fuel duty and VAT, the Energy Relief Scheme, an increase in the Employment Allowance, and action on business rates to reduce bills. At the recent No 10 Food Summit, we also announced a £1m bespoke export support fund for the dairy sector, with a particular focus on support for SMEs.
We continue to monitor the dairy market and to work closely with producers, processors, and retailers across the sector to encourage recognition that the burden of rising costs can often fall heavily on farmers, and that these costs should be shared fairly across supply chains. We want all farmers to get a fair price for their products and following our supply chain fairness review of the dairy sector we have brought forward plans for contractual regulation in the sector to strengthen fairness and transparency, ensuring farmers are treated fairly. It remains our intention to introduce the regulations to Parliament later this year.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of funding sphenopalatine ganglion block treatment on the NHS.
Answered by Will Quince
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has not made an assessment.
NICE has published a clinical guideline (CG150) on the diagnosis and management of headaches in children aged over 12 years old and recommends several treatments for tension-type headache, migraine, cluster headache and medication overuse headache. If new evidence on the use of sphenopalatine ganglion block became available, then NICE would consider the impact it has on its current recommendations.
NHS England also carefully reviewed the evidence to commission Sphenopalatine Ganglion Stimulation for Refractory Chronic Cluster Headache (Adults) in 2018, and concluded that there is not enough evidence to consider making the treatment available at this time. More information on the NHS evidence review is available at the following link:
NHS England can review this policy or consider a new policy for this treatment for a different clinical indication, in line with the published methods for clinical policy development, if a lead clinician considers that there is new published, peer reviewed evidence that should be considered.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential impact of the guidance issued by the NHS entitled Introduction of Shingrix® vaccine for the whole programme and expansion of eligible cohorts, published on 4 July 2023, on people who turned 65 before 1 September 2023.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advised the Government on the implementation of the Shingrix vaccine and the rollout of the cohort expansion. This advice was based on various considerations, including population impact. The Government accepted this advice, and it is the basis of NHS England guidance on the Shingles programme.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the adoption rate of private sewers.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Current adoption rates of newly constructed sewerage vary.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when her Department plans to publish a response to the consultation entitled Consistency in Household and Business Recycling in England, published in July 2021.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are working to publish the government response to the 2021 consultation as soon as possible. This will confirm implementation dates and provide further detail on regulations and funding to be made in advance of the implementation dates.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps her Department is taking to reduce age discrimination against older people.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Age discrimination against older people that cannot be objectively justified is unacceptable and unlawful across a range of fields under the Equality Act 2010. It is the strong protections in the 2010 Act that enable older people and their representatives to challenge such unlawful behaviour and ultimately seek redress in the courts or, in the case of older workers, an employment tribunal.
In addition, as regards to the public sector, the Public Sector Equality Duty places a duty on Government Departments, local authorities, the NHS and other bodies to have due regard to meeting equality requirements, including to eliminate unlawful age discrimination, where this is relevant to their policies and activities.
Asked by: Rosie Duffield (Labour - Canterbury)
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 help people who are clinically vulnerable to access a covid-19 booster vaccination.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is the independent body made up of scientific and clinical experts who advise Government on which authorised vaccines the United Kingdom should use and which groups in the population should be offered initial or further doses of a particular vaccine.
The JCVI identified a number of groups in the population at higher clinical risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19. These were originally described as clinically vulnerable but are now referred to as people in clinical risk groups. The full list of clinical risk groups is defined in tables three and four of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) guide to vaccinators known as the Green Book.
The primary aim of the COVID-19 vaccination programme continues to be the prevention of severe disease, such as hospitalisation and mortality, arising from COVID-19 and risk is strongly linked to age and clinical condition.
All those in clinical risk groups will have been offered a COVID-19 vaccine dose in autumn 2022. Earlier this year the Government accepted advice from the JCVI to offer an additional spring 2023 booster dose to those at highest risk in the population from severe COVID-19. This highest risk group includes all adults aged 75 years old and over, residents in a care home for older adults and immunosuppressed individuals aged five years old and over. The JCVI has also advised that there should be a booster campaign targeted to persons at higher risk of severe COVID-19, in autumn 2023. The JCVI is expected to provide advice ahead of autumn on which risk groups should be included.
The NHS continues to emphasise the role of clinicians in proactively identifying clinically vulnerable cohorts and are working alongside patient charities and professional bodies to ensure anyone eligible is identified and referred for vaccination. Tailored communications have been developed for specialists caring for each group of eligible patients within the immunosuppressed cohort, such as template referral letters to make it as easy as possible for clinicians to signpost people to get their vaccination. The Government is also working with the NHS and UKHSA to provide advice and information at every possible opportunity to support those getting the vaccine and to anyone who might have questions about the vaccination process.