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Written Question
Health and Safety Executive
Tuesday 23rd January 2024

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the Health and Safety Executive's annual budget is for accessing scientific papers and other academic journals; to which academic journals it subscribes; and whether there are any relevant academic journals to which it does not have access in the context of its work on UK REACH.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) Annual Budget for accessing scientific papers and other academic journals was £52k in the 22/23 financial year. This value can vary year on year depending on requirements of HSE staff, changes to cost of access to journals etc

On subscriptions, HSE’s Divisions will organise access to specialist journals depending on need. Examples include:

a. British Medical Journal
b. Ergonomics in Design
c. Flight International
d. Human Factors
e. International Journal of Occupational Safety and Ergonomics
f. Journal of Pyrotechnics
g. New Scientist
h. Science in Parliament
i. Business Green
j. Future Farming
k. MIT Technology Review
l. The Economist

Additionally, HSE has access to Elsevier’s Government edition of ScienceDirect which provides users access to over 2,000 online journals and e-chapters.

HSE staff can also request articles and full journals from the British Library interlibrary loans service and utilise a commercial provider “Reprints Desk” for articles that are urgently required. When required HSE can also purchase articles directly from publishers.

As part of the above arrangements, HSE has been able to access all published material that it has needed to deliver the programme of work on UK REACH


Written Question
Chemicals: Regulation
Wednesday 10th January 2024

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance the Health and Safety Executive uses when (a) preparing dossiers on restrictions under UK REACH and (b) preparing impact assessments for enacting restrictions in secondary legislation.

Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) must prepare dossiers on restrictions in line with the legal requirements of Annex 15 of UK REACH. In doing so HSE may also refer to guidance produced for the EU REACH restriction process, as well as drawing on its previous experience of producing dossiers when the UK was part of the EU.

The responsibility for preparing impact assessments for enacting restrictions in secondary legislation resides with Defra as the government department responsible for UK REACH legislation and policy.

HSE provides Defra with a socioeconomic analysis alongside any restriction dossier. Restrictions proposals need to contain a description of the risks as well as information on the health and environmental benefits, the associated costs and other socio-economic impacts. This socioeconomic analysis takes account of UK REACH Annex 15 legal requirements and HM Treasury guidance on cost and benefit analysis.


Written Question
Department for Work and Pensions: Wales
Monday 11th September 2023

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many visits he has made to Wales since his appointment.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

Since his appointment, the Secretary of State has not visited Wales in his capacity as Secretary of State. However, in this time period, the wider DWP Ministerial team has made 3 visits to Wales on departmental business.


Written Question
Work Capability Assessment
Monday 11th September 2023

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress his Department has made on replacing the Work Capability Assessment.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

As we committed to in Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper, we are actively engaging with disabled people and people with health conditions and our stakeholders as we develop our proposals.

We set out the intention to transform the benefits system for the future so that it focuses on what people can do, rather than what they cannot. We will legislate to remove the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) so that in future there is only one health and disability assessment – the PIP assessment. This will mean that there will be no need to be found to have limited capability for work and limited capability to prepare for work to get additional income-related support for a disability or health condition. The degree of change in our proposals will require primary legislation, which we will aim to take early in a new parliament, when parliamentary time allows.


Written Question
Carer's Allowance: Uprating
Thursday 7th September 2023

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has had recent discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of increasing the level of carer's allowance.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

There is a statutory annual review of benefit and pensions undertaken in the Autumn. The level of Carer’s Allowance is protected by up-rating it each year in line with the Consumer Prices Index. Since 2010, the rate of Carer’s Allowance has increased from £53.90 to £76.75 a week, providing just under an additional £1200 a year for carers through Carer’s Allowance.

The outcome of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions’ review for 2023 will be announced later this year, following the publication of the relevant indices by the Office for National Statistics, and the new rates will enter into force from April 2024.


Written Question
Disability
Thursday 7th September 2023

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent progress his Department has made on publishing its Disability Action Plan.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The Disability Action Plan will set out the Government’s ambition to improve the lives of disabled people with immediate and practical measures, while laying the foundations for longer term change.

The Disability Action Plan Consultation Document was published on 18 July and will remain open for responses until 6 October 2023.

The consultation document sets out a number of proposals and consultation questions - informed by the experiences of disabled people, research and the current policy landscape - as an initial step to make sure policy development direction is correct.

We are hosting a series of consultation events for stakeholders, including roundtables focused on the proposed areas of action included in the document. Both general stakeholders and subject matter experts will be attending these. There will also be general forums to encourage discussion on broader disability policy areas; and stakeholder-hosted meetings for members of the public to attend.

The findings of this consultation will inform the published Disability Action Plan.


Written Question
Unemployment: Newport West
Thursday 7th September 2023

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the number of people in Newport West constituency out of work due to (a) sickness and (b) disability since outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

Individuals who are out of work will be either economically inactive (where a person is not in work, nor looking for, or available for, work) or unemployed (not in work, but actively seeking work). Whilst data is held on a person’s main reason for being inactive, data on the main reason for being unemployed is not readily available. Therefore, no assessment of trends in the number of people in Newport West who are out of work due to sickness or disability since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has been made.

However, data on the number of people who are economically inactive and state long-term sickness as their main reason is available. Between April 2022 and March 2023, there were an estimated 2,900 and 5,500 people in Newport West who were economically inactive and gave long-term sickness as the main reason. This compares to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2019 to March 2020), when the corresponding estimate was between 2,200 and 4,300 people.

In general, there is a higher degree of uncertainty around estimates for parliamentary constituencies because at this granular level sample sizes are small, and historic trends can be volatile. Resultantly, differences in the figures for Newport West over time may not be statistically significant (which is the case for the figures quoted above), and therefore any change may be reflective of chance or the variable nature of the sample, and not represent actual change.

Source: Labour Market Profile - Nomis - Official Census and Labour Market Statistics (nomisweb.co.uk).


Written Question
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Thursday 7th September 2023

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of the number of people in paid employment in (i) England, (ii) Northern Ireland, (iii) Scotland and (iv) Wales who have been diagnosed with lupus.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

The information requested is not held by the Government.  


Written Question
Chemicals: Regulation
Tuesday 28th March 2023

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Regulatory Management Options Analyses on potential substances for inclusion on the Substances of Very High Concern Candidate List does the Health and Safety Executive have the capacity to conduct per year.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The number of Regulatory Management Options Analysis (RMOA) that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will progress each year depends on a number of factors. These include the information available to HSE on chemicals of concern, the likely impact of HSE’s actions, wider strategic priorities within the REACH framework for risk management activity and available capacity. HSE plans to undertake 5 RMOAs during 2023/24.


Written Question
Chemicals: Regulation
Tuesday 28th March 2023

Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish her Department's Regulatory Management Options Analysis on the four substances it was considering for inclusion on UK’s Substances of Very High Concern Candidate List; and if he will take steps to review the new entries to the EU’s Substances of Very High Concern Candidate List in (a) 2022 and (b) January 2023 for potential inclusion on the UK Candidate List.

Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

All Regulatory Management Options Analyses (RMOAs) produced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are published on HSE’s website following agreement with the Appropriate Authorities. HSE will review new entries to the EU’s SVHC candidate list as part of their work programme.