Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has plans to remove the corporate opt-out for cross-border payments pricing disclosures.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK’s legislative framework for payment services, including cross-border payments, places various disclosure requirements on payment firms. This includes the ability to opt out of disclosures for certain corporates, where both parties agree.
This legislation derives from EU law, which will be replaced under the government’s Smarter Regulatory Framework programme. Under this, it is intended that government legislation will set the framework within which the regulators will operate. In general, firm-facing requirements, such as these cross-border disclosures, will be determined by the relevant regulator (in this case, the FCA).
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an estimate of the number of therapists offering reunification therapy services to help with cases of family breakdown.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he plans to respond to the correspondence of 26 January 2024 from the Rt hon. Member for East Ham, reference ST105404.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
I can confirm that a full response was issued to the MP’s parliamentary email address as a PDF attachment on 15 February 2024 from our complaint’s resolution team (CMPT12024-07318 (ST105404) I have checked the email address used and it is correct.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
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 prevent unregulated psychologists from giving reunification therapy to parents and children.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Ministry of Justice and the HM Courts and Tribunals Service set any criteria that a professional must satisfy, in order to be a psychological expert, providing evidence in a family court setting. The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) is the independent regulator responsible for regulating practitioner psychologists. The HCPC does not regulate practitioner psychologists according to job role, although its legislation protects nine designated psychologist professional titles in law.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to his Department's consultation on building safety directors, published on 1 December 2022, which closed on 7 February 2023, which right to manage companies his Department has (a) received representations from and (b) otherwise consulted as part of that consultation.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Responses came from a cross-section of the sector including Right to Manage and Resident Management companies, as well as individual directors of Right to Manage and Resident Management companies and individual leaseholders. The Government is carefully considering their feedback, and the Building Safety Regulator continues to work with a range of stakeholders, including through their new statutory Residents Panel.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate he has made of the number of asylum claims based on false conversions to Christianity between 6 September 2022 and 13 November 2023.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
This information is not recorded in a reportable format.
Information regarding initial decisions on asylum claims, by outcome, is contained within the ASY_D02 tab of the Asylum applications, decisions and resettlement dataset: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
This does not include information regarding whether the asylum claimant changed their religion.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people received housing support at the shared accommodation rate in each of the last five years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available for Universal Credit, and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost. However, data on households on Housing Benefits entitled to the Shared Accommodation Rate is published and available here.
Guidance for users is available here.
Evidence relating to Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR) rates was considered as part of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) review last Autumn. This led to the significant investment of £1.2 billion increasing LHA rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents. This means 1.6 million private renters will receive additional help towards their rental costs in 2024/25.
There are exemptions from the SAR for those who find it difficult to share accommodation, such as care leavers, victims of modern slavery and domestic abuse and people who have been homeless and living in a hostel for over 3 months. There is also an exemption in certain circumstances on the grounds of disability. Exempt claimants can claim the higher one-bedroom LHA rate.
For individuals who may require additional support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) are available. DHP payments are entirely at the discretion of the local authority and since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.7 billion to local authorities.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the level of housing support provided through the shared accommodation rate.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Evidence relating to Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR) rates was considered as part of the LHA review last Autumn. This led to the significant investment of £1.2 billion increasing Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents. This means 1.6 million private renters will receive additional help towards their rental costs in 2024/25.
There are exemptions from the SAR for those who find it difficult to share accommodation, such as care leavers, victims of modern slavery and domestic abuse and people who have been homeless and living in a hostel for over 3 months. There is also an exemption in certain circumstances on the grounds of disability. Exempt claimants can claim the higher one-bedroom LHA rate.
For individuals who may require additional support, Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP) are available. DHP payments are entirely at the discretion of the local authority and since 2011 the Government has provided nearly £1.7 billion to local authorities.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to paragraph 5.1.2 of the NHS Vaccination Strategy, last updated on 4 January, 2024, which Integrated Care Systems have been identified as demonstrator systems to test (a) new models of vaccine delivery and (b) innovative commissioning models.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Regional National Health Service teams are working with several integrated care boards to explore how they are planning to implement different aspects of the NHS Vaccination Strategy. These demonstrator systems are:
- Suffolk and North East Essex;
- North West London;
- South West London;
- Birmingham and Solihull;
- Humber and North Yorkshire;
- North East and North Cumbria;
- Lancashire and South Cumbria;
- Cheshire and Merseyside;
- Surrey Heartlands;
- Kent and Medway;
- Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire; and
- Gloucestershire.
The demonstrator systems are currently identifying the elements of the vaccination strategy on which they would like to focus. These include delivering innovative outreach services to target underserved communities, and exploring the expansion of successful flexible seasonal workforce management systems across all immunisations delivered by the NHS. As each demonstrator system develops and finalises its plans, we will support the system in evaluating the impact of its activities, and share the learning across other systems.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps each demonstrator system is taking to help deliver the NHS Vaccination Strategy.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Regional National Health Service teams are working with several integrated care boards to explore how they are planning to implement different aspects of the NHS Vaccination Strategy. These demonstrator systems are:
- Suffolk and North East Essex;
- North West London;
- South West London;
- Birmingham and Solihull;
- Humber and North Yorkshire;
- North East and North Cumbria;
- Lancashire and South Cumbria;
- Cheshire and Merseyside;
- Surrey Heartlands;
- Kent and Medway;
- Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire; and
- Gloucestershire.
The demonstrator systems are currently identifying the elements of the vaccination strategy on which they would like to focus. These include delivering innovative outreach services to target underserved communities, and exploring the expansion of successful flexible seasonal workforce management systems across all immunisations delivered by the NHS. As each demonstrator system develops and finalises its plans, we will support the system in evaluating the impact of its activities, and share the learning across other systems.