First elected: 24th June 1982
Left House: 30th March 2015 (Defeated)
Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
e-Petitions are administered by Parliament and allow members of the public to express support for a particular issue.
If an e-petition reaches 10,000 signatures the Government will issue a written response.
If an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures the petition becomes eligible for a Parliamentary debate (usually Monday 4.30pm in Westminster Hall).
These initiatives were driven by Tom Clarke, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
MPs who are act as Ministers or Shadow Ministers are generally restricted from performing Commons initiatives other than Urgent Questions.
Tom Clarke has not been granted any Urgent Questions
The Bill failed to complete its passage through Parliament before the end of the session. This means the Bill will make no further progress.
Tom Clarke has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
The Government recognises that register integrity is an important issue. This Department is carefully considering with Companies House and others what checks are necessary to ensure integrity of data and that the registration of company information in the UK remains quick, simple and inexpensive.
The current UK register is one of the most open in the world, and is accessed over 240 million times a year. This means the information is policed on a significant scale by the public, who report anomalies to Companies House for follow up.
Credit ratings will take into account a number of different variables, including late payment, but it is a commercial judgement taken by Credit Reference Agencies.
I refer the Rt. Hon. Member to the answer I gave on the 12 January 2015 to Question UIN 220004.
The Disability and Health Employment Strategy published in December 2013 sets out our expectation that the work carried out by DEAs in Jobcentres will continue.
The Disability and Health Employment Strategy published in December 2013 sets out our expectation that the work carried out by DEAs in Jobcentres will continue.
The department has already conducted four independent reviews of the WCA, the most recent of which was completed on 12 December 2013 and is published online at the following address: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/work-capability-assessment-independent-review-year-4
A fifth and final independent review is currently underway and is due to be completed by the end of the year.
In addition to these independent reviews the Department has conducted an Evidence Based Review of the WCA in which the descriptors for mental health and fluctuating conditions were examined by an independent panel against an alternative assessment designed in conjunction with representative groups and charities. On 12 December 2013 the Department published the results of this online at the following address: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/work-capability-assessment-evidence-based-review
The Care Act 2014 clarifies and strengthens the processes to support adults who are at risk from abuse or neglect in the following ways:
- Where local authorities have reasonable cause to expect a person is at risk of abuse or neglect they must carry out a safeguarding enquiry, consider what if any actions are needed, and who should carry these out. This makes clear that there is no eligibility threshold and allows authorities flexibility to respond to a safeguarding issue appropriately, which may be through the authority or one of its partners such as the police.
- The statutory Care Act guidance clarifies that where a local authority has started a safeguarding enquiry but identifies a potential need for a care and support service, it should continue the needs assessment for care and support in parallel, and determine whether the person has eligible needs which it must meet. The eligibility criteria is based upon whether the person’s needs have a significant impact on their wellbeing, which includes abuse and neglect. While the authority is likely to have already identified any safeguarding issues earlier and made an enquiry, it would still consider these at the eligibility determination as it would clearly impact on the person’s wellbeing.
- The care and support system should support the above by having a comprehensive preventative strategy that promotes wellbeing and independence, and one that does not wait to respond when people reach a crisis point.
The recent Supreme Court decision upholds the long standing interpretation of Section 4 of the Abortion Act that the right to object to participate in abortion treatment is limited to those staff who actually take part in treatment administered in a hospital or other approved place.
No NHS foundation trusts self-certified to Monitor in their quarterly return for January to March 2014 that they were not compliant with the criteria in the Monitor risk assessment framework, relating to meeting health needs of people with a learning disability.
I refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on 19 November 2014 to Question 213936.
We will be discussing a number of issues the Bill raises at a roundtable stakeholder event in the new year and which will include a number of representatives from medical research charities.
The Care Act will be implemented from April 2015.
A period of consultation is underway until 19 December on revised statutory guidance for local authorities and the NHS to implement Think Autism, the 2014 update to the 2010 Adult Autism Strategy. This includes coverage of preventing, delaying or reducing the care needs of adults with autism or their carers by providing low level preventative support and enabling people with autism to be connected with peers and with local community groups in line with the duties of the Care Act. The statutory guidance when it is issued in February 2015 will complement the existing Care Act guidance on prevention.
Information about deaths of people with a learning disability in assessment and treatment units is not collected centrally by the Department, NHS England or the Care Quality Commission.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre collects hospital episode statistics data. These data identify the number of hospital episodes where a patient had a primary or secondary diagnosis of a learning disability where the patient died.
From 2008-09 to 2012-2013 there were a total of 817 deaths for admitted patients at all hospitals in England. This number includes all deaths from all causes while a hospital patient.
The breakdown for each of the last five years is in the following table.
Year | Number of deaths |
2008-09 | 123 |
2009-10 | 168 |
2010-11 | 162 |
2011-12 | 172 |
2012-13 | 192 |
Total | 817 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, Health and Social Care Information Centre
These data are not available by individual departments or units within hospitals. They also do not represent the deaths of people with learning disabilities where learning disability is not recorded as a primary or secondary diagnosis.
NHS England is setting up a National Learning Disability Mortality Review to better understand what causes people who have a learning disability to die, on average, at a younger age than other people; and to learn from what has happened to ensure that NHS services improve the way they care for people with a learning disability.
NHS England has made £1.5 million available in 2014-15 to undertake the work required to establish a national learning disability mortality review function by the end of March 2015. NHS England is currently undertaking work to define the detail of how the review function will operate. However, NHS England is clear that the starting point will be the proposals put forward by the Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities team and will aim to develop proposals with input from a range of partners.
NHS England has made £1.5 million available in 2014-15 to undertake the work required to establish a national learning disability mortality review function by the end of March 2015. NHS England is currently undertaking work to define the detail of how the review function will operate. However, NHS England is clear that the starting point will be the proposals put forward by the Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities team and will aim to develop proposals with input from a range of partners.
NHS England has made £1.5 million available in 2014-15 to undertake the work required to establish a national learning disability mortality review function by the end of March 2015. NHS England is currently undertaking work to define the detail of how the review function will operate. However, NHS England is clear that the starting point will be the proposals put forward by the Confidential Inquiry into Premature Deaths of People with Learning Disabilities team and will aim to develop proposals with input from a range of partners.
I refer the Rt Hon Member to the Explanatory Note for Clause 117 of Finance Bill 2014, which can be found at: