Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will bring forward legislation to make it a criminal offence for people under sanctions to set up UK companies.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, which is currently in Committee stage in the House of Lords, will create a completely new type of sanctions measure in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 called ‘director disqualification sanctions’. It will be an offence for a designated person subject to this new measure to form a UK company, or to act as a director or otherwise be involved in the company’s promotion or management.
It will be for the Foreign Secretary to decide when and how to deploy the measure, alongside the full suite of other sanctions measures.
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the oral contribution of the Minister for Immigration of 20 February 2023, Official Report, column 33, on what basis her Department determined that the freedom of information request on (a) the number of legal practitioners her Department is monitoring, (b) the nature of that monitoring, (c) when that monitoring began and (d) whether (i) her Department or (ii) a private firm was carrying out that monitoring was not in the public interest.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The consideration made was set out in the response to those Freedom of Information requests.
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people applied for indefinite leave to remain after completing the 10-year route to settlement based on their family or private life since 2012.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The information requested could not be obtained without disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has taken recent steps to increase processing times for applications to extend limited leave to remain; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
UK Visas and Immigration are currently operating within their global customer service standards across all of the main legal migration routes for customers who make an entry clearance application from overseas and for applications made inside the UK.
Details of current performance against these customer service standards are updated regularly and can be found at:
Visa decision waiting times: applications outside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)(opens in a new tab).
Visa decision waiting times: applications inside the UK - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the reasons for which the number of full-time equivalent children and family social workers leaving between October 2021 and September 2022 was the highest since the collection of figures began in 2017; and what steps she plans to take to increase the recruitment and retention of children and family social workers.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
Social workers play a valuable role in supporting the most vulnerable in society and the department is committed to ensuring there is an excellent child and family social worker for everyone who needs one. We recognise the ongoing challenge facing local authorities across the country in recruiting and retaining child and family social workers, with reasons for social workers leaving the profession being varied and complex. However, the current number of full time-equivalent social workers is still higher than it was in 2017.
The department currently invests more than £50 million every year on recruiting, training and developing child and family social workers to ensure the workforce has the capacity, skills and knowledge to support and protect vulnerable children.
Through the fast track and development programmes, the department trains an average of 800 new social workers and provides professional development for around 4,000 others. This includes leadership training, which we know plays an important role in improving recruitment and retention.
On 2 February 2023, the department published its care reform strategy, ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, which sets out proposals to help stabilise the workforce. This includes supporting the recruitment of up to 500 social worker apprenticeships, a new Early Career Framework that will set out the development plans for a social worker’s first five years, and proposals to reduce the sector’s overreliance on agency social workers, which will all play an important role in helping to improve recruitment and retention.
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on establishing an Early Career Framework for social workers as recommended by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.
Answered by Claire Coutinho - Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
The department has committed to developing a new Early Career Framework (ECF) for child and family social workers, significantly extending the training and support social workers receive at the beginning of their career.
As set out in ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’, our children's social care implementation strategy, the initial induction period for all social workers will be extended to two years with an offer of further training and development up to five years. We will explore how we can make the ECF an entitlement for all child and family social workers from September 2026.
The programme will be underpinned by a new framework document, setting out the knowledge and skills social workers need to support and protect children and families. The department is in the process of recruiting an Expert Writing Group to write the framework document and will announce the membership of the group shortly. The group will engage widely with stakeholders throughout the process, and we will also consult formally on the content of the framework document.
The department is committed to designing the ECF programme with the sector and will shortly appoint a small number of Early Adopter local authorities to work with us. Initially, these will be local authorities that are already running an extended early career programme, beyond the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE), before we expand to a wider range of local authorities. In addition, the department is working with stakeholders from across the sector to develop and refine delivery plans, including Directors of Childrens Services, Social Work England, Principal Social Workers, the Chief Social Worker and Ofsted.
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department collects on the provision of social care workers compared to the population of local authorities.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Skills for Care publishes estimates of filled posts in adult social care and the Office for National Statistics publishes estimates of population size at local authority level. However, the Department does not make an assessment on the sufficiency of current workforce capacity in each local authority. Local authorities should work with care providers to meet care needs in their area.
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of needs of social care workers in each local authority.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made.
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department routinely collects on shortages of social care workers in each local authority.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Skills for Care collect data on advertised vacancies on behalf of the Department and publish vacancy estimates. Vacancy rates in the care sector are determined by natural churn, independent providers’ ambitions to grow, demand for care, trends in the wider labour market and workforce capacity pressures. As a result, vacancies may not be a good measure of workforce shortages and are not used as such by the Department.
Asked by: Tony Lloyd (Labour - Rochdale)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the number of sex offenders who have had restrictions placed on them to prevent them from changing their name through a (a) sexual harm prevention or (b) sexual risk order.
Answered by Sarah Dines
The UK has some of the toughest powers in the world to deal with sex offenders and those who pose a risk, and we are committed to ensuring that the system is as robust as it can be.
Data on the number of convictions for breaches of the notification requirements for registered sex offenders is published by the Ministry of Justice in the Multi-Agency Public Protection arrangements (MAPPA) annual report, which is available here: MAPPA_Annual_Report_2022.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk). The most recent report showed that the number of offenders cautioned or convicted for breaches of their notification requirements in 2021-2 was 1,905.
Data on the number of prosecutions of registered sex offenders who fail to inform the police of their name change the number who have had restrictions placed on them relating to name change are not collated centrally. The courts can, however, place a range of restrictions or requirements on offenders through sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders to mitigate the risk of sexual harm.