Asked by: Virginia Crosbie (Conservative - Ynys Môn)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill on regulations on working at height.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
With the introduction of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (REUL Bill), the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) remains focused on ensuring that regulatory frameworks maintain the United Kingdom’s high standards of health and safety protection and continue to reduce burdens for business. HSE’s approach aligns closely with the Government’s pledge to do more for business to help promote growth by removing disproportionate burdens and simplifying the regulatory landscape. Our standards of health and safety protections are among the highest in the world.
HSE will continue to review its retained EU Law to seek opportunities to reduce business burdens and promote growth without reducing health and safety standards.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Bromborough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Answer of 22 April 2022 to Question 154083 on Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency: Standards, if he will publish the data used to conclude that (a) there are no delays in successful online applications, (b) the backlog of vehicles paper applications has been eliminated and (c) straightforward vocational driving licence applications and renewals are being processed within five working days with no backlog.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)’s online services are the quickest and easiest way to make an application. The average time taken to process successful online applications between April 2021 and March 2022 was two working days.
All vehicles-related paper applications are now being processed within normal turnaround times.
The DVLA focused extra resource on vocational driving licence applications and cleared more than 55,000 applications in a matter of weeks at the height of the driver shortage. Routine applications for vocational driving licences are being processed within normal turnaround times of five working days. Applications where a medical condition must be investigated will take longer.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to ensure that child abuse claims are dealt with in a timely fashion within the criminal justice system.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
Child sexual abuse cases are some of the most challenging, complex and sensitive cases. They are dealt with by specially trained prosecutors, working closely with the police to build the strongest possible cases that meet the legal test.
In 2020-2021 there were 6,402 prosecutions for cases classified as child abuse. In the same period the conviction rate was 85.6%, an increase of 2.7% on the previous year.
Listing and prioritisation is a judicial function and judges continue to work to prioritise cases involving vulnerable complainants and witnesses (including youth cases), domestic abuse and serious sex cases. The most effective method to ensure that child abuse cases are dealt with in a timely fashion once they get to court is to expand our capacity, so that all cases requiring jury trial can be heard swiftly. To achieve this, among various other measures, we removed the limit on the number of days the Crown Court can sit in the 21/22 financial year, and equipped over 70 per cent of all courtrooms with the video hardware to use Cloud Video Platform, which enabled up to 20,000 cases to be heard virtually each week at the height of the pandemic. These measures are working. The caseload in the Crown Court has reduced from around 61,000 cases in June 2021 to around 58,400 cases at the end of December 2021.
Looking ahead, we will be investing £477 million in the Criminal Justice System to improve waiting times for victims and to reduce the Crown Court backlogs caused by the pandemic from 60,000 cases today to an estimated 53,000 cases by March 2025. We are also extending magistrates’ court sentencing powers from 6 to 12 months for a single Triable Either Way offence to allow more cases to be heard in the magistrates' court. As a result of these measures, in the next financial year we expect to get through 20% more Crown Court cases than we did pre-Covid (116,700 in 22/23 compared to 97,000 in 19/20).
Having the right data across the criminal justice system is also crucial to recovery. Working with our partners across the justice system, we have published criminal justice scorecards which bring together data on key areas of performance, including timeliness. The national CJS scorecards for all-crime and recorded adult rape, published in December 2021, can be found here: https://data.justice.gov.uk/cjs-scorecard-all-crime
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Streatham and Croydon North)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the (a) mean and (b) median number of days taken from offence to completion of criminal cases for (i) Crown and (ii) Magistrates Court in England and Wales, broken down by individual court and region for each of the last three years for which figures are available.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
o Table 1 – Days from offence to completion at Crown Court, by year (the latest available data, broken down by region and Crown Court)
o Table 2 – Days from offence to completion at Magistrates, by year (the latest available data, broken down by region and Local Justice Area (LJA))
The pandemic is the primary cause of the increased caseload in our courts. The outstanding caseload reduced significantly pre-pandemic – from over 55,000 in late 2014 to c.33,000 in late 2018.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent steps he has taken to tackle backlogs in the Crown Court.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
As part of the Spending Review we announced that we will be investing £477 million in the Criminal Justice System over the next three years to help reduce the backlog and deliver the swift access to justice that victims deserve.
We also invested a quarter of a billion pounds to support recovery in the last financial year, and this year we will provide over £150.5m for support services for victims and witnesses, rising to over £185m by 2024/25.
We extended 32 Crown Nightingale courtrooms until the end of March 2022, and removed the limit on the number of days the Crown Court can sit this year. Our rapid roll out of video technology, which has equipped 70 per cent of all courtrooms with our Cloud Video Platform, enabled up to 20,000 cases to be heard virtually each week at the height of the pandemic.
These measures are already working – the backlog in the Crown Court has reduced from around 61,000 cases in June 2021 to around 58,700 cases at the end of November 2021.
We are now extending magistrates’ court sentencing powers from 6 to 12 months for a single Triable Either Way offence. This will provide vital additional capacity in the Crown Courts to drive down the backlog of cases over the coming years and is expected to free up an estimated 1,700 extra days of Crown Court time annually.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he will take to increase the availability of electric charging points for mobility vehicles.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) are working with Motability and manufacturers to ensure that the availability of electric vehicles accessible for people with disabilities increases as we move towards 2030.
We have consulted on using our powers under the Automated Electric Vehicles Act (2018) to mandate minimum standards, such as payment method, to improve the consumer experience of public charging. We are publishing the response to the consultation soon and will lay the consumer experience legislation in the new year.
OZEV are partnering with national disability charity Motability to commission the British Standards Institution (BSI) to develop accessibility standards for public EV chargepoints across the country. These standards, to be finalised by summer 2022, will provide industry with guidance and drivers with a new clear definition of ‘fully accessible’, ‘partially accessible’ and ‘not accessible’ public EV chargepoints.
Guidance will consider aspects such as kerb height, adequate space between bollards and chargepoints being of a height suitable for wheelchair users. By ensuring consistent standards, drivers will be able to more easily identify which chargepoints are suitable for their needs. We have also consulted on introducing accessibility requirements at EV chargepoints via the Future of Transport Regulatory Review consultation. The consultation closed on 22nd November.
The Government will also provide over £1.3 billion over the next four years to support the continued roll-out of chargepoints on motorways and major A roads, in homes and businesses and on-street.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to support early career science teachers whose training was disrupted by the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Robin Walker
The department is creating a world-class teacher development system by transforming the training and support teachers and head teachers receive at every stage of their career. We are investing an unprecedented amount of funding to improve the quality and delivery of professional development for teachers giving us a significant opportunity to impact pupil outcomes.
The department acknowledges the disruption to teacher training for early career science teachers, indeed for all teachers, during the COVID-19 outbreak. That is why we ensured that Initial Teacher Training (ITT) trainees and their tutors were designated as critical workers at the height of the COVID-19 outbreak. We encouraged schools to host ITT trainees throughout the national lockdowns and beyond to provide as many trainees as possible with a varied training experience in schools.
The sector coordinated examples from ITT providers of flexible and innovative approaches to placements, which were shared through sector channels. Those trainees whose courses were severely disrupted and needed extra time to qualify were given government funded course extensions, allowing them the opportunity to achieve Qualified Teacher Status.
As part of the education recovery plan announced in June 2021, we secured over £250 million of additional funding to provide 500,000 world-leading training opportunities for teachers and leaders, wherever they are in their career. The package includes £69 million to extend the rollout of the Early Career Framework (ECF) reforms to meet far higher than expected demand for the programme. The ECF reforms are transforming support for early career teachers, introducing the most significant reform to teaching since it became a graduate only profession.
The department is investing over £130 million a year to ensure that all new teachers have access to a fully funded entitlement to an extended two-year induction to the profession. The structured package of support is linked to the best available research evidence, alongside funded time off timetable in the second year of teaching and support for mentors.
The ECF was designed in consultation with the education sector and covers five core areas: behaviour management, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment and professional behaviours, and is designed to work for all early career teachers regardless of their subject, phase or school. The lead providers delivering the programme have ensured that there are materials and exemplification to cover a range of subjects, including science.
More widely we are committed to gathering evidence about the implementation and impact of the ECF, to ensure that it continues to provide the best support for new teachers entering the profession. Therefore, we are working with the Education Endowment Foundation to design a comprehensive package of evaluation activity which will ensure the reforms remain relevant, up to date and open to all.
We are committed to ensuring that all schools have access to highly skilled teachers. The department funds a package of programmes to support subject-specific professional development for science teachers. These include the network of Science Learning Partnerships delivering local continuing professional development (CPD) and support to increase the take up of triple science and Project Enthuse which provides bursaries for teachers to participate in CPD.
Asked by: Alison Thewliss (Scottish National Party - Glasgow Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has provided (a) financial and (b) other support to the No Falls Foundation to help the uptake of a no falls charter for those operating in working at height sectors.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
To date there has been no discussion between the No Falls Foundation and the Health and Safety Executive about the production of a no falls charter, nor has any financial or other support been provided.
Asked by: Paula Barker (Labour - Liverpool Wavertree)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of state funding for grassroots sports across the UK; and what plans the Government has to increase that funding in response to achievements at the Tokyo Olympics and the European Championships.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
Sports and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health and all generations and communities should be able to enjoy the health, wellbeing, social and other benefits of being active. Because of this, we made sure that people could exercise at least once a day even during the height of the first period of enhanced national restrictions and we opened up grassroots sport and leisure facilities as soon as it was safe to do so.
National pride in our Olympic and Paralympic heroes has provided a source of genuine inspiration and motivation for the public. On 15th August, the Government announced that it will provide £232 million to support Team GB and ParalympicsGB athletes preparations for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The £232 million will be invested into aspiring Team GB and ParalympicsGB athletes as well as their coaches and support staff, in addition to funding from the National Lottery.
In recognition of how the sector has been impacted by the pandemic working closely with Sport England, UK Sport and the National Lottery, the Government have provided an unprecedented £1 billion to ensure the survival of the grassroots, elite and leisure sectors.
This includes the £220m Sport England has provided directly to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic, including their £35 million Community Emergency Fund in supporting people to be more active, including a specific focus on those people who are inactive and engaging people from underrepresented groups.
On 26 January, Sport England also published their strategy ‘Uniting the Movement’ and as part of this have committed an extra £50million to help grassroots sports clubs and organisations affected by the coronavirus pandemic. This is on top of the £18m a year it spends on grassroots facilities through the Football Foundation.
The Government also announced an additional £25m for grassroots sports facilities earlier this year with the Prime Minister committing a further £50m in his Levelling Up speech on 15 July. These contributions are part of the government’s ambition to deliver the pitches that every community in the UK needs by 2030.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to improve the safety of people who use a ladder as part of their job.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) leads on the prevention of falls from height, including from ladders, in Britain’s workplaces.
As a significant cause of workplace death and injury, the prevention of falls from height has been a key area of focus for HSE and the recently published HSE Plan of Work for 2021-22 states that ‘We will continue to tackle long-standing problems, such as… falls from height’ underlining HSE’s on-going commitment to addressing this significant workplace issue.
The costs to Britain arising from workplace fatalities and self-reported injuries and ill health is substantial, with the cost of workplace injuries alone being £5.6bn in 2018/19. The costs arising specifically from falls from ladders has not been evaluated, but a wider analysis, considering the cost of workplace injuries and new cases of work-related Ill Health in 2018/19 is published on the HSE webpages.
HSE figures show a steady reduction in the number of workplace fatalities and major injuries relating to falls from height over recent years, with fatal injuries reducing from 42 in 2014/15 to 29 in 2019/20, and the number of non-fatal injuries from 6,165 in 2014/15 to 5,214 in 2019/20 (provisional figures are given for 2020). HSE publishes a summary of statistics for “health and safety at work in Great Britain 2020” on the HSE website.
To further reduce accidents involving ladders in Britain’s workplaces, HSE staff continue to raise work at height issues as a matter of priority during site visits to conduct inspections and investigations, taking enforcement action including prosecutions where necessary. HSE also provides information, advice and guidance on ladders via its website and across a wide range of communication channels. HSE are working in collaboration with the Ladder Association to publish an updated suite of guidance that covers new types of ladders and is aligned to the latest standards for safe use. A free webinar with industry experts and HSE on safe ladder use and to announce the new guidance is scheduled for 15 July 2021. HSE also continues to work with trade associations and other stakeholders – such as the Access Industry Forum to promote and communicate safe working at height practices across industry.