Written Statements

Monday 13th May 2024 Written Statements

Monday 13 May 2024

HMRC

Monday 13th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Nigel Huddleston)]

His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs plays a crucial role in collecting revenue to fund our vital public services. The Department’s strategy is to become a ‘digital first’ tax administration. This involves helping customers move to online services, with the aim of making services easier for customers, and of allowing HMRC to operate more efficiently.



Last year HMRC received over 3 million calls on just three things that can easily be done: resetting an online password, getting a tax code, and getting a national insurance number. Shifting customer contact such as this to online interactions is helping to, and will continue to help, reduce demand on phone lines and allow HMRC to prioritise calls for those who really need to speak to an adviser. This is a fine example of a tangible way to improve public sector productivity.



This digital first strategy is the correct long-term vision for tax administration. In support of this, the Chancellor invested over £136 million in the 2021 spending review to enable HMRC to enhance its digital services. HMRC received a £900 million cash increase over this Parliament, from £4.3 billion in 2019-20 to £5.2 billion in 2024-25.



However, the Government are clear that while HMRC continues to make this digital transition, customers deserve a reliable and responsive service on traditional contact methods, such as the phone lines. Therefore today the Government are providing HMRC with £51 million in new funding to bring HMRC’s phoneline service back up to the published target of 85% of calls to HMRC advisers being answered.



Today’s additional funding enables HMRC to meet the performance standards on its phone lines that its customers expect, while continuing the transition to a digital first model of tax administration. The Government are fully committed to providing HMRC with the resources it needs to meet the needs of all its customers, and will continue to do so.

[HCWS456]

Bathing Water

Monday 13th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Robbie Moore)]

Designated bathing waters are coastal or inland waters that are used by large numbers of bathers and have facilities to promote and support bathing as set out in the Bathing Water Regulations 2013. They are an important public amenity and can be valuable assets for local communities.



Following an application round and a period of public consultation, we are today announcing the designation of 27 new bathing waters—12 rivers, six estuarine sites, five coastal sites and four lakes—taking the total number in England to 451, the highest ever. Despite new stricter standards for bathing water classifications being introduced in 2015, last year 90% of bathing waters were classified as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’—up from 76% in 2010.



Designating a site as a bathing water means the site will benefit from a new programme of bathing water quality monitoring by the Environment Agency, with a focus on working with partners collaboratively to identify any pollution sources and to put in place actions to address these issues. This can bring social, economic, leisure and health benefits.



We are continually working to improve and modernise the bathing waters system. That is why I am also today announcing that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs plans to consult on a series of potential reforms for England to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013. The proposed changes will drive work to improve bathing water quality, enhance monitoring, and enable more flexibility around the dates of the bathing water monitoring season—the current bathing water monitoring offer will be maintained as a minimum. These changes will allow us to increase monitoring outside of the bathing water season in the future, to better embed water quality improvements within processes and to prevent automatic de-designation of existing bathing water sites.



DEFRA will also seek public and stakeholder views on extending the definition of ‘bathers’ to include a wider range of water users in addition to swimmers, such as rowers, kayakers and paddle boarders, and on allowing multiple monitoring points, instead of a single monitoring point, at each bathing water site.



Full details of the proposed reforms will be available for consideration in due course, as part of the consultation process. The consultation will be open to submissions over the summer, with the Government response to follow later in the year.



Alongside these reforms, the Government remain committed to improving water quality through the Plan for Water, our comprehensive strategy which sets out how we will deliver clean and plentiful water for people, businesses and nature through more investment, tighter regulation and more effective enforcement. As part of this, we have set stringent targets for water companies to reduce the use of storm overflows through the storm overflows discharge reduction plan, which is driving the largest infrastructure programme in water company history—£60 billion over 25 years. This includes front-loading action in particularly important and sensitive sites, including bathing waters; by 2035, water companies will have improved all storm overflows discharging near every designated bathing water.



We will consider all responses to the consultation and use them to inform our ambitions to reform and improve the framework for managing bathing waters in England. The next bathing water application round in England will commence in spring 2025.

[HCWS455]

Public Health

Monday 13th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Victoria Atkins)]

I wish to update the House on an increase in whooping cough—Pertussis—cases across England and the actions that the Government and health system are taking to control spread of the disease.



Data published by UK Health Security Agency on 9 May 2024 shows, provisionally, that whooping cough cases are continuing to rise with 2,793 cases in England between January and March 2024. Cases are spread across all regions in the country and across all age ranges, with around half in those 15 years and older. Very sadly, there have also been five infant deaths in England in this period. Losing a child is the greatest sorrow any parent can experience, and our deepest sympathies are with the families of the children in these tragic cases.



As a Government, we are, alongside the NHS and partners in the health system, redoubling our efforts and reiterating the key message that vaccination offers a safe and highly effective defence against whooping cough. It is vitally important that pregnant women and young infants receive their vaccines at the correct time, to protect young infants from severe disease.



Whooping Cough



Whooping cough is an acute bacterial infection caused by Bordetella Pertussis and is spread through coughing and sneezing. Whooping cough can affect people of all ages but can be a very serious illness in young babies who are not fully vaccinated against it, in some cases leading to pneumonia, brain damage, and as we have sadly seen in a very small number of cases recently, death. Prompt treatment with antibiotics is important in preventing spread of the disease and individuals with whooping cough are no longer considered infectious 48 hours after starting the appropriate course of antibiotics.



In common with other diseases, cases of whooping cough fell to very low numbers during the pandemic due to restrictions and public behaviours. This is likely to have reduced immunity to whooping cough in the population. Since summer 2023 cases have been increasing and, in the last quarter of 2023, the first infant death since 2019 was confirmed. An increase in whooping cough cases is also being reported across several countries in Europe and globally.



Our principal means of protecting against whooping cough is vaccination, and vaccines against whooping cough are given to pregnant women—to protect babies in the first few weeks of life and before they can be directly protected by the infant vaccine programme— and to infants at eight, 12 and 16 weeks of age as part of the routine immunisation programme, with a booster also offered at pre-school. Uptake levels in pregnant women, babies and young children have fallen in recent years across England.



To address this decline and increase the uptake of the whooping cough vaccines, with a particular focus on uptake in the maternal vaccination programme, my Department is working hard with NHS England, the UK Health Security Agency, GPs and other health professionals around the country so that we can prevent severe disease in young babies and those most at risk.



Actions include:



working to ensure that advice on vaccination in pregnancy is being offered antenatally and that information materials are available across antenatal and primary care settings;

the NHS will implement best practice, vaccinating pregnant women opportunistically during maternity appointments wherever possible;

updating case management guidance and collaborating with the health system to cascade these to clinicians and settings;

the recent launch of a national marketing campaign reminding parents to check their children’s vaccination status and stressing the importance for pregnant women of getting vaccinated;

raising awareness of whooping cough and the maternal vaccine uptake with clinicians and key Royal Colleges through targeted epidemiological updates and supportive communications;

working to ensure that we capitalise on monthly data publications to highlight the importance of vaccination for the public;

engaging local communities to highlight the importance of vaccination and make sure people know how to access the jabs as quickly as possible;

implementation of the NHS vaccination strategy which builds on the success of the NHS’s world-leading covid-19 vaccine programme when local teams found innovative ways to reach people during the pandemic; and

implementing the new national NHS objective to increase vaccination uptake for children and young people year on year towards World Health Organization (WHO) recommended levels, as set out in NHS England’s 2024-25 priorities and operational planning guidance.

Getting your whooping cough vaccination



While vaccination does not prevent transmission it is a critical public health control measure for preventing severe illness and it is vitally important that everyone who is eligible for a whooping cough vaccine—pregnant women and young infants—receive their vaccines.



This Government’s message to all pregnant women is: you can help protect your baby by getting vaccinated. The immunity you get from the vaccine passes to your baby through the placenta and protects them until they are old enough to be vaccinated at eight weeks old. The whooping cough vaccine is safe and highly effective at preventing deaths in young infants from whooping cough. It is the best way to protect your baby. You can access a whooping cough vaccine from your GP and through some antenatal clinics and for further advice on getting your whooping cough vaccinations in your area, speak with your local maternity service.



Parliamentarians can help spread this message to their constituents and local communities. Please feel free to share this WMS to spread the message. Information for people who are concerned a baby, or a child may have whooping cough can find information on what to do at www.nhs.uk/conditions/whooping-cough/. Further information about the whooping cough vaccination programme in pregnancy can be found at www.gov.uk/government/publications/resources-to-support-whooping-cough-vaccination

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HMP Wandsworth

Monday 13th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

This statement concerns the decision by HM chief inspector of prisons to invoke an urgent notification at HMP Wandsworth.



In accordance with the protocol between HM chief inspector of prisons and the Ministry of Justice, the chief inspector, Charlie Taylor, wrote to the Lord Chancellor to alert him to the significant concerns he has about HMP Wandsworth.

In his letter and report, Charlie Taylor raises specific concerns about HMP Wandsworth, and the inspection is assessed against the following healthy prison tests: safety, respect, purposeful activity and preparation for release. Charlie Taylor reports on failings in security; severe overcrowding; vermin; drugs; violence and rising self-harm; and the high level of self-inflicted deaths, with seven prisoners tragically having taken their own lives in the past year.



I am clear that these findings are completely unacceptable, and we are taking—and will continue to take—urgent action to deliver sustained improvement at the prison. This statement sets out how we will respond to the chief inspector’s findings.



Following the usual process for urgent notifications, we will publish no later than 6 June an action plan that will outline the urgent steps we are taking to address the chief inspector’s concerns and improve the prison. Senior officials from the Department will provide enhanced supervision and increased support to the prison for as long as necessary until we are confident that sustainable improvements have been made.



We have already deployed extra staff at all grades to strengthen safety and security, and we have provided additional training to the leadership. We are investing in an £84 million programme of improvements to living conditions, healthcare facilities, physical security and fire safety measures to improve safety and security at the prison, and we will continue to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the necessary improvements are made.



We have also improved starting salaries for officers at HMP Wandsworth—they have risen from just over £26,500 to more than £36,000 since 2019—and in 2023 the number of frontline prison officers at HMP Wandsworth increased by around 14%.



We are also training around 50 staff members in advanced body search procedures, and around a further 70 staff members are receiving additional training in advanced vehicle search procedures. This is in addition to investment in gate and perimeter security, which includes new enhanced gate security processes. These now match or exceed the good practice seen at other London prisons.



This inspection report comes after the alleged escape of Daniel Khalife from HMP Wandsworth last September. As the Lord Chancellor set out in the House on 8 January, we launched an independent investigation into this incident. That investigation has concluded. However, we cannot go into any further detail at this stage, given that the alleged escape remains the subject of ongoing criminal proceedings.



I would like to take the opportunity while making this statement to confirm that Katie Price, the governor of HMP Wandsworth, has recently resigned after a 33-year career in the Prison Service. I am grateful for her dedicated public service to HM Prison and Probation Service, and am grateful to all staff at HMP Wandsworth for their dedication and hard work. HMPPS has appointed an experienced interim governor to oversee the prison while it fills this vital position on a permanent basis as swiftly as possible. This will ensure that we have continuity in leadership at the prison and can start implementing the action plan immediately.



This Government are committed to supporting improvements at HMP Wandsworth and to putting in place the building blocks needed to do this.

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Post Office Casework Team Contingency Fund Application

Monday 13th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)]

I hereby give notice of the Ministry of Justice’s intention to seek an advance from the Contingencies Fund totalling £1.15 million.



As the House knows, the Post Office Horizon IT scandal that began in the late 1990s has had severe impacts on the lives of the postmasters affected. On 10 January 2024 the Prime Minister made an announcement to introduce legislation to overturn the convictions of postmasters prosecuted by the Post Office and the Crown Prosecution Service due to the faulty Horizon IT system. The Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill was introduced on 13 March 2024. The Bill was introduced to the House of Lords on 30 April 2024 and we anticipate that it will receive Royal Assent before summer recess.



Accessing the Contingency Fund allows the Department to manage the expenditure associated with establishing the casework team to carry out preparatory work to enable the Government to identify convictions that are in scope of the Bill, notify these individuals as soon as possible after Royal Assent is achieved, and co-ordinate work to ensure relevant records are amended promptly.



Parliamentary approval for additional resource of £1,150,000 for this new service will be sought in a Main Estimate for the Ministry of Justice. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £1,150,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.

[HCWS454]

Welfare Fraud

Monday 13th May 2024 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

Public support for our welfare system relies on there being confidence that taxpayers’ money goes to those who need it, rather than into the hands of criminals. That is why we cannot allow fraudsters to take advantage of the system or the compassion of the British people.



The Department for Work and Pensions stopped an estimated £18 billion going into the wrong hands in 2022-23. Despite this, the rising tide of fraud across the economy since the pandemic has meant that over £8 billion a year has been overpaid in the welfare system due to fraud and error. This is money that could have been used for vital public services such as schools or hospitals.



In the continued fight against fraud, today the Government will publish a new paper setting out the progress we have made in tackling fraud and error in the welfare system: “Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System: Going Further”. The paper sets out the progress we have made in delivering the commitments in the Government’s 2022 Command Paper, “Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System”, and it demonstrates where we are going further to protect taxpayers’ money from fraudsters.



As part of this publication, I am pleased to update the House that we have exceeded our savings target for 2023-24 by saving over £1.3 billion through our counter-fraud activities.



Since 2022, the Government have delivered on the commitments made in the fraud plan to:



Invest in our front line, hiring over 4,400 people across our counter-fraud and targeted case review programmes combined;

bring forward new powers to improve our access to vital third-party data and save £600 million over the next five years, mirroring existing powers in His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs;

and harness the power of both public and private sectors to share expertise and help shape our thinking on how we respond to evolving fraud risks.



We will go further, and today’s publication sets out how we are scaling up our fight against fraudsters by:



Bringing forward a new Fraud Bill in the next Parliament to treat benefit fraud like tax fraud;

tripling the size of our targeted case review programme from that outlined in our fraud plan to reach almost 6,000 staff, with the aim of saving £6.6 billion from this alone by 2027-28;

and preventing welfare fraud at its source using advanced data analytics and machine learning.

The Government have invested £900 million into their fraud plan to combat fraud and protect taxpayers’ money. With continued investment, our fraud plan will save the taxpayer £9 billion by 2027-28.



With the action we have already taken, and our plan to go further still, we are clamping down on fraud and putting fairness at the heart of our welfare system.

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