Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps, if any, they plan to take following reports that some private care providers are charging local authorities up to £10,000 a week to look after one child in care.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
Local authorities are responsible for ensuring there are sufficient places to meet the needs of looked after children in their area, including commissioning places from private or voluntary sector providers as required. They are responsible for agreeing prices with providers accordingly.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a market study that will examine the lack of availability and increasing costs in children’s social care provision. The CMA is examining concerns around high prices paid by local authorities, specifically prices charged by providers and variation between prices paid for similar types of placements.
The government has also committed to undertaking a widescale review of children’s social care, taking a fundamental look at the needs, experiences and outcomes of the children it supports, and what is needed to make a real difference. The review will be bold, broad, and independently led, taking a fundamental look across children’s social care, with the aim of better supporting, protecting, and improving the outcomes of vulnerable children and young people. The review will be evidenced based and bring together a broad range of expertise.
The government will study the findings and recommendations of both reviews carefully when they report next year.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why the Department for Health did not respond to a request from The Observer for a comment on the rise in demand for youth mental health services.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Department responded to the Observer on 17 July.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why the rate of statutory sick pay in the UK of £95.85 per week is lower than the average of other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; and when they plan they address this issue.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott - Opposition Whip (Lords)
Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) provides a minimum level of income for employees when they are sick or incapable of work. It is paid by employers at £96.35 per week for up to 28 weeks in any one period of entitlement. Employers are legally required to pay SSP to eligible employees who are off work sick or incapable of work, where employees meet the qualifying conditions. Some employers may also decide to pay more, and for longer, through Occupational Sick Pay.
The costs of SSP are met in full by employers. It is therefore important to strike a balance between ensuring employees receive financial support when they are sick or incapable of work with the costs to employers of providing such support.
SSP is just one part of our welfare safety net and our wider government offer to support people in times of need. Where an individual’s income is reduced while off work sick and they require further financial support, they may be able to claim Universal Credit and new style Employment and Support Allowance, depending on their personal circumstances.
The government has previously consulted on reform to SSP, and as we learn to live with a new virus there is space to take a broader look at the role of SSP. The government maintains that SSP provides an important link between the employee and employer but that now is not the right time to introduce changes to the sick pay system.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the reports that the number of people aged 16-34 suffering from chronic pain increased from 21 per cent to 34 per cent between 2011 and 2017, what steps they plan to take to address that increase.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has made a number of recommendations for research on managing chronic pain, including the use of psychological therapies, acupuncture and pharmacological interventions.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are collaborating with stakeholders such as Versus Arthritis to co-produce and coordinate a strategy. Versus Arthritis have been commissioned to produce a decision support tool based on NICE guidance which can help people living with pain and their clinical teams understand all evidence-based options available. Alongside this tool, NHS England and NHS Improvement will also be publishing a commissioning framework to help local services reduce opioid prescribing in summer 2021.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Trussell Trust End of Year Statistics, published this month, and in particular, its finding that the Trust distributed a record 2.5 miliion food parcels in 2020/21; what estimate they have made of the total number of food parcels that were distributed during the 2020/21 financial year; and what steps they intend to take to reduce the number of households which are reliant on the provision of such parcels.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott - Opposition Whip (Lords)
No such assessment has been made. Foodbanks are independent charitable organisations and there are no official statistics relating to either the number of people using food banks or the number of food parcels distributed.
This Government is committed to supporting those on low incomes, injecting an additional £7.4 billion to strengthen the welfare safety net in 2020/21. We also introduced the Covid Winter Grant, now the Covid Local Support Grant, together totalling £269 million, to enable Local Authorities to help the most vulnerable children and families with essential costs.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to increase the building of homes for social rent from the 7,000 built in 2019 to help address the waiting list of more than 1.1 million households.
Answered by Lord Greenhalgh
Local authorities have freedom to set their own criteria determining who qualifies for social housing in their district, through changes introduced in the Localism Act 2011. However, they must ensure that reasonable preference (overall priority) for social housing is given to certain categories of people in housing need, including homeless households, people living in overcrowded housing, and those who have medical and welfare needs.
The Government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing and are investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade.
This includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, which will provide up to 180,000 new homes across the country, should economic conditions allow. The new programme will deliver more than double the social rent than the current programme, with around 32,000 social rent homes due to be delivered.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the planned reorganisation of the NHS in England on the role of local government in (1) providing, and (2) funding, public health and social care.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government’s proposed Health and Care Bill will help local health and care systems deliver higher quality care to their local communities by establishing integrated care systems on a statutory basis.
The proposals will not change the role of local government in terms of its public health and social care responsibilities, the services it commissions or the funding of those services. An impact assessment for the Health and Care Bill will be published in due course.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by EY EY Financial Services Brexit Tracker, published on 2 March; and what assessment they have made of the impact of the UK’s departure from the EU on (1) the transfer of assets from the UK to the EU, and (2) the UK economy.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
In November, the Chancellor set out his vision for a new chapter for the UK’s FS sector to the House of Commons.
The UK’s FS sector will remain global, open and competitive, while being underpinned by high quality, agile and responsive regulation, and safe and stable markets. It will pioneer financial technology to benefit consumers and businesses, use innovation and finance to tackle climate change and move to a net-zero future.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what measures they are taking to encourage nurses who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 to receive such vaccinations; and when they estimate all nurses will be vaccinated.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Nurses will continue to be offered the vaccine beyond mid-February, which includes invitations for the second dose. Information on vaccinating staff has been shared across the healthcare system briefing employers to ensure their staff are offered, and book appointments for, the vaccine.
While it is the responsibility of individual employers to arrange for their staff to be vaccinated, the National Health Service (NHS) has now also opened the National Booking Service to ensure that it is as easy as possible for nurses and other frontline health and social care workers, particularly those working outside the NHS, to access the vaccine. Staff using this service will be asked when booking to self-certify that they are eligible and will be told to take proof of their employment to their appointment at a vaccination centre or pharmacy-led site.
Local NHS employers are using tried and tested methods to encourage take-up within their organisations, based on the annual flu campaign This includes the provision of specific staff campaign materials; extensive engagement by senior nursing figures, such as Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England who regularly endorses and appeals for nurses to book vaccine appointments on behalf of the profession; and targeted engagement with nurses from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds designed to address queries as well as encouraging new international nurses to book appointments too. There is also ongoing information shared on social media for healthcare workers with staff and high profile health professionals sharing their vaccine stories.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 18 November (HL7591), when the recruitment process for a permanent Chair of the National Institute of Health Protection began; and when it will conclude.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Cabinet Office launched the advertisement for the permanent Chair of the National Institute of Heath Protection on 2 March which closes on 9 March. Further stages of the recruitment process are pending the outcome of the advertisement.