Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the criteria for the award of contracts to private companies for England’s COVID-19 Test and Trace services; what is the estimated cost of the Test and Trace programme; and what assessment they have made of reports that Test and Trace contractors are failing to meet targets.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Each of the Departmental COVID-19 contracts contain information on the award criteria, whether as a Direct Award using regulation 32(2)(c) under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 under which authorities are allowed to procure goods, services and works with extreme urgency in exceptional circumstances or a call off contract from an existing Government framework contract.
The Government has allocated a total of £22 billion to the Test and Trace programme in 2020-21 with a further £15 billion for 2021-22. All contracts are being monitored to ensure that performance and quality assurance standards are being met. Where poor performance has been identified we have taken appropriate measures to rectify this.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to reduce the incidence of (1) self-harm, and (2) suicide, in prisons.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar
We take every death in custody very seriously, and we are focussing our efforts to address the levels of self-harm and support those at risk of suicide. This includes tailored action for the women’s prison estate, where a rise has been seen in self-harm incidents since Covid-19 measures were introduced.
We are under no illusions about the impact of the measures which were put in place to protect lives during the Covid-19 pandemic and we have made prisoners’ safety and wellbeing our priority.
We have produced a range of products to support Governors in devising and implementing local safety and welfare plans designed to mitigate risks and promote wellbeing. Over 25,000 new and existing staff have received self-harm and suicide prevention training to help them better support offenders with complex needs. We’ve enabled continued family contact through more than 1,600 secure mobile phones and rolled out secure video call technology into every single prison in the male, female and youth estate. Each prisoner is also given £5 PIN credit per week. We have renewed our partnership with the Samaritans who are providing the excellent Listeners scheme, which trains selected prisoners to provide emotional support to their fellow prisoners. We are also delivering more in cell-activities such as distraction packs, supplementary food packs, and additional educational materials to mitigate the impact of isolation.
We have prioritised the roll-out of the revised version of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT) multi-disciplinary case management system used in prisons to support people at risk of suicide and self-harm in the women’s estate.
We will also be implementing the Offender Management in Custody model in the female estate in April. This will provide each woman with a dedicated key worker who will be able to better support them and identify concerns at an early stage so that women can receive the right support at the right time.
Every prisoner in the male closed estate should have a key worker allocated to them with vulnerable and priority group prisoners having a daily wellbeing check at the minimum and weekly key work sessions where resource and risk allows whilst in regime level 4.
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 (1) the report by Healthwatch What people are telling us, published on 9 December 2020, which found that people are struggling to access NHS dentistry, (2) the reported increase in the sale of at-home dental kits by Boots in the last three months of 2020, and (3) British Dental Association analysis that dentists have provided around 19 million fewer treatments in England since March 2020 compared to the same period last year; and what plans they have to address these issues.
Answered by Lord Bethell
No such assessment has been made.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to maintain the additional £20 per week to recipients of Universal Credit while the restrictions to address the COVID-19 pandemic remain in place; and, if they have no such plans, why not.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit was announced by the Chancellor as a temporary measure in March 2020 to support those facing the most financial disruption as a result of the public health emergency. This measure remains in place until March 2021. As the Government has done throughout this pandemic, it will continue to assess how best to support low-income families, which is why we will look at the economic and health context before making any decisions.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the government of China about the mistreatment of Uighurs.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
We remain committed to promoting human rights in Xinjiang, and our continued multilateral and bilateral activity demonstrates this. The Foreign Secretary has personally raised our serious concerns with his Chinese counterpart on a number of occasions this year. The UK has also taken a leading international role in holding China to account for its gross human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong. On 6 October, the UK and 38 other countries joined a statement at the UN Third Committee in New York expressing deep concern at the situation in Xinjiang and Hong Kong, including the mass detention of Uyghurs in political re-education camps. This growing international pressure on China reflects UK diplomatic leadership, including the personal involvement of the Foreign Secretary in raising the issue with a wide range of partners.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the increased costs of the digital border system to monitor the movement of people and goods into and out of the UK arising from missing the initial deadline of March 2019.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
Significant external factors over the last few years have inevitably required changes to the original delivery plans for the Digital Services at the Border programme as set out in 2014, for example, the decision to leave the EU, improvements in the Home Office’s approach to using information, and changes to the way that government handles data.
The programme was reset in 2019 to help ensure the best chance of success, this included actions to strengthen the leadership team and put in place a clear plan of delivery.
As part of the reset in 2019, the Digital Services at the Border Programme was extended for three years to complete in April 2022. The Home Office estimate the net additional costs that will be incurred by the programme resulting from the extension will be £173 million.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of children in England being educated at home; whether they are taking steps they to reduce that number; if not, why not; and what additional support they intend to provide to local authority children services to assist with the costs of home education.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The information you requested is not held centrally by this department. The department does not currently collect data on numbers of home educated children.
Parents are not required to register if they are home educating their children and, therefore, there is not a robust basis on which the department can reliably collect statistics on home education.
In relation to the COVID-19 outbreak, the department is working closely with local authorities to encourage a return to full attendance in school and is monitoring the situation. Initial conversations with local authorities indicate that the majority have noticed an increase in enquiries from parents about home education. Where parents are anxious about the safety of their children returning to school, local authorities and school leaders are reinforcing that it is in the best interests of pupils to return to school.
Over March and April 2020, the government provided £3.2 billion of emergency grant funding and over £5 billion of cashflow support to assist local authorities through the COVID-19 outbreak.
On 22 October 2020, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced allocations of a further £919 million of un-ringfenced funding to respond to spending pressures. This is part of a package of further support for councils, worth over £1 billion.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what appointment or recruitment process, if any, was applied to the appointment of the chair of the National Institute of Health Protection.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Baroness Harding was appointed interim Chair of the National Institute of Health Protection on 18 August 2020 by the Prime Minister, while recruitment for a permanent candidate is completed. Baroness Harding receives no remuneration for this role or as Head of NHS Test and Trace.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much money they estimate wll be raised through the imposition of value added tax on face masks and personal protective equipment.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
On 1 May the Government introduced a temporary VAT zero rate on personal protective equipment (PPE) that meets the standard set out in guidance from Public Health England in order to ensure that affected sectors (such as hospitals and care homes) were able to have access to PPE as required. The Government has put in place new measures that will ensure the supply of PPE to these sectors from 1 November.
The zero rate therefore ended on 31 October (as legislated), and the costing of this measure will be subject to scrutiny by the Office for Budget Responsibility and will be set out at the next fiscal event.
An estimate of the revenue raised from VAT on other types of face masks or PPE that have never been subject to the zero rate is not available. HMRC do not hold information on VAT revenue from specific products or services because businesses are not required to provide figures at a product level in their VAT returns, as this would impose an excessive administrative burden.
In July, the Government announced in the Plan for Jobs additional expenditure of over £15 billion for PPE procurement.
Asked by: Lord Beecham (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons Report on an unannounced inspection of the detention of migrants arriving in Dover in small boats, published on 23 October; and what steps they intend to take to address the key concerns expressed in that report.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Shadow Chief Whip (Lords)
The Government have accepted nineteen of the recommendations made in Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons report, in full or part, and rejected only one (access to social media sites).
The report and recommendations have been considered and the Government’s response has been published https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/10/23/fact-sheet-short-term-holding-facilities-and-processing-centres-for-small-boats-crossings/ . We would refer to the measures and improvements listed there.
We take the welfare of people in our care very seriously and are committed to ensuring our triaging and short-term holding facilities are safe, secure and humane and follow the latest guidance from Public Health England.
We are adhering to our statutory duties in all aspects, from safeguarding children, to providing the necessary medical requirements to those who have undertaken this dangerous journey.