Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of remarks by Tony Blair to The Times on 1 February regarding the potential use of digital identity to help solve immigration and other problems.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
Digital right to work and right to rent checks are already in place for migrants and British or Irish citizens. For British passport, and Irish passport or passport card holders, employers and landlords can already choose to use digital identity services which are independently certified against Government standards. This can reduce business costs and enable individuals to access work and housing much faster, and more easily.
Foreign nationals can also use their eVisa to evidence their status in the UK and for identification purposes.
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question
To ask the Leader of the House what was the average cost of responding to a Question for Written Answer tabled in the House of Lords in the most recent year for which figures are available.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Basildon - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The information requested is not held. The cost to the public purse of answering written parliamentary questions depends on numerous factors, including the size of parliamentary teams, volumes of parliamentary questions submitted, and the complexity of the question asked (and required policy work to answer it), amongst other factors.
The Cabinet Office’s Guide to Parliamentary Work (available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-parliamentary-work) sets out: “There is an advisory cost limit known as the disproportionate cost threshold which is the level above which departments can decide not to answer a written question. The current disproportionate cost threshold is £850.”
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of illegal immigrants residing in the UK.
Answered by Lord Hanson of Flint - Minister of State (Home Office)
By its very nature, it is not possible to know the exact number of people living in the UK illegally, or produce official estimates of that illegal population. In June 2019, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a note on ‘measuring illegal migration’, which can be found here: Measuring illegal migration: our current view - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk).
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to lower the blood alcohol content limit for driving.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
This Government takes road safety seriously, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. We are currently considering policy options in this area.
Since the general election, the Department has also begun work on a new Road Safety Strategy, the first in over a decade. The Department will share more details in due course.
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the value of Government-funded research into the impact of calorie labelling on alcohol products, given that such information has been provided on other drinks for many years.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department commissioned a National Institute for Health and Care Research study on understanding the impact of alcohol calorie labelling on alcohol and calorie selection, purchasing, and consumption. This study is underway, and due to end in 2026. The findings from this work will be useful in showing the potential impact of calorie labelling on reducing calorie intake and alcohol consumption.
Under our Health Mission, the Government is committed to prioritising preventative public health measures to support people to live longer, healthier lives. The Department will continue to work across Government to determine the best ways to reduce alcohol-related harms.
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many limb amputations were performed in NHS hospitals in (1) 2005, (2) 2010, (3) 2015, and (4) 2020, and what was the principal cause of these.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
A table showing the number of finished consultant episodes with a main or secondary procedure code for limb amputation, broken down by primary diagnosis group and the year of the operation, is attached due to the size of the data.
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of children eligible for free school meals who are not registered to receive them; and what steps they are taking to encourage registration.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
The department does not routinely collect information on the proportion of pupils that would be entitled to a Free School Meal (FSM) but do not make a claim.
The department wants to ensure as many eligible pupils as possible are claiming their FSM, and to make it simple for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility. To support this, the department provides an Eligibility Checking System to make processes as straightforward as possible. A model registration form has been developed to help schools encourage parents to sign up for FSM. In addition, the department provides guidance to Jobcentre Plus advisers, so that they can make Universal Credit recipients aware that they may also be entitled to wider benefits, including FSM.
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the key incentives needed to achieve sustained long-term weight reduction in cases of obesity.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Local authorities and the National Health Service provide weight management services to support their communities to achieve and maintain a healthier weight. These services incentivise behaviour change, by encouraging the development of sustainable habits and fostering independence and self-management
Maintaining weight loss over the medium and long term is challenging in an environment where high saturated fat, salt and sugar food are readily available, marketed, and cheaper than healthier alternatives. That is why the Government is taking action to help people maintain a healthier weight such as: the introduction of out of home calorie labelling regulations for food sold in large businesses, including restaurants, cafes and takeaways; the introduction of restrictions on the promotion by location of less healthy products in key selling locations in store and online; and working with the food industry to make further progress on reformulation and making healthier choices easier.
The Government also launched ‘The Better Health: Rewards’ pilot in February 2023 for adults who live in Wolverhampton. This is an innovative app-based health intervention where participants can download an app, receive a free wearable fitness tracker, and can earn points for completing diet and physical activity challenges which they can redeem for rewards in an in-app store. This pilot is designed to test whether financial incentives can be used to support people to improve their diet and physical activity behaviour.
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the cost to the NHS of prescribing the heroine substitute drug methodone in (1) 2005, (2) 2010, (3) 2015, and (4) 2020.
Answered by Lord Markham - Shadow Minister (Science, Innovation and Technology)
Information on the cost to the NHS of prescribing methadone is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will change the conditions on which Universal Infant Free School Meal grants are made to ensure that the grants are expended solely on improving the quality of school meals to meet their child obesity targets.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Shadow Minister (Education)
Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) are funded through a direct grant to schools. To recognise the pressures facing schools, the Department announced an £18 million increase to the per-pupil funding rate for UIFSM to support with costs around food, transport and staff wages.
UIFSM helps to improve children’s education, boost their health and save parents around £400 a year. There are no plans to change the conditions in which these grants are made. The Department is continuing to review funding in order to ensure that schools continue to be able to provide healthy and nutritious meals in school. The funding for the free school meal (FSM) factor is increasing in line with the latest available GDP deflator forecast when the New Funding Formula (NFF) was published in July 2022.
Schools receive their provisional allocations for UIFSM in June based on the final allocation of the previous academic year. Schools receive a subsequent allocation of revenue funding in early summer, adjusted either up or down to reflect actual number of meals taken. This is calculated using an average taken from the October and January Censuses.
Local Authorities can decide whether they should top up the UIFSM allocation from their general maintenance and improvement budgets in the light of local circumstances, as they would do in any other year.