Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, and if so, when, they intend to publish guidance for the use of personal protective equipment in social care settings for people who are deaf or have other communication difficulties.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Existing guidance documents include information that may be useful to deaf people or people with other communication difficulties, as the guidance covers adapting communication and following communication plans, where they exist, for people who have a range of communication barriers. These include Personal protective equipment (PPE) – resource for care workers working in care homes during sustained COVID-19 transmission in England and the same section of Personal protective equipment (PPE) – resource for care workers delivering homecare (domiciliary care) during sustained COVID-19 transmission in the UK, which are attached.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support they intend to offer disabled people and their families as the restrictions in place to address the COVID-19 pandemic are eased.
Answered by Baroness Stedman-Scott
The Government is committed to supporting disabled people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work has had discussions with charities, disabled people's organisations and individuals to understand the range of experiences disabled people have had during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify the support needed as lockdown restrictions are eased.
The Government is ensuring that disabled people continue to have access to accessible communications, updated guidance, including workplace and transport related guidance, as well as access to food, medicines and essential supplies, disability benefits and other financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unpaid carers in financial need are able to access the full range of Social Security benefits, which include Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Carer’s Allowance.
The Government continues to support disabled employees to access assistive technology and other forms of support they need to retain, adapt and move into employment through the Access to Work scheme. All equality and discrimination laws and obligations continue to apply during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Cabinet Office Disability Unit continues to work with disability stakeholders and across Government Departments to ensure that the needs of disabled people are considered in the UK Government’s response to COVID-19.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, following the combining of the Disabled Students’ Allowance budget for specialist equipment and non-medical helpers in relation to postgraduate students, whether they intend to adopt the same approach in relation to undergraduate students.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The postgraduate Disabled Student’s Allowance (DSA) has always been available as a single allowance since its introduction in academic year 2000/2001. The maximum amount of DSAs available to postgraduate students starting their course in September 2019 or after has been increased from £10,993 a year to £20,000 a year. The department has no plans to merge the 4 DSAs currently available to undergraduate students.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish the results of the Student Loans Company Assistive Technology Equipment and Training Tender.
Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
An invitation to tender will be released shortly by the Student Loans Company, who are responsible for the tendering process. The result of this process will be published in the autumn of this year.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps the Department for International Development is taking to reach the ambition it set out in the 2015 discussion paper <i>Delivering quality education in protracted crises</i>.
Answered by Baroness Verma
The UK has played a leading role in the development of Education Cannot Wait, a new fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. The fund is designed to address many of the issues identified in the 2015 discussion paper – such as improving the co-ordination and funding of education in crises, and building evidence and data – with the aim of reaching 13.6 children and young people a year living in protracted crises and emergency affected countries by 2021.
The Secretary of State has recently announced a multi-year commitment of £30 million to the fund at the World Humanitarian Summit on 23rd May, as a founding donor to this important initiative.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps the Department for International Development is taking to encourage other donors to fund the Education Cannot Wait fund at its launch at the World Humanitarian Summit.
Answered by Baroness Verma
The UK is working closely with UNICEF and other partners to encourage a broad funding base to Education Cannot Wait, including funding from non-traditional donors, private sector and philanthropic organisations. This includes via UK technical support to the fund’s case for investment and other key communication and outreach products, to raise awareness of the fund with others.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many children had a vision screen as part of the school entry health check in England in 2013–14.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
Data on the number of children who received vision screening as part of the school entry health check in 2013-14 is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reform the Primary Ophthalmic Services Regulations 2008 to ensure that entitlement for additional services includes requests made by eligible persons attending special schools.
Answered by Earl Howe - Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
At present there are no plans to reform the Primary Ophthalmic Services Regulations 2008. It is already the case that under the General Ophthalmic Services Contract Regulations 2008, contractors can contract with NHS England to provide sight testing services within such schools.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will outline a timetable under which the Department for International Development will work towards achieving the recommendation by the House of Commons International Development Select Committee in its Report <i>Disability and development</i> (HC Paper 947, 2013–14) to report results disaggregated by disability across all sectors of the Department’s work, including but not limited to the humanitarian sector.
Answered by Lord Wallace of Saltaire - Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Cabinet Office)
In its response to the IDC recommendations DFID did not commit to report results disaggregated by disability across all sectors of the Department’s work.
DFID is nevertheless committed to improving data on disability. Our priority in this area is to strengthen national governments' ability to collect, analyse and use data in the countries in which we work at a national, regional and local level, and in different sectors. This information will be used to inform national level results frameworks and reporting against future international development goals. To do this, DFID made a new commitment in September 2013 to advocate the use of the Washington Group questions on disability wherever possible in DFID-supported national censuses and household surveys, and to champion their use with other donors.
As the IDC recognises, collecting disaggregated data at the programme level is difficult. DFID will make disaggregated data on age and disability part of our requirements for funding humanitarian proposals. DFID's broader approach is to identify programmes with a specific focus on disability at the design phase, and to monitor this inclusion throughout the programme management cycle.
Asked by: Lord Low of Dalston (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures to improve reporting and accountability on the inclusion of disabled people will be part of the strengthened systems that the Department for International Development committed to put in place in the response to the House of Commons International Development Select Committee’s Report <i>Disability and Development </i>(HC Paper 947, 2013–14).
Answered by Lord Wallace of Saltaire - Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson (Cabinet Office)
As part of our International Development Committee hearing commitments, DFID is in the process of developing a framework for further strengthening disability inclusion across the department. This will set out our clear commitment, approach and actions to strengthening disability in our policy, programme and international work. It will also include an explanation of how we will strengthen departmental capability on disability, how we will influence our partners to do more, and a timeframe for taking forward the activities outlined in our response to the IDC recommendations.