Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether there were significant changes in the level of uptake of pension credit claims after the launch of the invitation to claim trial.
Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The invitation to claim trial is a small-scale test and learn exercise taking place across 10 local authority areas. Evaluation of the test and learn is underway, and we plan to report on the results towards the end of the year when further data is available.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will make an assessment of the impact of the expansion of oil and gas exploration in the North Sea on the environment.
Answered by Graham Stuart
NSTA analysis shows domestic gas production is on average almost four times cleaner than the process of producing and importing gas in LNG form. Reducing domestic production would not reduce end use emissions but could lead to billions of pounds going abroad and lost British jobs and tax revenues. New licences slow the decline in UK oil and gas production, boosting the UK's energy security, rather than increasing production above current levels. The UK remains on track to meet net zero by 2050.
The impact of North Sea exploration has been assessed by the UK Government in an Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will make an assessment of the adequacy of rates of processing probate applications by HM Courts and Tribunals Service.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The probate service received record levels of applications during 2022 and this has continued to grow with higher levels of receipts during January to June 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. Whilst HMCTS has increased resources to meet the higher demand the training and upskilling of those new and existing staff has led to applications taking longer in the short term.
HMCTS are focused on increasing outputs to reduce overall timeliness on all types of applications and the average mean length of time taken for a grant of probate, following receipt of the documents required, is 13 weeks during April to June 2023.
Average waiting times for probate grants are routinely published on gov.uk via Family Court Statistics Quarterly and currently cover the period up to June 2023.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent progress his Department has made on its meeting the commitments made in the Government’s full response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review and consultation on policy proposals, published in December 2022.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
In November 2022 we published our full response to the Criminal Legal Aid Independent Review (CLAIR), setting out various proposals to ensure the long-term sustainability of the criminal legal aid sector.
This followed the interim response to the CLAIR which introduced a 15% uplift across most fee schemes in line with the recommendations made in the Review. This funding began to come into effect from the end of September 2022, and we subsequently agreed to extend it to the majority of cases already progressing in the Crown Court. Following these reforms, an increase in expenditure of up to £141 million a year will take expected annual criminal legal aid spend to £1.2 billion.
We have established the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board (CLAAB) in October 2022, now chaired by former judge Deborah Taylor, to bring together criminal justice system partners to take a wider view and encourage a more joined-up approach to criminal legal aid within the criminal justice system. We are continuing to work with the CLAAB on our proposals, including long term reform of the Litigators’ Graduated Fee Scheme and Advocates’ Graduated Fee Scheme, to reform criminal legal aid fees.
In addition to the 15% uplift that was applied to both the magistrates’ court and police station fee schemes from 30 September 2022, we will be investing a further £16m into the police station fee scheme and £5.1m towards youth court fees which currently sits under the magistrates’ court fee scheme. In total, this will be an additional £21.1m going to solicitors over the next financial year (2024/25). We will be consulting further on how this money will be distributed within the fee schemes.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will make an estimate of the number of criminal duty solicitors working in Erith and Thamesmead constituency.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) is responsible for commissioning duty solicitor services and the day-to-day administration of the court and police station duty schemes. This includes keeping membership records, allocating slots and producing and maintaining duty solicitor rotas. The LAA monitors membership across individual duty schemes. Information about duty solicitor volumes broken down by individual scheme is published as part of the LAA’s quarterly statistics.
Legal Aid services are not procured at constituency level, however, the duty schemes falling with the Erith and Thamesmead constituency include the Bexley and Greenwich/Woolwich schemes.
At a national level, the LAA monitors capacity across criminal legal aid contracts on an ongoing basis and, where demand is greater than the available supply, takes action to secure additional provision to ensure the continuity of legal aid-funded services.
The LAA is satisfied that there continues to be sufficient duty solicitor coverage on the duty schemes operating in Erith and Thamesmead. Provision under the duty schemes is demand led and so there may be variations in numbers across each local rota or other fluctuations in numbers depending on prevailing market conditions, and other internal factors such as firms merging or other consolidation activity.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the level of alcohol duty on the financial viability of pubs.
Answered by Gareth Davies - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government publishes tax information and impact notes (TIINs) for tax policy changes when the policy is final or near final. The summary of impacts from the latest changes to alcohol duty at Spring Budget 2023 can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/increase-in-alcohol-duty-rates/alcohol-duty-uprating
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to support local councils in tackling fly-tipping.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The PM’s Anti-social Behaviour Action Plan sets out how we will help councils take tougher action against those who fly-tip. This includes significantly raising the upper limit on the penalties councils can issue to £1,000 for fly-tipping and £600 for householders who give their waste to an unauthorised carrier, which we did in July. We have also increased transparency on the use of these penalties by publishing league tables and consulted stakeholders on ringfencing the money raised from these penalties for enforcement and clean up activity.
This builds on the £1.2m Defra has provided in grant funding to help more than 30 councils implement projects cracking down on fly-tipping. A selection of case studies from round one are available online so that others can learn about those interventions which were most successful. These can be found at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/fly-tipping-intervention-grant-scheme. We have recently launched another grant opportunity that could see a further £1m handed out in grants to help more councils tackle the issue.
With the National Fly-Tipping Prevention Group, we are developing a toolkit to help councils and others tackle fly-tipping. So far, the group has published a guide on how to present robust cases to court and a new framework which sets out how to set up and run effective local partnerships. The toolkit, and other resources, are available online at https://www.keepbritaintidy.org/fly-tipping-intervention-grant-scheme.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what information her Department holds on the level of illegal waste disposal in Erith and Thamesmead constituency in the last 12 months.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency’s Kent and South London enforcement team respond to reports of illegal disposal of waste and seeks to take proactive and targeted action within the Erith and Thamesmead area.
In the last 12 months the Environment Agency have received two reports of illegal disposal of waste in the Erith and Thamesmead area. Both reports concern the illegal disposal of commercial waste by burning. The Environment Agency attended one site and since this visit, have received no further reports of burning from this location. In the case of the second report, the Environment Agency issued a letter giving advice and guidance on waste disposal to the business address of the company suspected of the burning. Since this letter was sent, they have received no further reports of burning. The Environment Agency currently have no active investigations into the illegal disposal of waste in Erith and Thamesmead area.
The Environment Agency also conducts proactive days of action to target specific waste offences and waste streams. The last day of action was held on the 18 September 2023 covering the Erith and Thamesmead areas in the London borough of Bexley. The operation was conducted in partnership with officers from Environment Agency, Metropolitan Police, Openreach and the London Borough of Bexley. The purpose was to target uninsured/unlicensed drivers and hauliers believed to be engaged in illegal waste activities. Based on intelligence the focus was on scrap metal dealers known to be operating in the Thamesmead area. The day gathered valuable intelligence and enforcement action was taken against several un-registered waste carriers.
Additionally, the latest fly-tipping incident data held by Defra shows that in 2021/22 the London Borough of Bexley reported a total of 5096 fly-tipping incidents and the London Borough of Greenwich reported a total of 8666 fly-tipping incidents. In response to these reports 407 actions were taken by the London Borough of Bexley and 918 actions by the London Borough of Greenwich.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will bring forward legislative proposals to prevent the breeding of animals that are genetically predisposed to (a) Brachycephaly and (b) other deformative conditions.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The law on the breeding and sale of dogs, and the breeding and sale of rabbits and cats as pets, who can suffer from brachycephaly was updated and improved in 2018. Under The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018 (the 2018 Regulations) anyone in the business of breeding and selling dogs and/or who breeds three or more litters of dogs in a twelve-month period, as well as anyone in the business of breeding and selling rabbits or cats as pets, needs to hold a valid licence issued by their local authority.
Licencees must achieve and maintain statutory minimum animal welfare standards, which are enforced by local authorities who have powers to issue, refuse or revoke licences, and are prohibited from breeding from dogs if it can be reasonably expected that this would lead to health or welfare problems for the mother or her puppies.
Defra is currently undertaking a post-implementation review of the 2018 Regulations which will consider whether the regulations have met their objectives, and where there could be scope for further improvements. The review will be published soon.
Asked by: Abena Oppong-Asare (Labour - Erith and Thamesmead)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much of the Access for All funding has been allocated; and if he will make it his policy to provide funding to improve accessibility at Erith station.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
We are assessing over 300 nominations for Access for All funding for the period 2024-29, including a nomination for Erith station. If successful, the funding will create an obstacle free, accessible route from the station entrance to platforms. We hope to be in a position to announce successful nominations later this year.