Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 3.46 of the Autumn Budget 2024, HC 295, how much of the additional funding for further education will be spent on adult learning.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This government is committed to driving economic growth and supporting opportunity for all, and further education (FE) is central to this. The government is providing an additional £300 million for FE to support development of the skills our economy needs, and a further £300 million to support colleges to maintain, improve and ensure suitability of their estate. The department will set out how the additional funding will be distributed in due course.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) monitor and (b) reduce (i) socio-economic and (ii) ethnic disparities in the rates of (A) neonatal death, (B) brain injury and (C) pre-term birth.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all women and babies received safe, personalised, equitable, and compassionate care. I am urgently considering the immediate action needed across maternity and neonatal services to improve outcomes and address the stark inequalities that persist for women and babies across ethnicity and deprivation, including what targets are needed. This includes consideration of what comes beyond the national maternity safety ambition, ensuring that we take an evidence-based approach, and that any targets set are women and baby-centred and focused on tackling inequalities.
There has been some good progress to date. As part of NHS England’s three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, all trusts are rolling out version three of the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle, which provides maternity units with guidance and interventions to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal death, and preterm birth, and includes initiatives to reduce inequalities. All Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems have published Equity and Equality actions plans to tackle inequalities for women and babies from ethnic minorities and those living in the most deprived areas.
The Government is currently piloting a training programme to help avoid brain injury in childbirth, and to address variation and improve safety for mothers and their babies. If successful, national rollout is expected to commence next year.
The Department’s officials work closely with NHS England and maternity and neonatal sector partners to monitor inequalities in perinatal outcomes by ethnicity and deprivation, including through the published Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK reports.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set clear and measurable targets to help tackle socio-economic and ethnic disparities in the rates of (a) neonatal death, (b) brain injury and (c) pre-term birth.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all women and babies received safe, personalised, equitable, and compassionate care. I am urgently considering the immediate action needed across maternity and neonatal services to improve outcomes and address the stark inequalities that persist for women and babies across ethnicity and deprivation, including what targets are needed. This includes consideration of what comes beyond the national maternity safety ambition, ensuring that we take an evidence-based approach, and that any targets set are women and baby-centred and focused on tackling inequalities.
There has been some good progress to date. As part of NHS England’s three-year delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, all trusts are rolling out version three of the Saving Babies Lives Care Bundle, which provides maternity units with guidance and interventions to reduce stillbirths, neonatal brain injury, neonatal death, and preterm birth, and includes initiatives to reduce inequalities. All Local Maternity and Neonatal Systems have published Equity and Equality actions plans to tackle inequalities for women and babies from ethnic minorities and those living in the most deprived areas.
The Government is currently piloting a training programme to help avoid brain injury in childbirth, and to address variation and improve safety for mothers and their babies. If successful, national rollout is expected to commence next year.
The Department’s officials work closely with NHS England and maternity and neonatal sector partners to monitor inequalities in perinatal outcomes by ethnicity and deprivation, including through the published Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK reports.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department has had discussions with (a) people that have experienced immigration detention and (b) charities and NGOs on the review of the Adults at Risk in Immigration Detention policy.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
We will be engaging with NGOs as part of the review at the appropriate time, to ensure that they have the opportunity to share their views and experiences of working with those who have been in immigration detention.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of implementing the recommendations of the 14th Report of Session 2017-19 of the Home Affairs Committee entitled Immigration Detention, HC 913, published on 12 March 2019, in the context of her Department's review of the Adults at Risk in Immigration Detention policy.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Adults at Risk review is a wholesale review of the policy, including Rule 34 and Rule 35 of the detention centre rules. Accordingly, the review will engage broadly with some of the themes in the Report, since the focus of the review centres on vulnerability in detention.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to tackle tax avoidance in British Overseas Territories.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Overseas Territories are an integral part of the British family, and the elected governments of inhabited Overseas Territories are responsible for many fiscal matters, including tax.
The Overseas Territories have all made commitments to following the highest international tax standards, including the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for the automatic exchange of information for tax purposes.
The UK provides support to the Overseas Territories to implement those standards.
The communiqué from the Joint Ministerial Council on 19 to 21 November included commitments to improving corporate transparency by completing plans to implement Accessible Registers of Beneficial Ownership. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-and-overseas-territories-joint-ministerial-council-2024-communique/b71f1ac8-d55c-44fb-b6a3-365f07a98689.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking with international counterparts to help protect marine environments.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Internationally, the UK continues to work to protect the marine environment.
The United Nations Convention Law on the Sea is the legal framework for all activities in the ocean. The UK supports a moratorium by the International Seabed Authority on the granting of exploitation licences until there is sufficient scientific evidence about the potential impact on deep sea ecosystems and strong, enforceable Regulations are in place. The UK is committed to ratifying the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of the Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement),
In the Convention on Biological Diversity, we are leading efforts as Chair of the Global Ocean Alliance to effectively conserve and manage at least 30% of the ocean by 2030. In the International Whaling Commission, the UK in steadfast in our support for the global moratorium on commercial whaling. In the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) the UK supports designations of large-scale Marine Protected Areas. Through UN climate talks, the UK promotes ocean action. The UK is currently working towards agreeing a legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment, as a member of the High Ambition Coalition.
The UK is one of 19 countries of the ‘High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy’ – a leader level initiative pressing for sustainable management of 100% of national waters.
UK Ocean science is recognised as world leading, and UK overseas aid includes technical assistance through the £500 million Blue Planet Fund to support developing countries around the world to reduce poverty and protect the marine environment. The £50 million Blue Belt Programme supports marine protection and sustainable management across the UK Overseas Territories.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many entry clearance applications from Palestinians in Gaza have been approved since 7 October 2023.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Since 7 October 2023, the Home Office have granted 143 predetermination requests, and 5 biometric excusal requests to Palestinians located in Gaza.
The Home Office is aware from legal representatives that two Palestinian nationals located in Gaza died before their applications for predetermination/bio excusal had been concluded.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to enable Palestinians from Gaza to be reunited with their family members in the UK.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Palestinian nationals who wish to come to the UK and do not have a current UK visa can apply under one of the existing visa routes available.
The routes available for families to reunite will depend on the status of the sponsor. Options available may include appendix family reunion, appendix family migration - where the sponsor is a British national or has indefinite leave, and can also include dependents of those with most work or certain postgraduate study visas.
Any application for a UK visa will be assessed against the requirements of the Immigration Rules.
It is the decision of the Israeli authorities as to who can leave Gaza.
Asked by: Abtisam Mohamed (Labour - Sheffield Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Palestinians in Gaza seeking to reunite with family members in the UK have died while waiting for her Department to decide requests for (a) predetermination and (b) biometric excusal since 7 October 2023.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Since 7 October 2023, the Home Office have granted 143 predetermination requests, and 5 biometric excusal requests to Palestinians located in Gaza.
The Home Office is aware from legal representatives that two Palestinian nationals located in Gaza died before their applications for predetermination/bio excusal had been concluded.