Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
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 tackle disparities in prostate cancer outcomes for Black men.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government understands that more needs to be done to improve outcomes for all people with prostate cancer, including for black men.
To address disparities and find ways to better detect prostate cancer earlier, we have invested £16 million in the United Kingdom-wide TRANSFORM trial, aimed at helping find the best ways of detecting prostate cancer in men, even if they are not displaying any symptoms. This research will aim to address some of the inequalities that exist in prostate cancer diagnosis by targeting black men in trial recruitment, ensuring that one in ten participants are black men. This is vital as previous trials have not included enough black men to adequately demonstrate the harms and benefits of screening for this group specifically, despite their significantly higher risk.
In addition, following publication of the 10-Year Health Plan, we will develop a new National Cancer Plan. The plan will seek to improve outcomes and address disparities, including for prostate cancer. A call for evidence, seeking contributions from individuals and organisations, including ideas on how to improve outcomes for prostate cancer, is available at the following link:
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her Department's planned timetable is for the completion of the migration of casework operations to the new ATLAS system.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Since mid-2024, Atlas has been the primary caseworking system for operational teams across Migration & Borders with the legacy CID (Case Information Database) caseworking system only being used for very small volume case types. Work to migrate legacy CID ‘work in progress’ cases across to Atlas has been in progress since late 2024, and the capability to handle those small volume case types is due to be completed by the end of April 2025, when it is currently scheduled to decommission CID.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
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 invest in new technologies and innovations to enhance the efficiency and resilience of the UK’s blood supply chain.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for blood services in England. The baseline price charged by NHSBT to hospitals for the blood they use is negotiated annually between NHSBT, NHS England, and the Department. This reflects the investments that NHSBT has made in blood supply in the previous year.
The Department provided seed-funding to support NHSBT’s work to increase collection capacity and resilience, including the new Brixton Donor Centre which opened in December 2024. A further donor centre will open in Brighton later this year, and NHSBT is developing business cases for additional mobile capacity across the West Midlands and North London. Plasma is collected as part of whole blood collection, as well as through dedicated plasma collection centres. Therefore, plasma collection will also be supported by this resilience work.
NHSBT, the Department, and NHS England are working together to ensure that hospitals are practicing effective stock management and resilience in order to respond to incidents through the Joint Blood Stocks Working Group. NHSBT plans to improve the efficiency of donor collection processes via the development of a Donor Session Platform, as this technology will improve the ability to “on board” donors and reduce deferrals.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what funding his Department has made available to improve the UK's whole blood processing and plasma collection capacities.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is responsible for blood services in England. The baseline price charged by NHSBT to hospitals for the blood they use is negotiated annually between NHSBT, NHS England, and the Department. This reflects the investments that NHSBT has made in blood supply in the previous year.
The Department provided seed-funding to support NHSBT’s work to increase collection capacity and resilience, including the new Brixton Donor Centre which opened in December 2024. A further donor centre will open in Brighton later this year, and NHSBT is developing business cases for additional mobile capacity across the West Midlands and North London. Plasma is collected as part of whole blood collection, as well as through dedicated plasma collection centres. Therefore, plasma collection will also be supported by this resilience work.
NHSBT, the Department, and NHS England are working together to ensure that hospitals are practicing effective stock management and resilience in order to respond to incidents through the Joint Blood Stocks Working Group. NHSBT plans to improve the efficiency of donor collection processes via the development of a Donor Session Platform, as this technology will improve the ability to “on board” donors and reduce deferrals.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has conducted a risk assessment on the potential impact of (a) future pandemics and (b) geopolitical disruption to the UK's blood stocks; and what contingency plans are in place for these scenarios.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are four blood services within the United Kingdom, namely the Welsh Blood Service, the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, the Northern Ireland Blood Service, and NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT). In England, NHSBT moves blood around the country to balance blood stocks in all areas, and works closely with the other UK blood services.
The risks and impacts posed by pandemic disease is closely monitored by NHSBT through a risk assessment and a pandemic disease contingency plan. NHSBT is largely self-sufficient in the supply of whole blood to hospitals in England, and isn't reliant on supplies from other countries. Beyond its ability to move blood stocks to where they are needed across the country, NHSBT mitigates geopolitical risks to blood stocks through commercial arrangements with suppliers of vital consumables from overseas, for instance by sourcing blood bags from multiple supply regions and flexing stock holdings.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure the Warm Homes Plan reaches low-income households.
Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
As part of the Warm Homes Plan, the Government has committed an initial £3.4 billion over the next 3 years towards heat decarbonisation and household energy efficiency, including £1.8 billion to support fuel poverty schemes.
There are multiple targeted schemes in place to deliver energy efficiency measures to low income and fuel poor households. Current schemes include the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) and the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS). The Government recently announced Wave 3 of the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund to support social housing providers and tenants, and the new Warm Homes: Local Grant to help low-income homeowners and private tenants with energy performance upgrades and cleaner heating. Both schemes are expected to deliver in 2025.
Support is also available through the Warm Home Discount schemes which provide eligible low-income households across Great Britain with a £150 rebate off their winter energy bill.
Further details on the Warm Homes Plan will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on aligning the UK-wide bottle return scheme with the planned scheme for Wales.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government is committed to deliver a Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) in England in October 2027 and to realise its benefits of reducing litter, increasing recycling, and creating high quality recyclate that will support the transition to a circular economy.
Following a period of joint development of DRS across all four nations, the Welsh Government made the decision to withdraw from this approach in November 2024.
Defra Ministers remain in close contact with Welsh Government counterparts through bilateral meetings, calls, and written correspondence. Officials remain in close working partnership with the Welsh Government as they take the decisions regarding a DRS in Wales.
The UK Government is keen to keep the door open to provide as much interoperability of schemes across the UK as possible.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing extended producer responsibility collection targets for glass bottles to 90%.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Collection targets are not a feature of the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging (pEPR). However, the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024, which implement pEPR, set challenging, but achievable, recycling targets for all glass packaging which rise year on year to 85% by 2030.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she has made an assessment of the benefit of including measures to repair (a) poor-quality and (b) unsafe unsafe existing housing stock in the upcoming housing strategy,.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government intends to publish a long-term housing strategy later this year.
Asked by: Afzal Khan (Labour - Manchester Rusholme)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether he has made an assessment of the potential implications for his policies of the recent European Commission decision to extend anti-dumping duties on e-bikes from China for another five years.
Answered by Douglas Alexander - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
On 6 February, the Secretary of State decided to extend anti-dumping and countervailing measures on imports of Chinese folding e-bikes, and revoke these measures on non-folding e-bikes. This followed evidence-based transition reviews from the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA). This continues the necessary protection for folding e-bikes producers in the UK, whilst limiting the impact on our consumers and importers, and reflecting the needs of the UK market more generally.