Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce the level of burglaries in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
We recognise the profound impact burglary can have on individuals and the wider community. For too long a culture has been allowed to develop whereby victims of burglary believe if they report what has happened, no one will come and nothing will be done.
This is why we have been clear that when someone calls the police, they should come; and when a person reports a crime it should be properly investigated no matter who they are, or where they live.
As part of reforms being delivered through the Safer Streets Mission, this government is determined to crack down on burglary and other crimes that make people feel unsafe in our communities. We are also committed to strengthening neighbourhood policing and through our Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, there will be thousands of additional police officers, police community support officers and Special Constables.
We welcome the police's commitment across England and Wales to attending the scene of every home burglary, and the specific College of Policing good practice guidance on conducting residential burglary investigations; setting the standard for the entire investigation, not just initial attendance, including victim care. More information is available at: https://www.college.police.uk/guidance/residential-burglary.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle anti-social behaviour on Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Tackling anti-social behaviour (ASB) is a top priority for this Government and a key part of our Safer Streets Mission.
The Government’s Plan for Change, announced by the Prime Minister on 5 December, included our plan to reduce ASB. This will include a dedicated lead officer in every police force working with communities to develop a local ASB action plan. We will also put 13,000 neighbourhood police, community support officers and special constables into local communities so residents have a named officer they can turn to when things go wrong.
We will crack down on those causing havoc on our high streets by introducing tougher powers in the Crime and Policing Bill to tackle repeat offending, including the new Respect Order to tackle the most persistent ASB offenders.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to help support leisure centres in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government recognises that leisure facilities are important to communities up and down the country. High-quality, inclusive facilities help people get active. Everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, should have access to high quality facilities and opportunities to participate in sport and physical activity.
The ongoing responsibility for public leisure facilities lies at Local Authority level. Local Authorities work in partnership with operators who manage leisure services. The Government and Sport England continue to work closely with Local Authorities to monitor pressures in the sector and provide advice and guidance.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help support kinship carers in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government recognises the important role that kinship carers play in caring for some of the most vulnerable children. Kinship carers often take on this role at a time when they were least expecting to raise a family, and the department recognises the challenges they face.
The government is extending the delivery of over 140 peer support groups across England, available for all kinship carers to access, where they can come together to share stories, exchange advice and support each other.
Following on from the progress and positive impact from the peer-to-peer support groups have made, the department is also delivering a package of training and support that all kinship carers across England can access if they wish to.
In October 2024, the department published new Kinship Care statutory guidance for local authorities, which sets out the support and services local authorities should provide to kinship families, including reaffirming the requirement to publish their local offer of support in a clear, accessible way.
Through the Autumn Budget 2024, the government announced £40 million to trial a new Kinship Allowance in some local authorities in England. We will test whether paying an allowance to cover the additional costs of caring for a child can help increase the number of children taken in by family members and friends. We will share further details and the process for selecting local authorities in due course.
The department understands the unique challenges kinship carers face and is committed to providing the necessary support.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking with local authorities to help (a) recruit and (b) retain foster carers in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Janet Daby - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government is committed to working in partnership with local authorities to recruit and retain foster carers.
This currently includes delivering 10 regional fostering recruitment and retention hubs, covering 64% of local authorities in England, including Gloucester. The hubs will transform the way people who are interested in fostering are supported, and will rollout a retention programme, Mockingbird, which offers peer-support to foster carers and the children in their care.
An additional £15 million was announced in the Autumn Budget 2024 to move towards national roll out in the 2025/26 financial year. In Gloucester, this is being delivered as part of the ‘Fostering South West’ Recruitment Hub, which launched in 2024 and comprises of 15 neighbouring local authorities including Bath and North East Somerset, Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council, Bristol City Council, Cornwall Council, Devon County Council, Dorset Council, Gloucestershire County Council, Council of the Isles of Scilly, North Somerset Council, Plymouth City Council, Somerset Council, South Gloucestershire Council, Swindon Borough Council, Torbay Council and Wiltshire Council.
The government is also committed to ensuring that every child in care grows up with the love, care and support they need to achieve and thrive. All foster carers receive the National Minimum Allowance to cover the costs of looking after the children in their care. In the 2025/26 financial year, this is being uplifted by 3.55%.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking with local authorities to identify children who are educated outside of school in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The Children Not in School measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will place a duty on local authorities, including Gloucester, to maintain compulsory registers of all children not in school in their areas, and accompanying duties on parents and out-of-school education providers to provide information for these registers. This will support local authorities to identify all children not in school in their areas, including children who are home educated, and to take action if they are not receiving a safe or suitable education.
The department is also continuing to work with local authorities to collect information from existing voluntary registers of children not in school. The department’s termly elective home education data collection is now mandatory for local authorities to submit a return, ensuring a more accurate national picture of home educated children. The department’s ‘Elective home education’ guidance for local authorities and parents includes advice for how local authorities should identify children not in school in their areas.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to help support veterans to transition into civilian life in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
I am working across Government and with civil society to help those who leave the Armed Forces, including those in Gloucester, transition back into civilian life.
The vast majority of Service personnel successfully transition to civilian life with few challenges. The Defence Holistic Transition Policy sets out how the Ministry of Defence supports Service leavers to assist in a successful transition, including through the Career Transition Partnership, Veterans Welfare Service (VWS), and Defence Transition Services (DTS) and Integrated Personal Commissioning for Veterans (IPC4V). VWS, DTS and IPC4V work together to deliver holistic transition and welfare support on a casework basis to the Armed Forces community.
All three Services provide information, guidance and support; they facilitate access to entitlements and services provided by Government Departments, local authorities and the charity sector via signposting or referrals, in line with client need and capacity. The teams cover Gloucester and are based throughout the UK, including Northern Ireland.
Further support is available for Veterans after leaving service including an NHS Trust and Primary Care Network accreditation scheme across England to ensure they can best support veterans access health care; Government funded housing support for Veterans; Armed Forces Champions across the UK’s JobCentre Plus network to help support members of the armed forces community into work; and the veterans’ railcard offering discounts on most rail travel.
There is also a range of skills and education support available to Veterans after their time in Service, whether via the newly refreshed Career Transition Partnership, which supports those in search of new job opportunities, or a sector-based employment programme, which provides Veterans and their families with career progression support and access to specialist pathways into roles in nationally significant sectors.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
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 help tackle medication shortages in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has a responsibility to work with medicine license holders in the United Kingdom to help ensure continuity of supply. We monitor and manage medicine supply issues at a national level so that stocks remain available to meet regional and local demand and therefore measures are not specific to Gloucester.
We have inherited ongoing global supply problems that continue to impact medicine availability under the new government. We know how frustrating and distressing this can be for patients, and we are working closely with industry, the National Health Service, manufacturers and other partners in the supply chain to resolve issues as quickly as possible to make sure patients can access the medicines they need.
Medicine supply chains are complex, global and highly regulated and there are several reasons why supply can be disrupted, many of which are not specific to the UK and outside of Government control, including manufacturing difficulties, access to raw materials, sudden demand spikes or distribution issues and regulatory issues. There are approximately 14,000 licensed medicines and the overwhelming majority are in good supply.
While we cannot always prevent supply issues from occurring, we have a range of well-established processes and tools to manage them when they arise and mitigate risks to patients. These include close and regular engagement with suppliers, use of alternative strengths or forms of a medicine to allow patients to remain on the same product, expediting regulatory procedures, sourcing unlicensed imports from abroad, adding products to the restricted exports and hoarding list, use of Serious Shortage Protocols, and issuing NHS communications to provide management advice and information on the issue to healthcare professionals including pharmacists, so they can advise and support their patients.
The resilience of UK supply chains is a key priority, and we are committed to helping to build long term supply chain resilience for medicines. We are continually learning and seeking to improve the way we work to both manage and help prevent supply issues and avoid shortages. The Department, working closely with NHS England, is taking forward a range of actions to improve our ability to mitigate and manage shortages and strengthen our resilience.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to help with the work of the Inter-Ministerial Group on Tackling Homelessness and Rough Sleeping.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP continues to work closely with MHCLG as part of the Inter Ministerial Group on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, supporting the development of a strategy to get back on track to ending homelessness. I represent the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to ensure accountability for our part in the strategy.
DWP provides over £30bn of housing support each year, as well as £100m of Discretionary Housing Payments for those entitled to housing support who may face a shortfall in meeting their rental costs. In addition, work coaches provide personalised employment support for those with additional vulnerabilities such as homelessness.
Asked by: Alex McIntyre (Labour - Gloucester)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to help tackle offences related to drink driving in Gloucester constituency.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The 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.
The Government’s THINK! road safety campaign, aims to reduce deaths and serious injuries on our roads. THINK! launched a major new drink driving campaign in November, highlighting the risks of drinking even a little before driving. The campaign targeted men aged 17-24, who are four times more likely to be killed or seriously injured on the road than drivers aged 25 and over, and who are over-represented in drink drive casualties. Paid advertising ran across social media, online video and gaming sites, radio and podcasts. The campaign also featured roadside advertising near to pubs and bars and posters and beermats in venues across England and Wales, including sites in Gloucester.
The enforcement of road traffic law and how available resources are deployed in Gloucester constituency, and other rural areas, is the responsibility of individual Chief Officers and Police and Crime Commissioners, taking into account the specific local problems and demands with which they are faced.