Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of widening the deployment of play therapy in supporting paediatric MRI scans on costs.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to raising the healthiest generation of children ever. This involves ensuring that children receive the appropriate care and support whenever they need it.

To support this, NHS England and the charity Starlight have jointly launched the Play Well toolkit to help services identify opportunities to improve health play services. This guidance is the first publication of its kind, and is aimed at improving the experiences of babies, children, and young people.

Tools like the Play Well toolkit are intended to support best practice and reduce the need for sedation, which can contribute to better outcomes and potential cost savings. No formal assessment has yet been made of widening the deployment of play therapy in supporting paediatric MRI scans, specifically, on costs.

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the merits of including low cost effective property flood resilience measures in (a) the Future Homes Standard and (b) building regulations.

Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)

The Government is committed to building the homes the country needs while ensuring they are safe from flooding. The Building Regulations set minimum standards for all new dwellings. The Future Homes Standard will focus on the energy efficiency and carbon emission standards within the Building Regulations and will not encompass flood resilience measures. Statutory guidance to the Building Regulations in Approved Document C promotes the use of flood resilient and resistant construction in flood prone areas, without placing undue costs onto any properties that do not require further flood resilience measures.

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of producing standards on implementing sustainable urban drainage for (a) landowners, (b) local authorities and (c) businesses.

Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

In June of this year, the Government introduced new national standards making clear that sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) should be designed to cope with changing climatic conditions as well as delivering wider water infrastructure benefits in the form of flood prevention and storm overflow reduction, offering reuse opportunities, reducing run off, and helping to improve water quality, amenity, and biodiversity. The standards should be used by local authorities when assessing applications for development which could affect drainage on or around the site, see paragraphs 181 and 182 of the National Planning Policy Framework.