Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with NHS England on using its (a) structures and (b) delivery mechanisms to identify unpaid carers.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This summer, I met with NHS England and ministerial counterparts as part of the cross-government roundtable on unpaid carers. We discussed the identification of unpaid carers, including young carers, which continues to be an important area of work. NHS England set out how it plans to continue important work to identify, involve and support unpaid carers by, for example, enhancing the NHS App.
The Adult Social Care reform white paper, ‘People at the Heart of Care’, which was published December 2021, addressed identifying unpaid carers through increasing the use of markers in National Health Service electronic health records, by simplifying current approaches to data collection and registration.
On 17 October 2022, NHS England wrote to all general practitioner practices about the importance of identifying carers and advising how caring status should be recorded on patient records.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Justice on her Department's duty of candour review for health and social care providers.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Ahead of publishing the Terms of Reference for the review on 6 December 2023, we consulted all members of the Home Affairs Committee, including my rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Justice, on the Department’s planned approach to review the statutory duty of candour.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has had with discussions with (a) Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and (b) Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council on prohibition of pavement parking.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has consulted on options to help local authorities outside London tackle pavement parking, including a default ban. Views were expressed on a wide range of related issues, including public transport. The Department will publish a formal response when final decisions have been taken. The Department has not had recent discussions with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council or Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, but the consultation was open to all local authorities.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of levels of support for a default pavement parking ban among disabled people.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has consulted on options to help local authorities outside London tackle pavement parking, including a default ban. Views were expressed on a wide range of related issues, including public transport. The Department will publish a formal response when final decisions have been taken. The Department has not had recent discussions with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council or Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, but the consultation was open to all local authorities.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of pavement parking on levels of public transport use.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has consulted on options to help local authorities outside London tackle pavement parking, including a default ban. Views were expressed on a wide range of related issues, including public transport. The Department will publish a formal response when final decisions have been taken. The Department has not had recent discussions with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council or Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, but the consultation was open to all local authorities.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to tackle pavement parking in Denton and Reddish constituency.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department has consulted on options to help local authorities outside London tackle pavement parking, including a default ban. Views were expressed on a wide range of related issues, including public transport. The Department will publish a formal response when final decisions have been taken. The Department has not had recent discussions with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council or Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, but the consultation was open to all local authorities.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department's measures to tackle anti-social behaviour.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
In March, the Government launched the Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan, backed by £160m of funding overseen by the ASB taskforce. This includes funding Police and Crime Commissioners to increase patrolling in ASB hotspot areas and to run immediate justice schemes.
In July we launched Round 5 of the Safer Streets Fund funding PCCs to deliver ASB and crime prevention measures.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the financial capability of Tameside Council to effectively provide and manage her Department's improvement process for Children’s Services.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department is not responsible for the overall financial health of local authorities. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities provide authorities with an overall funding agreement which local authorities are then responsible for dispersing within their services, of which children’s services is a part of. It is therefore for the local authority to decide how funding is allocated to improve its children’s services.
The final Local Government Finance Settlement for 2023/24 makes available up to £59.7 billion for local government in England, an increase in Core Spending Power of up to £5.1 billion, or 9.4% in cash terms, in 2022/23. The majority of this funding is un-ringfenced, in recognition of local authorities being best place to understand local priorities.
A breakdown of the key element of annual funding for each local authority in England, including Tameside Council, since 2016/17, as announced at that year’s settlement, are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/key-information-for-local-authorities-final-local-government-finance-settlement-2023-to-2024.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will allocate additional funding for high needs provision in schools.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The majority of high needs funding from the department is allocated to local authorities, as they are responsible for allocating that funding to schools to support pupils with complex needs. The department has substantially increased high needs funding in recent years and has announced a further increase of £440 million for the 2024/25 financial year, which will bring the total high needs budget to over £10.5 billion, an increase of over 60% from the 2019/20 allocations. This funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has received the data from the Tameside Children’s Services diagnostic exercise conducted before summer 2023.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The exercise referenced did not conclude as the Council re-directed the resource to concentrate on improvements. As a result, a formal report was not provided. However, the department has discussed the findings with the Council and are assured that the areas identified are embedded within the Council-owned Improvement Plan.