Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timescale is for introducing legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn, on 23 July 2024, PQ 591.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with NHS England on the introduction of (a) gene therapy and (b) other new treatments for patients with thalassaemia.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department regularly discusses a range of issues with colleagues in NHS England related to patient access to new medicines. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) makes recommendations for the National Health Service on whether all new medicines should be routinely funded by the NHS, based on an assessment of their costs and benefits. The NICE’s appraisal of the gene therapy, exagamglogene autotemcel, for treating transfusion-dependent beta-thalassaemia is currently paused, to allow the company and NHS England to enter into commercial and managed access discussions.
In November 2023, NHS England published a clinical commissioning policy that recommends that allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation for adult transfusion dependent thalassaemia should be routinely commissioned.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to enforce pedestrian priority at pedestrian crossing points without traffic control measures as set out in the update to the Highway Code in January 2022.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Highway Code changes to improve road safety for people walking, cycling, and riding horses aim to initiate a positive shift in road user behaviour, by making road users aware of their responsibility to use roads safely and reduce the danger they may pose to others.
Enforcement of the law is a matter for the police, who will decide on the evidence of each individual case, whether an offence has been committed and the appropriate action to take.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring employers to publish salary information when advertising job opportunities.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
There is growing evidence to show that when salary information is not transparent, it has an impact on how people, particularly women and those from ethnic minorities, negotiate pay. This can ultimately result in lower starting salaries and smaller pay rises. In light of this, we have considered the merits of making this a requirement.
However, we appreciate that some employers may find it challenging to be fully transparent about pay, and for many organisations, moving immediately to a system of full pay transparency would require a period of adjustment. We therefore do not believe that introducing a legal requirement to disclose this information is the right course of action.
However, in order to encourage and assist employers in voluntarily adopting this, we are considering what further support employers may need. In addition, our pay transparency pilot will provide insights on the impact it can have.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will meet with the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate and Barnardo’s to discuss how local authorities can work with partners to prevent the over-criminalisation of Black children in the care system.
Answered by David Johnston
We recognise that children in care are more likely than their peers in the general population to have contact with the criminal justice system. That is why we published a joint national protocol with the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in 2018 on reducing the unnecessary criminalisation of looked after children and care leavers: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-protocol-on-reducing-criminalisation-of-looked-after-children. The protocol was produced with the input of local authority representatives, and other partners. Since the publication of the protocol, the proportion of children in care aged 10-17 who are charged with an offence or receive a caution has reduced from 3% in 2019 to 2% in 2023. Latest data for year ending March 2023 also show that 3% of care leavers age 19-21 were in custody. This figure has remained the same for the last 5 years.
We are also taking action on risk factors that can lead to criminal behaviour including through our work to improve school attendance.
Through the care leaver Ministerial Board, we are working closely with MoJ to improve support and outcomes of care-experienced people in the criminal justice system.
The MoJ is currently updating its strategy for people with care experience in the criminal justice system, to ensure that their time in the criminal justice system is used to support them to lead crime-free lives. The strategy will include a focus on race and its role in shaping the experiences and outcomes of those with care experience, and will link to wider departmental efforts to address racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system. The MoJ are aiming to publish this strategy in 2024.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will meet with the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate and Barnardo’s to discuss developing a Black Foster Care Network to improve the experiences of Black children in care.
Answered by David Johnston
I refer the hon. Member for Enfield Southgate to the answer of 15 January 2024 to Question 8232: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-01-05/8232.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will update the HM Prison and Probation Service Strategy for Care-Experienced People to include a specific focus on race.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We are updating our strategy for people with care experience in the criminal justice system, to ensure we are using care-experienced people’s time in the criminal justice system to support them to lead crime-free lives.
This will include a focus on race and its role in shaping the experiences and outcomes of those with care experience in the criminal justice system, and will link to wider departmental efforts to address racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system.
We are aiming to publish this strategy later this year.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce children’s exposure to measles.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is working closely with NHS England, the Department and wider health system partners at the national, regional and local levels to ensure the health system is prepared and can respond to outbreaks. Briefing notes and letters have been sent to the National Health Service and health professional organisations to remind them of existing guidance and ask them to seek assurance of their preparedness to manage measles cases and prevent outbreaks in their settings. National Measles guidance has been updated, and a range of resources have been published including posters and training resources, which are all available at the following links:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-measles-guidelines
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-information-and-poster-for-health-professionals
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/measles-guidance-data-and-analysis
In January 2024, a national multi-agency exercise is planned to assess the system-wide preparedness to respond to a large measles outbreak at a regional and national level.
UKHSA, NHS England, the Department and wider health system partners are also working to raise public awareness of the risks and increase measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination coverage, including through national and regional call-recall exercises, communication campaigns and targeted outreach for underserved communities. NHS England has agreed with general practices to focus their annual campaign on local call recall for MMR to ensure that consistent efforts are made to contact those eligible who have not taken up a vaccine offer between November 2023 and March 2024. A national call recall for individuals aged six years old up to and including 25 years old who are not up to date with their MMR vaccine is planned for 2024.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of children’s access to vaccination services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Government is committed to improving vaccination uptake rates to fully protect the public from vaccine preventable diseases. The Department works with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and NHS England to improve children’s access to vaccination services through diverse delivery methods, making getting vaccinated easier for all, including those in traditionally under-served groups. NHS England has rolled out additional programmes such as NHS England London’s new drive to increase measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine uptake last summer to improve immunisation coverage for children and catch-up missed vaccinations due to the pandemic.
The Department is working with NHS England and UKHSA to encourage high uptake of all childhood vaccinations, including the polio vaccine, with NHS England London launching the next phase of their polio campaign, delivering a school-based catch-up for children aged between one and 11 years old. This will also provide opportunities to catch up children for other important childhood vaccines, including MMR.
Asked by: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of the allocation of UK Sport funding to (a) deaf athletes and (b) the Deaflympics.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
UK Sport uses funding provided by the Government to support athletes with potential to achieve success in Olympic and Paralympic sports. As the Deaflympics falls outside of Olympic and Paralympic sport, UK Sport are therefore unable to fund athletes targeting this event.
This is in line with the Government’s approach to other Paralympic sports where competition is not offered in an athlete's particular classification or discipline.
Sport England has committed £1.2 million between 2022 and 2027 to UK Deaf Sport to boost deaf sport at the grassroots level and build wider participation. They have also agreed to explore a series of small-scale talent pilots for d/Deaf athletes. These pilots will see Sport England, National Governing Bodies, and UK Deaf Sport working together to explore these issues and suggest potential solutions.
d/Deaf athletes do receive Government funding. Sport England has committed £1.2 million between 2022 and 2027 to UK Deaf Sport to boost deaf sport at the grassroots level and build wider participation. Beyond this, they have also agreed to explore a series of small-scale talent pilots for d/Deaf athletes. These pilots will see Sport England, National Governing Bodies, and UK Deaf Sport working together to explore support around elite competitions and suggest potential solutions.