Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of how many drivers of overseas-registered vehicles will not pay the Dartford Crossing toll following changes to the payment arrangements; what estimate he has made of the potential annual loss of revenue from such non-payment; and what steps will be taken to recover payment from drivers of overseas-registered vehicles who do not pay the toll.
Answered by John Hayes
The Highways Agency estimates that non-UK registered vehicles will account for around 3 out of every 100 crossings and the majority of these are expected to comply with the charge. The Highways Agency are serious about tackling non-compliance and will use effective penalty and recovery processes that have been proven elsewhere, such as the London congestion charging and Dublin M50 toll schemes. The new Dartford Charging Scheme Order enables the Agency to enforce the Dartford Crossing road user charge through penalty charges and recovery processes.
A European debt recovery agency, with access to a variety of foreign vehicle databases, will also be used to pursue and recover outstanding charges from non-UK vehicles that evade paying the Crossing charge.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will respond to the recommendations of the QualityWatch Report on Allied Health Professionals, published in September 2014, on the need to develop information systems that capture consistent and comparable information on all aspects of the quality of allied health professionals' care; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Dan Poulter
Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) are art, drama and music therapists, dietitians, occupational therapists, orthoptists, orthotists/prosthetists, paramedics, physiotherapists, podiatrists, radiographers, and speech and language therapists. Each profession has to be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council.
The QualityWatch report on Allied Health Professionals draws on available data which suggests that AHPs are not currently fully represented in or by many of the national quality measures which systematically capture data from the medical or nursing workforce, presenting an inappropriate impression of the activities and outcomes of AHPs. Given the nature and scope of their work, AHPs are ideally placed to address some of the key challenges facing the health and care sectors. However, the report notes where their publically funded employment already spans the NHS, Local Government (Social Care and Education), housing, third sector and independent practice there is a real opportunity now to develop and build measures across sectors that both reflect the pattern of actual service delivery for patients and the outcomes AHPs achieve for them.
To ensure there is an appropriate AHP workforce to continue to supply this diversity of sectors, which reflect patient choice, will also require increasing sophistication of modelling and data capture during work.
The newly appointed NHS England Chief Allied Health Professions Officer is to take up the chair of National Allied Health Professional Informatics Strategy Taskforce and this group, supported by all the AHP professional bodies, will ensure that the findings of the report are formally reviewed and acted upon.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many speech and language therapists are working in the public sector; and if he will estimate the number of such therapists working in the (a) private and (b) third sector.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department does not hold centrally the requested information.
However, the latest monthly workforce statistics for August 2014 published by the Health and Social Care Information Centre on 25 November showed that there were 6,207 full time equivalent speech and language therapists working in the National Health Service in England.
There are 13,952 speech and language therapists registered with the regulatory body Health and Care Professions Council.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of how many drivers of UK-registered vehicles will not pay the Dartford Crossing toll following changes to the payment arrangements; what estimate he has made of the potential annual loss of revenue from such non-payment; and what steps will be taken to recover payment from drivers of UK-registered vehicles who do not pay the toll.
Answered by John Hayes
Enforcing the charge and tackling evasion, where road users do not pay the charge, will be an important component of the Dart Charge scheme. The new Dartford Charging Scheme Order enables the Highways Agency to enforce the Dartford road user charge through penalty charges and recovery processes.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress he has made on implementing the recommendations of the Bercow Review of support for children and young people with speech, language and communications needs.
Answered by Dan Poulter
There was a comprehensive range of actions undertaken to implement the recommendations of the Bercow Review. The forum for ensuring an effective, coordinated approach across sectors is the Communication Council (as recommended by the Review), which involves Government Departments and the Communication Trust. In particular, the Council is supporting the implementation of the new statutory framework for children and young people with special educational needs and disability, which provides a basis for ensuring children’s communication needs are recognised and supported, as part of a person-centred approach to assessing, planning and securing their education, health and care.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy that foreign citizens married to a member of the armed forces can include within their qualifying period for British citizenship the time they were living overseas while accompanying their spouse on his or her deployment.
Answered by James Brokenshire
For spouses and civil partners of British citizens there is discretion in the law to overlook time spent outside the United Kingdom accompanying a spouse or civil partner in Crown or specially "designated" service, which includes
service in HM Forces. In these circumstances, time spent overseas is counted as though it were time spent in the UK for the purpose of satisfying the nationality residence requirements.
For Foreign or Commonwealth members of HM Forces, where discretion would normally be exercised over excess absences occasioned by the service person’s armed forces service, the spouse’s or civil partner’s absences are normally
disregarded in line.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 22 October 2014 to Question 210999, if he will publish the timetable for his further consideration of the collection of data on people registering as visually impaired who are veterans.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department has received initial advice from NHS England and Blind Veterans UK on the collection of this data.
A formal meeting with NHS England, Blind Veterans UK, the Health and Social Care Information Centre and Primary Health Care Optometry leads will be arranged in the next few weeks to consider the options for collecting data on veterans registering as visually impaired and plan the best mechanism for doing so.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy to include an option to identify vision-impaired veterans on the registration document with NHS England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre.
Answered by Dan Poulter
The Department has received initial advice from NHS England and Blind Veterans UK on the collection of this data.
A formal meeting with NHS England, Blind Veterans UK, the Health and Social Care Information Centre and Primary Health Care Optometry leads will be arranged in the next few weeks to consider the options for collecting data on veterans registering as visually impaired and plan the best mechanism for doing so.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with the Department for Education on changes in funding for speech therapy for children; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Dan Poulter
We have not had any specific recent discussion on changes in funding for speech and language therapy and are not aware of any change in funding arrangements. Local authorities (and some schools), and clinical commissioning groups commission speech and language therapy to meet the educational and health needs of the children and young people for whom they are responsible.
We introduced in September a new statutory framework for joint commissioning of services for children and young people with special educational needs and disability (which includes many with a communication need), which requires commissioners to work together in assessment, planning and securing of services.
Asked by: Bob Russell (Liberal Democrat - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will make it his policy to implement a replacement programme to introduce LED lighting throughout his Department's buildings and sites; if he will estimate the proportion of lighting in his Department which is LED; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Department for Communities and Local Government’s policy for new and replacement lighting is to consider the installation of LEDs, where appropriate, based on an assessment of suitability for the work-setting and of the whole-life cost of the equipment.
The Department has made significant improvements to the energy efficiency and cost effectiveness of lighting across its estate through the introduction of LED lighting and compact fluorescent lamps. We have also improved the performance of our lighting systems by installing and actively maintaining passive infra-red and daylight level sensors.
The Department continues to review opportunities to install LED lighting across its estate to further reduce energy use, carbon emissions and ongoing maintenance costs.
Approximately 7% of lighting within the Department’s buildings is LED (excluding our Marsham Street building which is maintained by the Home Office).