Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the cost associated with veterinary checks on horses moving from (a) Great Britain to Northern Ireland and (b) Northern Ireland to Great Britain since the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government's Movement Assistance Scheme is available to reimburse costs (including veterinary checks), in line with the terms of the scheme, for horses moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Horses moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain have unfettered access.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what provisions there are in recent free trade agreements to ensure imported food is produced to the UK standards.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
All food and drink products imported into the UK must comply with the UK’s import requirements and standards. The UK’s Free Trade Agreements do not create any new permissions for imports and do not compromise on the UK’s high environmental protection, animal welfare, plant health, and food standards.
The UK’s food safety standards are overseen by the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland. Both provide independent advice to UK Health ministers. Alongside other government agencies, they oversee the regulation of imported food and feed to ensure that it complies with the UK’s high safety standards, protect ing consumers from unsafe food.
Without exception, the UK will continue to protect food standards in the UK under all existing and future Free Trade Agreements. Decisions on these standards remain a matter for the UK and will be made separately from any trade agreements. The Prime Minister has been clear that there will be no chlorine-washed chicken and no hormone-treated beef on the UK market.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to increase recruitment to the armed forces in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Armed Forces recruit nationally and do not operate a specific policy of increasing recruitment from particular geographic areas. Armed Forces Career Offices are spread across the UK, including in Northern Ireland, and continue to provide core support to the Armed Forces’ national recruiting activities. The geographic footprint of Armed Forces Career Offices across the UK is complemented by dedicated call centres and online recruiting operations, ensuring that all UK communities have the same opportunity to join the Armed Forces as anyone else. In addition, the Services conduct outreach engagement programmes across the whole of the UK, delivering events such as career fairs, tactical campaigns and roadshows, supported by web-based information services and social media campaigns. These recruitment activities are further supported through strategic partnerships such as with JobCentrePlus, who provide additional face-to-face touchpoints with potential Armed Forces applicants.
The Armed Forces regularly review their recruiting activities and associated resource in accordance with the requirement. A range of tangible short-term deliverables are being actioned to increasing the inflow into Armed Forces recruitment pipelines, all intended to increase the breadth of potential candidates and to drive efficiencies into recruitment systems. These ongoing and new initiatives are focused upon engaging the broad range of skills, experience and diversity needed to deliver that which our nation demands of our Armed Forces; and in the range of roles that are critical to enable this.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to raise awareness of the HM Veterans Card to veterans living in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The new digital application and verification service for all pre-2018 service leavers went live at 00:01 on Sunday 28 January 2024. Alongside the launch, a promotional campaign to raise awareness of the HM Armed Forces Veteran recognition card's availability has been conducted covering social media, GOV.UK, Defence HQ and MOD-specific sites, Ministerial statements and the Sunday Express.
For veterans in Northern Ireland, an additional service will also soon be implemented whereby cards can be delivered to one of a number of MOD locations for those who do not wish to receive delivery at their home address. The Northern Ireland Veterans Welfare Service (VWS) continue to provide support to veterans and promote the card's delivery options via their links with local charities, support service and ex-Service organisations.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department is taking steps with the drinks industry to reduce the level of (a) sugar and (b) calories in pre-packed milk-based drinks.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Milk based drinks are included in the Government’s voluntary sugar reduction programme as they are excluded from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL). Businesses across industry were asked to deliver a 20% sugar reduction in these drinks by 2021. Between 2017 and 2020, sugar and calories in pre-packed milk based drinks sold through retail have reduced by 29.7% and 20%, respectively. Pre-packed milk substitute drinks, such as soya, oat and almond based products, have reduced sugar and calories by 6.9% and 8%, respectively.
The final assessment of industry progress on reducing the sugar and calorie content of milk based drinks is expected to be published in 2024. HM Treasury said it would reconsider the exemption of milk based drinks from SDIL if insufficient reductions had been achieved by 2021.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what recent assessment he has made of the state of relations between the UK and Nigeria.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The relationship between the UK and Nigeria is built on shared history, Commonwealth co-operation, people to people connections and educational links. As Africa's largest economy and democracy, Nigeria is a priority partner. By 2050, Nigeria will be the world's third most populous country. Ensuring Nigeria is stable, secure and prosperous, is critically important to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. During our annual Security and Defence Partnership dialogue with Nigeria in February 2024, we discussed strengthening our practical support to defend against security threats. UK trade with Nigeria was worth £6.7 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q3 2023. President Tinubu's recent macroeconomic reforms have the potential to encourage further economic investment and trade.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what steps the Government is taking to help promote freedom of religious belief in Yemen.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Promoting the right to Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) is a longstanding human rights priority for the UK. We regularly emphasise the importance of human rights, including FoRB, through our engagements with Governments and other key partners. We are also firmly committed to the protection of ethnic and religious minorities around the world, including in Yemen.
We continue to actively monitor the situation of the Baha'i, Muhamasheen, and Jewish communities, including through meeting with their representatives in the UK.
We urge the Houthis to cease their persecution, mistreatment and arbitrary detention of Yemenis detained for their beliefs.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is taking steps to ensure access to ATMs in rural locations.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government recognises that cash continues to be used by millions of people across the UK, including those who may be in vulnerable groups.
The government legislated through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to establish a new legislative framework to protect access to cash. This establishes the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as the lead regulator for access to cash and provides it with responsibility and powers to seek to ensure reasonable provision of cash withdrawal and deposit facilities.
Following this, the government published a Cash Access Policy Statement, which the FCA must take into account in exercising its powers. This sets out that the vast majority of people in predominately rural areas of the UK should have access to cash deposit and withdrawal services within a maximum of 3 miles of where they live. The government’s policy statement is available on gov.uk: Cash Access Policy Statement
Regarding ATM provision specifically, LINK (the scheme that runs the UK's largest ATM network) also has commitments to protect the broad geographic spread of free-to-use ATMs. It is held to account against these commitments by the Payment Systems Regulator.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has made a recent assessment of the impact of increased (a) car and (b) home insurance on the cost of living.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Insurers make commercial decisions about the pricing of insurance based on their assessment on the likelihood and expected cost of a claim. The Government does not intervene in these commercial decisions by insurers as this could damage competition in the market.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the independent regulator and responsible for supervising the insurance industry. The FCA have introduced several reforms, including the Consumer Duty rules, to ensure consumers are treated fairly in regard to pricing. The FCA can and does act in appropriate cases where firms are breaching its rules.
Asked by: Carla Lockhart (Democratic Unionist Party - Upper Bann)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been diagnosed with eye cancer in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Disease Registration Service in NHS England, as the national cancer registry, collects diagnosis and treatment data on cancer patients in England. The following table shows the number of eye cancer diagnoses, specifically of International Classification of Diseases code C69, each year from 2017 to 2021:
Year | Males | Females | Total |
2017 | 400 | 341 | 741 |
2018 | 384 | 356 | 740 |
2019 | 419 | 372 | 791 |
2020 | 338 | 297 | 635 |
2021 | 428 | 358 | 786 |
Source: these figures were taken from tables that support National Statistics publication, which are available at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/cancer-registration-statistics/england-2021---summary-counts-only
However, health is a transferred matter, and for eye cancer diagnosis rates in Northern Ireland you may wish to contact the Department of Health.