Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what his planned timetable is for confirming the levelling up funding for Warrington North.
Answered by Jacob Young
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he plans to create an independent regulator for parking charge notices.
Answered by Jacob Young
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to help end sexual abuse of female paramedics in the workplace.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The National Health Service takes reports of sexual abuse of its staff extremely seriously. NHS England welcomed the recommendations of the recent independent review of the ambulance sector culture, Culture Review of Ambulance Trusts, which highlights the need to target bullying and harassment, including sexual harassment, and enable freedom to speak up. The report is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Culture-review-of-ambulance-trusts.pdf
These recommendations are now being implemented, alongside actions related to the report by the Office of the Chief Allied Health Professions at NHS England and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE), entitled Reducing Misogyny and Improving Sexual Safety in the Ambulance Service, which is available at the following link:
https://aace.org.uk/reducing-misogyny-and-improving-sexual-safety-in-the-ambulance-service/
To emphasise the zero-tolerance approach to sexual misconduct in the NHS, last September, NHS England launched the first ever Sexual Safety Charter in collaboration with healthcare systems, to provide staff with clear reporting mechanisms, training, and support. The charter currently has 329 signatories from across the health system, including ambulance trusts. Signatories commit to a zero-tolerance approach to any form of sexual misconduct in the workplace by implementing the charter’s ten actions and principles by July 2024.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether employees of postmasters who lost earnings due to issues arising from the failures of the Horizon IT System will be eligible for the Horizon Shortfall Scheme.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Trade
As per the Horizon Shortfall Scheme eligibility criteria which are published on Post Office’s website, individuals must have, or have previously had, a contract directly with the Post Office to be eligible for compensation.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the press release entitled Record number of new bathing sites get the go ahead, published on 13 May 2024, whether the new wild swimming spots will be safe to swim in 365 days a year.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The current Bathing Water Regulations 2013 aim to drive improvement to water quality at sites where people swim, by putting in place duties on the Environment Agency, local authorities, sewerage undertakers and others to investigate pollution incidents at bathing water sites so that remedial measures can be put in place, and by encouraging collaboration around these issues.
This year, Defra will consult on reforms to the Bathing Water Regulations 2013. The proposed changes will drive work to improve bathing water quality, enhance monitoring, and enable more flexibility around the dates of the bathing water monitoring season – the current bathing water monitoring offer will be maintained as a minimum. These changes will allow us to increase monitoring outside of the bathing water season in the future, to better embed water quality improvements within processes and to prevent automatic de-designation of existing bathing water sites.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make it his policy to increase the price of unhealthy food to subsidise healthier foods.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
We have a comprehensive strategy to improve diets, and to make the healthier choice the easier choice. The Government’s measures with regards to healthy food are focused on consumer behaviour and providing a safety net to those families who need it the most.
Between 2015 and 2020, we have reduced the sugar content of soft drinks by 46% through the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, and our voluntary sugar reduction programme has reduced sugar in breakfast cereals by 14.9%. We are also supporting families from low-income households to eat a healthier diet by investing in the Healthy Start scheme, and our School Fruit and Vegetables Scheme has provided nearly 415 million portions of produce to approximately 2.2 million pupils in 2023/24.
From October 2025, we will be introducing an online and television watershed to restrict advertising of unhealthy food and drink, as well as restrictions on the promotion of less healthy foods by volume price, restricting offers such as three for two, both in store and online.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to support the transition to sustainable aviation fuels.
Answered by Anthony Browne
We are supporting the transition to sustainable aviation fuels by taking action to build supply of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and secure demand.
The SAF Mandate will secure demand for SAF, by obligating the supply of SAF in the overall UK aviation fuel mix. The Mandate will require 2% of UK jet fuel to be made from sustainable sources in 2025, 10% in 2030 and 22% in 2040. It will incentivise SAF supply through the award of tradeable certificates with a cash value.
We are kickstarting a UK SAF industry by allocation £135m through our Advanced Fuels Fund, which is funding thirteen projects to reach completion and supporting our ambition to see five plants under construction in the UK by 2025. We are currently consulting on the introduction of a revenue certainty mechanism, which will help de-risk SAF projects in the UK by addressing barriers to investment in a nascent market.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether he is taking steps to ensure that that public contracts are not awarded to companies that blacklist workers.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 contain exclusion grounds which allow contracting authorities to exclude suppliers from procurements where their tender does not comply with labour law or where the supplier is guilty of grave professional misconduct.
For example, a breach of the The Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010, which prohibit the compilation, usage, sale or supply of blacklists of trade union members and activists, would render the supplier liable to potential exclusion.
In all cases, individual departments and other public sector bodies are responsible for their own decisions on these matters.
The Procurement Act, which is expected to go live in October 2024, builds on and clarifies the exclusions measures in the existing regime. This includes specific measures enabling the exclusion of suppliers for professional misconduct.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many Rwandan nationals have successfully applied for asylum in the UK since 2019.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on grants by nationality are published in table Asy_D02 of the ‘Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement detailed datasets’. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to 2023.
Information on future Home Office statistical release dates can be found in the ‘Research and statistics calendar’.
The UK has a proud history of providing protection to those who need it, in accordance with our international obligations under the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Those who need protection are normally granted refugee status or humanitarian protection.
All asylum and human rights claims lodged from within the UK and admitted to the UK asylum system, including those seeking asylum from Rwanda, are carefully considered on their individual merits in accordance with our international obligations, and against the background of relevant case law, policy guidance, and the latest available country of origin information.
Asked by: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will publish a timetable for the reintroduction of the Parking Code of Practice.
Answered by Jacob Young
The Government is committed to taking action to improve the regulation of the Private Parking Industry and is working with both consumer and industry groups to ensure the Code comes into effect as quickly as possible.
Further steps will be set out in due course.