Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, What steps she is taking to support schools in helping prevent knife crime among young people.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Last month, the department published its plan to half knife crime, working across government to achieve a sustained reduction. The department’s focus is on strengthening schools’ ability to prevent violence, reducing children’s vulnerabilities, and improving collaboration between schools and local partners.
Alongside this, we launched the Safety In and Around Schools Partnership, which will support around 250 schools in areas most affected by knife crime, strengthening safety, improving awareness of risks, and increasing access to local support services. Updated guidance on pupil premium funding also enables this to be used for violence reduction initiatives, making it easier for school leaders to invest in preventative approaches.
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, What steps she is taking to enable more young people to access extracurricular and youth activities outside school hours.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
The government’s response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review’s report, and the Schools White Paper, committed to set out a core enrichment offer through our upcoming Enrichment Framework that every school and college, in every community, should aim to provide. This includes access to civic engagement, arts and culture, nature, outdoor and adventure, sport and physical activities and developing wider life skills, and can include delivery within the school day, or beyond it, for example, at after-school clubs or weekend activities.
Last year, the government published ‘Youth Matters: Your National Youth Strategy’, a 10 year plan to ensure every young person across the country has somewhere to go, someone who cares for them and a community they feel part of. It is backed by over £500 million of funding over the next 3 years from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for outside of school activities, support when and where young people need it, more safe spaces to connect with peers and trusted adults, and better local youth offers. It also includes a clear ambition to halve the participation gap in enriching activities between disadvantaged young people and their peers by 2035.
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that self employed locum pharmacists are paid in a timely manner for services delivered within NHS contracted pharmacies; and whether he plans to introduce additional protections to prevent non payment.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Responsibility for agreeing contractual terms and for ensuring payment to self-employed locum pharmacists rests with the retail pharmacy businesses that deliver National Health Service pharmaceutical services.
Where locum pharmacists have trouble recovering unpaid fees, support is available through the Advisory, Conciliation, and Arbitration Service and Citizens Advice, including guidance on pursuing payment through the courts and on seeking unpaid wages or other sums owed by an insolvent business.
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to improve transparency in Child Maintenance Service (CMS) decision-making processes.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is committed to making Child Maintenance Service (CMS) decisions clear, accessible and transparent.
Whenever a decision is made that affects a child maintenance calculation or payment arrangements, DWP issues notifications to customers explaining the outcome. Where the maintenance calculation changes, customers are provided with information setting out how the new calculation has been reached.
DWP is taking steps to improve communications with parents by simplifying content and retiring outdated letters. In addition, the online My Child Maintenance Case service enables parents to view their case details, track changes, check their current position and view digital copies of notifications at any time. DWP continues to develop this service to provide even more information to customers.
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to prevent pollution in local rivers in the Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency, including Patchway Brook.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency regularly inspects combined sewer overflows in the Filton and Bradley Stoke area, and is carrying out enforcement work following a serious pollution incident of the Hortham and Patchway Brook. It is also investigating silt pollution in the Hazel Brook, where various potential source sites have been inspected including close examination of site drainage, discharge points and pollution prevention methods.
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the potential merits of enabling British National (Overseas) visa holders to access apprenticeship programmes in (a) the health and social care sector and (b) other sectors before completing three years’ residence in the UK.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The department regularly reviews the apprenticeship funding rules, often in consultation with others, including the Home Office and the Department for Education.
This includes the requirements for ordinary residency. This three-year residency requirement is longstanding within the apprenticeship programme. It applies to both UK and non-UK nationals. It is applied consistently to ensure that the individuals have a connection to the UK and are committed to living in the country before they are eligible for training funded by the taxpayer.
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the consistency and effectiveness of (a) antenatal screening in detecting fetal cardiac conditions and (b) the efficacy of the Fetal anomaly screening programme handbook guidance in supporting early identification and treatment pathways for foetuses with cardiac abnormalities.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises how worrying heart health can be for the families of babies and children. The NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme (FASP) recommends the offer of an ultrasound scan which is performed between 18+0 to 20+6 weeks to screen for 11 physical conditions, including serious cardiac anomalies.
Coverage of the foetal anomaly ultrasound for the 2024/25 screening year was high, at 98%. As of 2020/21, the proportion of women who had an unexpected finding suspected or confirmed in the baby at the 20-week screening scan and who were then referred within the timeline was 76.8% for local referrals, those seen within three days of screening scan, and 85.2% for tertiary referrals, those seen with five days of screening scan. This ensures women with a suspected or confirmed unexpected finding are referred in a timely manner and receive timely intervention where appropriate. Minimum screening standards data is collected against the 20-week scan, with further information available at the following link:
NHS England is aware that there is geographical variation in antenatal cardiac detections and it is working with The National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Diseases Registration Services and the Screening Quality Assurance Service to address the variation, with further information about both services available at the following two links:
https://digital.nhs.uk/ndrs/about/ncardrs
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-population-screening-quality-assurance
NHS England also has a task and finish group looking at quality improvement in this area.
The NHS FASP handbook is a recommended guidance document for providers offering NHS FASP screening with the main aim of supporting healthcare professionals in delivering NHS FASP screening. This includes early identification of screened for conditions. NHS England FASP do not cover treatment pathways.
Additionally, NHS FASP provides an e-learning package with recommended timescales for completion for relevant healthcare professionals involved in the offer of NHS FASP screening, once every 24 months for ultrasound practitioners. This e-learning package is available at the following link:
https://portal.e-lfh.org.uk/Catalogue/Index?HierarchyId=0_37210&programmeId=37210
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to help reduce violent reoffending among young people who are on bail.
Answered by Jake Richards - Assistant Whip
The Government recognises the importance of reducing offending, including violent reoffending, among children who are on bail through close supervision and high levels of support by skilled staff. We are investing £5 million over the next three years in strengthening the bail packages available for children, so that courts have access to more robust community-based options that both support children to make positive changes and help manage the risk of offending. We are also reforming the annual youth remand funding arrangements to further support greater local authority investment in high-quality community alternatives to custodial remand, including suitable community placements (specialist fostering and accommodation), family support and enhanced Bail Intensive Supervision and Support services. This builds on the Greater Manchester Youth Remand Funding pilot, which has demonstrated promising early findings in improving their bail and community remand offer regionally, to keep children and communities safe. We are now offering multi-year funding to local authorities to scale up this regional model, encouraging areas to collaborate in developing a broader range of bail support options to meet the needs of children and protect the public.
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of recognition and compensation of chronic pain as a distinct medical condition as part of the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme and War Pension Scheme.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Department has assessed that both the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) and the War Pension Scheme provide for pain and suffering as part of a holistic assessment of service-attributable injury or illness.
In most cases, chronic pain is not treated as a standalone condition. Under both Schemes, chronic pain is generally considered an expected effect of a primary injury and is included in the overall award. However, where there is a distinct and separately diagnosable chronic pain condition, such as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, this may be considered on its own merits.
The Independent Medical Expert Group (IMEG) is currently considering concerns that chronic pain may not always be adequately captured under the AFCS. IMEG is examining the evidence base and how the functional impact of chronic pain is reflected within existing compensation arrangements.
Asked by: Claire Hazelgrove (Labour - Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of complaints and accountability processes for NHS patients referred to private healthcare providers.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed
The Local Authority Social Services and National Health Service Complaints (England) Regulations 2009 set out in law the minimum standards National Health Service organisations, and independent providers of NHS-funded care, must adhere to in respect of their complaint handling arrangements. Under the regulations, patients who have received NHS-funded care and wish to make a complaint can do so to either the provider or the commissioner that paid for the service.
In our 10-Year Health Plan for England, we acknowledged that the NHS complaints procedure is far from where it needs to be. Through Change NHS, the biggest ever conversation on the future of the NHS, we heard from patients and carers about their struggle to get responses to their concerns. As committed to in the 10-Year Health Plan, we intend to improve the complaints process across all NHS commissioners and providers, setting clear standards for both the timeliness and the quality of responses to complaints.