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Written Question
Temporary Accommodation: Medical Treatments
Monday 19th June 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make an estimate of the number of stem cell transplant recipients that have applied for temporary accommodation due to the cost of treatments.

Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)

This department does not collect information on stem cell transplant recipients in temporary accommodation. Statutory homelessness data (HCLIC) includes information on households in temporary accommodation and can be found here .


Written Question
Teachers: Coventry
Monday 19th June 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the (a) recruitment and (b) retention of teachers in (i) Coventry North East constituency and (ii) Coventry.

Answered by Nick Gibb

The latest School Workforce Census, which was published on 8 June 2023, shows the number of teachers remains high, with 468,400 full time equivalent (FTE) teachers working in state funded schools across the country. This is over 27,000 more than in 2010. In November 2022, when the latest available data was collected, there were 3,284 FTE teachers in state funded schools in Coventry. This is an increase of 3.2% from the year previous when there were 3,182 FTE teachers in state funded schools in Coventry and an increase of 6.3% since 2010 when the school workforce census began when there were 3,090 FTE teachers in state funded schools in Coventry. Over this period, the number of schools in Coventry included in the school workforce census has ranged between 112 to 120. School Workforce Census data can be found online at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england.

The Department’s reforms are aimed at increasing teacher recruitment and ensuring teachers across England stay in the profession.

The Department announced a financial incentives package worth up to £181 million for those starting initial teacher training (ITT) in the 2023/24 academic year. The Department is providing bursaries worth up to £27,000 and scholarships worth up to £29,000 to encourage trainees to apply to train in key secondary subjects such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computing.

The Department provides a Levelling Up Premium worth up to £3,000 annually for mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in the first five years of their careers who work in disadvantaged schools nationally, including within Education Investment Areas (EIAs). The Department provides the highest payments to teachers in eligible schools in EIAs. Coventry is an EIA. There are seven schools in the Coventry North East constituency eligible for the Levelling Up Premium and 26 schools in the Coventry Local Authority. The eligibility criteria and list of eligible schools is available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/levelling-up-premium-payments-for-teachers.

The Department has also raised starting salaries outside London by 8.9% to £28,000 and remains committed to the Government’s ambition of delivering £30,000 starting salaries to attract talented people to teaching.

To support retention across all areas, the Department has worked with the education sector and published a range of resources to help address staff workload and wellbeing. This includes the workload reduction toolkit, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/school-workload-reduction-toolkit and the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/education-staff-wellbeing-charter. More than 2,600 schools have signed up to the Charter so far.


Written Question
Stem Cells: Transplant Surgery
Monday 19th June 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential cost of establishing a patient travel fund for (a) stem cell transplant and (b) chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy recipients.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

There are no plans to assess the potential cost of establishing a patient travel fund for stem cell transplant and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy recipients. The Non-Emergency Patient Transport Services (NEPTS) provide funded transport where it is considered essential to ensuring an individual’s safety, safe mobilisation, condition management or recovery.

Depending on a patient’s financial circumstances, they may be eligible for financial support with costs via the NHS Low Income Scheme and Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme. This is aimed specifically at those with a low income and allows patients to claim for all or part their travel costs should they meet the eligibility criteria.


Written Question
Stem Cells: Transplant Surgery
Monday 19th June 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of stem cell transplant patients and their families have accessed the NHS Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme in England in the last year.

Answered by Neil O'Brien

The information requested is not held centrally.


Written Question
Musculoskeletal Disorders: Health Services
Wednesday 26th April 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of people waiting for community musculoskeletal services were provided with an appointment within (a) four and (b) 12 weeks of referral in the past year.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England does not hold data on how many people waiting for community musculoskeletal services were provided with an appointment within a certain time of referral in the past year.


Written Question
Pensioners: Poverty
Wednesday 26th April 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate he has made of the number of pensioners living in poverty in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.

Answered by Laura Trott - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

National and regional statistics on the number of pensioners in low income are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication, and can be found at: Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)


Written Question
Food Banks
Wednesday 26th April 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the impact of food price inflation on the demand for emergency parcels from food banks in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

We recognise the impact of rising food prices, which are occurring as a result of Putin's illegal war in Ukraine and the aftershocks of the pandemic are having a global impact, with food prices rising at home and abroad. We are keeping the market situation under review through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors all key agricultural commodities.

March 2023 food price inflation was 19.2%, an increase compared to February 2023 when it was 18.2%. Industry analyst expectations are that we are either at or very close to the food price inflation peak. They then expect food price inflation to gradually decrease over the remainder of 2023.This means that food prices are expected to still increase, but at a slower rate than before.

That’s why tackling inflation is this government’s number one priority, with a plan to more than halve inflation this year, and we’re monitoring all key agricultural commodities so that we can work with the food industry to address the challenges they face.

Foodbanks are independent, charitable organisations and HM Government does not have any role in their operation. There is no consistent and accurate measure of foodbank usage at a constituency or national level.

We understand the data limitations in this area, and therefore the Department for Work and Pensions introduced a set of questions into the Family Resources Survey to measure and track food bank usage. The first results, published last week, will help Government to understand more about the characteristics of people most in need and will shape Government to support the most vulnerable.

Latest statistics from DWPs Family Resources Survey show that in 2021/22, 93% of households in the UK were food secure (88% have high food security and 6% have marginal food security), virtually unchanged compared to 93% in 2020/21.

DEFRA has also increased our engagement with industry to supplement our analysis with real time intelligence. Defra will continue to work with food retailers and producers to explore the range of measures they can take to ensure the availability of affordable food. For example, by maintaining value ranges, price matching and price freezing measures.


Written Question
Food Supply
Wednesday 26th April 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of food security.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The UK has a highly resilient food supply chain, as demonstrated throughout the Covid-19 response. It is well equipped to deal with situations with the potential to cause disruption.

Our high degree of food security is built on supply from diverse sources; strong domestic production as well as imports through stable trade routes. We produce 61% of all the food we need, and 74% of food which we can grow or rear in the UK for all or part of the year, and these figures have changed little over the last 20 years.

UK consumers have access through international trade to food products that cannot be produced here, or at least not on a year-round basis. This supplements domestic production, and also ensures that any disruption from risks such as adverse weather or disease does not affect the UK's overall security of supply.

Recognising the importance of food security, in the Agriculture Act 2020, the Government made a commitment to produce an assessment of our food security at least once every three years. The first UK Food Security Report was published in December 2021. It recognises the contribution made by British farmers to our resilience and considers the UK's food supply sources overall, noting that domestic production and diversity of supply are both important to our food security. The next Food Security Report will be published in 2024.


Written Question
Musculoskeletal Disorders: Health Services
Wednesday 26th April 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions his Department has with (a) NHS trusts, (b) integrated care boards and (c) other stakeholders on the services that will be offered through integrated community musculoskeletal services.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

No discussions have been had with National Health Service trusts, integrated care boards and other stakeholders on the services that will be offered through integrated community musculoskeletal services.


Written Question
Water Supply: Fees and Charges
Wednesday 26th April 2023

Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the impact of the increases in the cost of living on the number of households in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England that have fallen into arrears with their water supplier.

Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Every five years, Ofwat scrutinises each water company’s business plan to ensure value for customer money and sets an overall cap on the total amount that each company may recover from their customers, through a process called the Price Review. Each year, water companies must publish their charges, setting out the basis on which they will charge their customers within the cap set by Ofwat. This year’s increase in water charges relates primarily to the increase in the rate of inflation and subsequent increases to the water companies’ costs as a result of this. These costs and adjustments are in line with the revenue controls set by Ofwat for all water companies.

Severn Trent Water’s customers saw their average combined bill for a household in-crease by 7.2% and the average yearly water and sewerage bills in England and Wales increase by 7.5%. We do not track households that have fallen into arrears with their water bill payments, this would be undertaken by water companies. However, I am very mindful that consumers are concerned about their bills. All water companies offer WaterSure and social tariffs to help reduce bills for households who struggle to pay their bills in full. Water companies also offer a range of financial support measures to assist households to better manage their budgets and provide flexible payments including payment holidays, bill matching, benefit entitlement checks and money/debt advice referral arrangements. Government expects water companies to continue to actively engage with households and inform them of support measures they offer.

I encourage customers to access the Consumer Council for Water’s Advice Hub, which has information and useful tools to help customers reduce their bills or access financial support.

To support people with the cost of living, Government have put in place a substantial package of support. Further information can be found here: Cost of living support - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).