Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of Common Wealth's report, entitled Public Coordination of a Just North Sea Transition, published on 10 January 2025.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government is committed to a fair, orderly and prosperous transition in the North Sea to boost Britain’s energy security and ensure good, long-term jobs. That is why we have already launched Great British Energy, begun the biggest ever investment in offshore wind, and are moving ahead with new North Sea industries like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of Common Wealth's briefing, entitled Housing Coalitions of the Future, published on 18 January 2025.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government has made no formal assessment of the potential implications for MHCLG policies of the briefing in question.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of central funding for fire and rescue services in (a) Merseyside and (b) England.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
Overall, fire and rescue authorities will receive around £2.87 billion in 2024/25. Decisions on how their resources are best deployed to meet their core functions are a matter for each fire and rescue authority based on its analysis of risk and local circumstances.
The Home Office will continue to work closely with stakeholders across the sector to ensure fire and rescue services have the resources they need to protect communities.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her Department's policies of the findings of the Autonomy Institute's report, entitled Transforming Employment and Support Infrastructure, published in February 2025.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The findings from the Autonomy Institute's report, entitled ‘Transforming Employment and Support Infrastructure’, demonstrates the importance of reforming Jobcentres and the difference this can make to citizens.
Through the Get Britain Working White Paper published in November 2024, the government set out our vision to reform Jobcentre Plus and create a new service across Great Britain that will enable everyone to access employment support, aligned more effectively with skills and careers. We recognise that people are individuals with different support needs, and we want everyone who wants it to be able to access tailored support, not just those on benefits.
We are taking a test and learn approach to developing the new service and are committed to working with users of the new service, and organisations representing their needs, throughout the design process to ensure the new service is inclusive, accessible, and works for everyone.
We want to shift the focus of the customer-work coach relationship away from compliance and box-ticking around these requirements to make room for more constructive, personalised, career-focused conversations. As we set out in the White Paper, we have committed to develop the work coach profession and the careers adviser profession in England. Further building our work coaches’ capabilities is essential to delivering our ambition for the new service. We will launch a coaching academy that will upskill our teams and ensure they can deliver the high-quality, personalised, action-oriented coaching conversations.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of funding for SEND provision in (a) Liverpool and (b) England.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.
Following the Autumn Budget 2024, the department is providing an increase of £1 billion for high needs budgets in England in the 2025/26 financial year, bringing total high needs funding for children and young people with complex SEND to £11.9 billion in England. Of that total, Liverpool City Council is being allocated over £103 million through the high needs funding block of the dedicated schools grant (DSG), which is an increase of £10 million on this year’s DSG high needs block, calculated using the high needs national funding formula (NFF). This NFF allocation is an 10% increase per head of their 2 to 18-year-old population, on their equivalent 2024/25 NFF allocation.
In addition to the DSG, local authorities will also receive a separate core schools budget grant (CSBG), and funding in respect of the increase in employers’ National Insurance contributions, in 2025/26. This CSBG continues the separate grants payable this year, which are to help special schools and alternative provision with the costs of teachers’ pay and pension increases, and other staff pay increases. Individual local authorities’ allocations for both grants for 2025/26 will be published in due course.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 21 January 2025 to Question 24125 on Parish and Town Councils: Employers’ contributions, what discussions her Department is having with parish and town councils about these issues.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer my hon Friend to the answer given to Question UIN 27565 on 7 February 2025.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has had discussions with (a) dentists and (b) dentist representatives on the recent dentist pay award.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department formally consults with the British Dental Association on the details of contract uplift proposals before these are implemented, as the recognised representative body for dentists. We consulted the British Dental Association on the proposed uplift for 2024/25, as we do each year.
The Government implemented the overall uplift to contract values on 29 January. Uplifted payments will be made in March, backdated to 1 April 2024.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of funding for police training programmes.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
The 2025-26 final police funding settlement provides funding of up to £19.6 billion for the policing system in England and Wales. This is an overall increase of up to £1.1 billion when compared to the 2024-25 settlement which equates to a 6% cash terms increase and 3.5% real terms.
Decisions on how funding and resources are utilised are an operational matter for Chief Constables and locally elected Police and Crime Commissioners, who are best placed to make resourcing decisions within their communities based on their local knowledge and experience.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what recent discussions his Department has had with the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme (BCSSS) on proposals to transfer the BCSSS investment reserve to members.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
I refer the honourable member to my response on 29 January 2025 (UIN 25410).
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of a public inquiry into the safety of PIP breast implants.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are currently no plans to commission a public inquiry into the safety of Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) breast implants.
As part of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) market surveillance for medical devices, we worked with the National Health Service and other health partners to ensure the PIP issue was properly investigated. PIP breast implants were withdrawn from the market in 2010. It is important to note that while PIP implants are associated with a higher risk of rupture, leading to symptoms such as tenderness or swollen lymph glands, there is no evidence linking ruptured PIP implants to serious long-term health issues.
As with any medical device, breast implants do not come without risks. The current advice from the MHRA remains that anyone with a PIP breast implant should consult with their doctor about the possibility of removal. The NHS and MHRA provide guidance for patients on the available options for PIP implant removal. This is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pip-implants/
Since PIP breast implants were withdrawn, two independent reviews have identified lessons learnt, specifically the Howe Review in 2012 and the Keogh Review in 2013. The health system has since enacted important changes. As a result of the Keogh Review, since 2016 the Breast and Cosmetic Implant Registry collects data on all types of breast implant and removal surgeries in England and Scotland, aiming to help detect emerging safety issues and trace patients if necessary.
The MHRA is developing a future regulatory framework for medical devices that will ensure that patients have access to the safe and effective medical devices they need. The first step is the introduction of new Post-Market Surveillance regulations, which will come into force in June, and will put in place strengthened legal requirements for how manufacturers monitor and report on their devices once they are being used in the real world. We intend to follow this with updates to the UK Medical Device Regulations later this year, which will bring further improvements to device traceability and patient safety by introducing additional measures that must be taken before a product can be placed on the market. This will include requirements for unique device identifiers, implant cards, new rules to ensure that claims are consistent with the intended purpose, and changes to the classification of some medical devices, such as implantables, to better reflect the potential risks to patients and ensure risk proportionate requirements for manufacturers.