Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the HMRC system for registering VAT for trusts was operating correctly as of 28 November 2022.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The VAT Registration Service has been operating correctly from the 28th of November 2022, and has progressed applications for Trusts normally during this time.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has held discussions with the Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy on the capacity of the A12 to accommodate potential construction traffic associated with the construction of Sizewell C nuclear power station.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The A12 road at Sizewell is the responsibility of the local highway authority, Suffolk County Council, but where it reaches Lowestoft to the north and Ipswich to the south it becomes the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Transport and is managed on his behalf by National Highways.
The current Secretaries of State for Transport and for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have not held discussions about the traffic impact of Sizewell C, however, National Highways worked with the promoter of Sizewell C and Suffolk County Council on traffic impacts to the A12 during construction and operation of the power station.
A Statement of Common Ground between the promoter and National Highways was agreed as part of the planning process for Sizewell C and is available on the Planning Inspectorate’s website.
Suffolk County Council has submitted an Outline Business Case to the Department for improvements to the A12 east of Ipswich which is on the Major Road Network. If approved, this will add the capacity needed on this part of the A12 to accommodate construction traffic for the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power station as well as supporting other planned growth in the area.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has plans to mandate the public sector procurement of locally sourced British food and drink.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Under domestic and international regulations, we cannot stipulate that food procured for the public sector must be British. Government does however have a manifesto commitment to encourage the public sector to buy British, to support farmers and reduce environmental costs, and a commitment to support start-ups and small businesses via government procurement. Public sector food should therefore champion healthier, sustainable food, provided by a diverse range of suppliers. To underpin this approach, we held a consultation on public sector food and catering policy, this summer. We are analysing the responses received and will consider the feedback when making final decisions on new policy, alongside ensuring we meet our domestic and international legal obligations.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department plans to take to set up a dedicated poultry workers visa scheme.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Government expanded the Seasonal Worker route to include the poultry sector on 18 October. This enables workers to come to the UK in the run up to Christmas to support the sector during the busy festive period.
The route has been extended until 2024, with 40,000 visas available for 2022, consisting of 38,000 for horticulture and 2,000 for the poultry sector. This will support our farmers as they adapt to changes in the UK labour market. The Government is keeping the position under close review.
Many roles in the poultry sector can also be recruited through the Skilled Worker route.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to expand (a) number of workers on and (b) the scope of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Government expanded the Seasonal Worker route to include the poultry sector on 18 October. This enables workers to come to the UK in the run up to Christmas to support the sector during the busy festive period.
The route has been extended until 2024, with 40,000 visas available for 2022, consisting of 38,000 for horticulture and 2,000 for the poultry sector. This will support our farmers as they adapt to changes in the UK labour market. The Government is keeping the position under close review.
Many roles in the poultry sector can also be recruited through the Skilled Worker route.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
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 reduce waiting times for cancer treatment.
Answered by Will Quince
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ sets out how the National Health Service will recover and expand elective services over the next three years, including cancer services. We have allocated more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available in 2021/2022 to increase elective activity. This funding aims to deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million additional checks and procedures and 30% further elective activity by 2024/25 than pre-pandemic levels.
The plan also sets out how NHS England will return the number of people waiting more than 62 days to start treatment following an urgent referral due to suspected cancer to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023. We have established 91 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) to ensure patients receive earlier diagnostic tests, including for cancer. We will deliver up to 160 CDCs which will allow the NHS to provide up to 17 million tests by March 2025, with capacity for a further nine million per year once fully operational.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to support farmers with the increased costs of food production, in the context of rising fuel and energy costs.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We understand that the global spike in oil and gas prices has affected the price of agricultural commodities, which are always closely correlated to energy costs. The Energy Bill Relief Scheme will provide a price reduction to make sure that all businesses, including farmers, food producers, manufacturers and packagers, are protected from excessively high energy bills over the winter period.
HM Government is also supporting businesses to improve their energy efficiency by at least 20% by 2030. This could deliver up to £6 billion in cost savings by 2030. We have extended the Energy Intensive Industries Compensation Scheme by three years and more than doubled its budget.
We recognise that for the pig and poultry sectors, animal feed is a substantial input cost. As of 1st June, we have successfully concluded the removal of Section 232 tariffs, allowing us to remove the 25% tariff on US maize imports, a key ingredient for animal feed.
Defra has a collaborative relationship with industry which allows us to effectively respond to disruption, should it occur. This was successfully demonstrated in response to unprecedented disruption to both supply and demand throughout COVID-19.
We continue to keep the market situation under review through the UK Agriculture Market Monitoring Group, which monitors UK agricultural markets including price, supply, inputs, trade and recent developments. We have also increased our engagement with industry to supplement our analysis with real time intelligence.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to change the Park Home Pitch Fee Inflationary Index from RPI to CPI.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
The Government recognises that park home residents are concerned about additional cost of living pressures. That is why we are supporting a Private Member's Bill by my Hon. Friend, the Member for Christchurch, to change the pitch fee review index from RPI to CPI.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to change the requirement for ducks to be swabbed before each movement and instead require only a visual inspection.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra requires assurance that birds, poultry products or materials associated with their keeping are not affected by avian influenza prior to them being moved out of disease control zones. Testing for avian influenza prior to movement is not required outside disease control zones.
Ducks can be sub-clinically infected with avian influenza and clinical inspection alone would not provide sufficient evidence that birds were not infected hence swabbing and negative results from diagnostic testing undertaken at the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) avian influenza national reference laboratory are required prior to each movement as a condition of a movement licence being granted. However, we do not require testing of day-old ducklings prior to movement because we can rely on the success of hatching of a batch of ducks to indicate whether avian influenza is present in the eggs.
Asked by: Dan Poulter (Labour - Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many Integrated Care Boards commission specialist perinatal mental health services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Since April 2019, there has been a specialist community perinatal mental health (PMH) service in every integrated care service area of England. The NHS Long Term Plan committed to transform specialist PMH services, to ensure at least 66,000 women can access specialist perinatal mental health services every year by 2023/24. Through the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme, we are also investing £100 million in PMH and parent-infant relationships support. This will be available in the 75 eligible local authorities.