Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment with Cabinet colleagues of the potential merits of extending eligibility for heart screening to amateur athletes.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The safety, wellbeing and welfare of everyone taking part in sport is absolutely paramount.
National Governing Bodies (NGBs) are responsible for the regulation of their sports and for ensuring that appropriate measures are in place to protect participants from harm. NGBs are independent of Government, but the Government expects NGBs to make the health and safety of players their top priority.
Sport England, DCMS arm's-length body for grassroots sport, works closely with Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY), an organisation which aims to prevent young sudden cardiac deaths through awareness, screening, research, and supporting affected families. Sport England is helping increase awareness of CRY in the community sports sector, including through Buddle, its online site for clubs and community organisations.
The Department for Health and Social Care has responsibility for preventative healthcare strategies. The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) is an independent scientific advisory body which advises ministers and the NHS in the four nations of the UK on all aspects of screening. It is currently reviewing a submission received via its annual call process to consider Sudden Cardiac Death screening in young people aged 14-35 engaging in sport. More information on the annual call process can be found here: UK NSC annual call.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
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 merits of abolishing the Work Capability Assessment.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Work Capability Assessment is not working and needs to be reformed or replaced. We are committed to reforming the system of health and disability benefits so that it promotes and enables employment among as many people as possible. The system must also work to support disabled people to live independently. It is also vital to ensure that the system is financially sustainable in the long term.
We are working to develop proposals for reform in the months ahead and will set them out in a Green Paper ahead of the Spring Statement later this year.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to accelerate the rollout of Universal Credit.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the Hon Member to the Statement of 12 November (Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament)
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question
To ask the Member for Battersea, representing the Church Commissioners, how much (a) the Church Commissioners distributed to and (b) was certificated by the Archbishops’ Council under section 2(6) of the National Institutions Measure 1998 in each year since 1998; and how much was granted by the Church Commissioners pursuant to section 1 of the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 2018 to the Archbishops’ Council in each year since 2018.
Answered by Marsha De Cordova
Section 1 of the Miscellaneous Provisions Measure 2018 (“the 2018 power”) came into force on 1 March 2019 and has only been used for grants made since the start of 2020. Between the Archbishops' Council’s inception at the start of 1999 and the end of 2019 all grants from the Commissioners to the Council were made under section 2(1) of the National Institutions Measure 1998 (“the 1998 power”).
Since the start of 2020 some grant streams clearly fit under the 1998 power (e.g. Lowest Income Communities Funding) and others have been made using the 2018 power (e.g. support for the Parish Giving Scheme and the energy cost support provided to parishes through dioceses in 2022).
Other grant streams (e.g. the Diocesan Investment Programme) fall within the broader provisions of the 2018 power, but some or all aspects of individual grants may also fall within the 1998 power. It has not been possible to ascertain which proportion of each such grant falls within the scope of the 1998 power. The table below states the total of grants that were entirely within the scope of the 1998 power (which would also have been possible under the much broader 2018 power), those made under the 2018 power only, and those which were partially covered by the 1998 Measure and entirely covered by the 2018 Measure (which are not mutually exclusive).
Church Commissioners’ grants to Archbishops' Council | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| £m | £m | £m | £m |
1998 Measure | 49.6 | 43.5 | 37.9 | 33.5 |
2018 Measure | 17.2 | 20.1 | 38.3 | 38.0 |
Partially covered under 1998 Measure Entirely covered by 2018 Measure (not mutually exclusive) | 28.0 | 25.7 | 52.0 | 81.4 |
Total | 94.8 | 89.3 | 128.2 | 152.9 |
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Source: Church Commissioners annual report and accounts exclusive of discount applied to multi-year grants.
The Archbishops’ Council provide the Commissioners with an annual certificate under section 2(6) of the National Institutions Measure 1998. There are some differences between the amounts in the annual certificate and the amounts in the Commissioners’ accounts due to differing rounding, accounting policies and the discount factors applied to multiyear grants.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she plans to publish data collected from the fit note trailblazers.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
In 2024, the previous government announced fit note trailblazers to be included in some of the 15 WorkWell pilot areas across Integrated Care Boards in England.
Due to the timings of the General Election the trailblazers were not launched.
The learning from the Fit Note Trailblazers will be applied to three of the eight inactivity trailblazers that are NHSE led health and growth accelerators, where £45 million has been specifically allocated to three integrated care boards to improve population health outcomes and reduce health-related economic inactivity as part of the Get Britain Working Plans.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what passport benefits of what average value a Pension Credit claimant may be eligible to receive.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Pension Credit claimants can receive passported benefits such as:
- Winter Fuel Payment;
- Housing Benefit for those who rent the property they live in;
- support for Mortgage Interest for those who own the property they live in;
- a Council Tax discount for those in England and Wales;
- a free TV licence for those aged 75 or over;
- help with NHS dental treatment, glasses, and transport costs for hospital appointments;
- help with heating costs through the Warm Home Discount Scheme;
- a discount on the Royal Mail redirection service for those moving house.
Information on passported benefits is available at: Pension Credit: Overview - GOV.UK.
No estimate has been made of the average value of these benefits.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average cost to the public purse is of (a) a Pension Credit claimant, (b) their council tax discounts and (c) other passport benefits.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Data on Pension Credit award amounts is routinely published and made publicly available via DWP Stat-xplore. At May 2024, the average weekly Pension Credit award amount was £82.66. This figure does not include other operational and administrative costs, such as supporting customers and sending letters.
The Department does not hold data on Council Tax discount or the value of all passported benefits.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Child Poverty Taskforce holds first Scottish summit, published on 22 November 2024, if she will publish a list of (a) attendees and (b) speakers at that summit.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Poverty Taskforce will publish the child poverty strategy in Spring 2025 and further details on the engagement which helped develop the strategy will be outlined as part of the publication. Working closely with partners across all UK nations and regions is a central part of our approach to develop the strategy, as set out in Tackling Child Poverty: Developing Our Strategy.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of pensioner poverty levels in each region following changes to the eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The latest available data on pensioner poverty levels by region is published by the Department here Households below average income:Households below average income: for financial years ending 1995 to 2023 - GOV.UK
On 19 November, Secretary of State wrote to the Work and Pensions Select Committee to share internal government modelling produced by the Department outlining estimates of the number of pensioners in the UK estimated to move into poverty as a result of the Winter Fuel Payment policy change. This letter is available here Winter Fuel Payments eligibility change - Letter from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions It is not possible to provide regional breakdowns of the poverty impacts of this change.
Asked by: Danny Kruger (Conservative - East Wiltshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2024 to Question 6515 on Social Security Benefits: Disability, if she will publish the consultation responses from organisations.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We will not be publishing organisational responses to the previous Government’s consultation, as it is for each organisation to choose whether or not to publish its response. Many organisations have already published their own responses.