Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans his Department has for debts owed to HMRC to be included in its new Breathing Space scheme.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government published a consultation on a single policy proposal for the breathing space scheme in October 2018. The consultation proposed that as wide a range of an individual’s personal debts as possible would be included in the scheme, including certain tax and benefit debts.
The consultation closed on 29 January, and the Government intends to confirm its approach to these aspects of the scheme in its response.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people have received financial compensation as a result of not having access to their online childcare account; and how much money has been paid out of the public purse for that compensation.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The vast majority of parents apply for and use their childcare account without problems, including getting their 30 hours eligibility code. Where parents have experienced technical issues, HMRC has arrangements in place to ensure that they do not miss out as a result. Manual codes are issued via a standard exception process that enables parents to access a 30 hours place when they are eligible if they cannot get a digital code within the required timeline. The number of manual codes issued has been decreasing since September 2017 as the system has become embedded.
To 31 October 2018, HMRC has received 4,560 complaints from parents who have experienced technical issues with the childcare service.
To 31 October 2018, HMRC has issued 35,370 codes manually to parents.
To 31 October 2018, HMRC has paid out £200,000 in redress to parents for expenses such as telephone calls to the helpline.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many 30 hours free childcare codes have been issued manually as a result of faults in the childcare account system.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The vast majority of parents apply for and use their childcare account without problems, including getting their 30 hours eligibility code. Where parents have experienced technical issues, HMRC has arrangements in place to ensure that they do not miss out as a result. Manual codes are issued via a standard exception process that enables parents to access a 30 hours place when they are eligible if they cannot get a digital code within the required timeline. The number of manual codes issued has been decreasing since September 2017 as the system has become embedded.
To 31 October 2018, HMRC has received 4,560 complaints from parents who have experienced technical issues with the childcare service.
To 31 October 2018, HMRC has issued 35,370 codes manually to parents.
To 31 October 2018, HMRC has paid out £200,000 in redress to parents for expenses such as telephone calls to the helpline.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many complaints have been revived from people left unable to access their childcare account as a result of technical difficulties in each year since the introduction of those accounts.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
The vast majority of parents apply for and use their childcare account without problems, including getting their 30 hours eligibility code. Where parents have experienced technical issues, HMRC has arrangements in place to ensure that they do not miss out as a result. Manual codes are issued to enable parents to access a 30 hours place when they are eligible if they cannot get a digital code within the required timeline. The number of manual codes issued has been decreasing since September 2017 as the system has become embedded and enhanced.To 31 October 2018, HMRC has received 4,560 complaints from parents who have experienced technical issues with the childcare service.
To 31 October 2018, HMRC has issued 35,370 codes manually to parents.
To 31 October 2018, HMRC has paid out £200,000 in redress to parents for expenses such as telephone calls to the helpline.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that the NHS has an adequate supply of flu vaccines in autumn 2018.
Answered by Steve Brine
Public Health England (PHE) provides flu vaccines centrally for the children’s flu programme so that eligible children are offered either the nasal spray Fluenz Tetra or an inactivated flu vaccine for those children for whom Fluenz Tetra is unsuitable. Centrally purchased flu vaccines are carefully monitored by PHE to ensure there is equitable distribution across England and sufficient in-date vaccine for patients who present throughout the season.
General practitioners and other providers are directly responsible for the flu vaccine supplies used to deliver the national flu programme to the other eligible groups.
Information on who is eligible is available at the following link:
www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vaccinations/Pages/who-should-have-flu-vaccine.aspx
PHE maintains some oversight to help facilitate a constant supply of vaccine, liaising with vaccine manufacturers to ascertain whether there are any manufacturing problems which could impact the running of the programme at a national level.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent representations he has received on the (a) size and (b) condition of the homeless population.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Department publishes regular statistics on rough sleeping, statutory homelessness and homelessness prevention and relief. The latest statistics can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness
Homelessness charities regularly publish research and information on the homeless population. Ministers in the Department visit a variety of projects and regularly meet with key partners to discuss homelessness issues.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when his Department plans to publish the response to the consultation on tips, gratuities, cover and service charges which closed on 27 June 2016.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government‘s consultation identified a range of tipping practices used by employers. The Government is considering next steps and reserves the right to take further legislative action if restaurants do not pay their staff fairly. Any action must benefit workers and not place extra burden on those businesses that do pay their staff fairly.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to all-weather football pitches at grassroots level.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Through Sport England we are working in partnership with the FA and the Premier League on a new National Football Facilities Strategy that sets a clear framework for significant investment in football facilities over the next 10 years. The Strategy includes a target of delivering 1000 artificial 3G pitches across the country in that period. These include single site pitches in schools and community areas and multiple pitch sites through the FA Parklife hubs programme.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
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 the (a) level and (b) quality of the provision of dentistry services by the NHS.
Answered by Steve Brine
NHS England has a legal duty to commission National Health Service dental services to meet the needs of the local population and to help patients who cannot find a local dentist.
Nationally, access to NHS primary care dental services remains high. In the 24 month period ending 30 June 2018, 22.1 million adults were seen by an NHS dentist and in the 12 month period ending 30 June 2018, 6.9 million children were seen by an NHS dentist.
The January to March 2017 general practitioner patient survey results were published in July 2018. These showed that 59% of adults questioned had tried to get an NHS dental appointment in the past two years and of those trying to get an appointment, 93% were successful.
Access has improved greatly over recent years but we know inequalities remain.
The Department and NHS England are continuing to test a new way of providing NHS dental services which aims to further improve oral health and increase access. NHS England’s Starting Well programme is also aiming to improve access for young children, most at risk of tooth decay, who are not currently under the care of a dentist.
In respect of the quality of NHS dental services the Care Quality Commission inspects NHS dental practices against set standards and the General Dental Council is responsible for individuals’ professional standards. In addition to this the dental contract reform programme is testing a Dental Quality and Outcomes Framework which will be used to drive standards up even further.
Asked by: David Crausby (Labour - Bolton North East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what meetings he has had with the Premier League in the last 12 months to discuss funding for grassroots football.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Ministers regularly meet with the Premier League to discuss a variety of matters, including to ensure a healthy proportion of their broadcasting revenues goes to funding grassroots football. For example, up to 2019 the grassroots is benefitting from £100million a year investment from the Premier League. We negotiated this commitment, which is double the previous amount, and is set out in "Sporting Future" the Government's strategy for sport and physical activity.
Details of Ministerial meetings are published on a quarterly basis on gov.uk