Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if her Department will publish further information on future plans for the NHS Special Schools Eye Care Service.
Answered by Will Quince
There are 83 special schools with approximately 9,324 children who have participated in the NHS England’s Special Schools Eye Care Service proof of concept programme. NHS England is currently evaluating the programme to inform the future of any special schools’ sight testing service model and will set out the further information in due course.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding has been allocated by Government bodies and agencies to run awareness campaigns on the risks of cancer for (a) children and (b) young adults in (i) each of the last three years and (ii) the year ahead.
Answered by James Morris
There have been no specific campaigns through the Department or its executive agencies. The National Health Service is currently scoping a campaign for 2023/24 to raise awareness of the symptoms of blood cancer, which may include advice for younger people.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps the Government is taking to support local outdoor activity centres.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
This Government encourages everyone, no matter their age, to be as active as they can. We recognise that outdoor activity centres provide opportunities to all members of society to be active.
Outdoor Activity Centres were supported through the pandemic by government assistance such as the furlough scheme.
The Government has a range of programmes including the National Citizen Service and the £80 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund whose delivery partners include outdoor activity centres.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the cost of the flight to Rwanda that is scheduled to depart on 14 June 2022 would need to paid for in full in the event that no asylum seekers are on the flight.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our priority will always be to keep our communities safe, and we make no apology for seeking to remove those with no right to remain in the UK.
Charter flight operations are an important means to remove individuals with no right to remain in the UK where there are limited scheduled routes. We manage the charter programme flexibly, balancing it with use of scheduled flights to best respond to operational needs. Costs for individual flights will vary based on a number of different factors and are regularly reviewed to ensure that best value for money is balanced against the need to remove those individuals with no right to remain in the UK.
The endless merry go round of late legal claims – which are often unfounded or without merit – can result in people being removed from flights at the last minute. However, our New Plan for Immigration will stop the abuse of the system and expedite the removal of those who have no right to be here.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the total cost to the public purse is of the flight to Rwanda scheduled to take off on 14 June 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Our priority will always be to keep our communities safe, and we make no apology for seeking to remove those with no right to remain in the UK.
Charter flight operations are an important means to remove individuals with no right to remain in the UK where there are limited scheduled routes. We manage the charter programme flexibly, balancing it with use of scheduled flights to best respond to operational needs. Costs for individual flights will vary based on a number of different factors and are regularly reviewed to ensure that best value for money is balanced against the need to remove those individuals with no right to remain in the UK.
The endless merry go round of late legal claims – which are often unfounded or without merit – can result in people being removed from flights at the last minute. However, our New Plan for Immigration will stop the abuse of the system and expedite the removal of those who have no right to be here.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure schools co-operate with local safeguarding arrangements.
Answered by Robin Walker
Safeguarding partners are under a statutory duty to safeguard and promote the wellbeing of all children in a local area. All three safeguarding partners have equal and joint responsibility for local safeguarding arrangements and must set out how they will work together and with any relevant agencies. Relevant agencies must act in accordance with those arrangements.
Schools, colleges and other educational providers have a pivotal role to play in safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. The safeguarding partners should make arrangements to allow all schools (including multi academy trusts), colleges and other educational providers in the local area to be fully engaged, involved, and included in the new safeguarding arrangements. It is expected that local safeguarding partners will name schools, colleges and other educational providers as relevant agencies and will reach their own conclusions on how best locally to achieve the active engagement of individual institutions in a meaningful way. Once designated as a relevant agency, schools and colleges, and other educational providers, in the same way as other relevant agencies, are under a statutory duty to co-operate with the published arrangements.
Following the Ofsted review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges in June 2021, Ministers from the Department for Education, Home Office, and Department of Health and Social Care wrote to all 135 all safeguarding partners to request that they review their arrangements with schools, colleges, and education providers and set out their local offer to education.
We have also held a series of national events with safeguarding partners, education providers, and other government departments to understand emerging practice and barriers to effective working. These will form part of a wider programme of work to ensure that the arrangements that have been put in place are being utilised to their fullest by both safeguarding partners, and schools and colleges.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what support her Department is providing to victims of domestic violence who have no recourse to public funds.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Tackling domestic abuse is a priority for this Government and we are committed to supporting all victims of domestic abuse, regardless of immigration status. On 30 March, we published the Tackling Domestic Abuse Plan which will seek to transform the whole of society’s response to prevent offending, support victims and pursue perpetrators, as well as to strengthen the systems in place to deliver these goals.
Support is provided to migrant victims of domestic abuse in the UK through our Destitute Domestic Violence Concession (DDVC), which enables individuals to access public funds for three months, which can be used to fund safe accommodation. Migrant victims can also apply for settlement (Indefinite Leave to Remain) under the Domestic Violence Indefinite Leave to Remain Rules. The intention is to safeguard victims of domestic abuse by offering them an immigration status and financial support, independent of the abusive partner.
Following the Government’s review of support to migrant victims in 2020, last year we launched the Support for Migrant Victims Scheme to provide for victims who are not eligible to apply under the DDVC. The 12-month pilot, run by Southall Black Sisters and their delivery partners, and supported with £1.5 million of Government funding, provides support services for migrant victims of domestic abuse. The funding also provides wrap-around support which includes accommodation, subsistence and counselling.
The pilot and independent evaluation by Behavioural Insights Ltd, aims to develop an evidence base, which in turn should allow us to understand requirements for policy development. The evaluation will be producing a final report in Summer 2022.
In the interim, we will provide £1.4 million in 2022-23 to continue to fund support for migrant victims and survivors whilst we take on board vital lessons learned from the pilot to inform future policy decisions.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to protect children who have been separated from parents and family on arrival in the UK.
Answered by Will Quince
The department takes the welfare of all unaccompanied children extremely seriously and is committed to ensuring they are properly safeguarded. Statutory duties placed on the local authority in respect of unaccompanied children will apply to any child arriving in the UK who has been separated from their parents and family.
In England Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 (CA89) imposes a general duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of ‘children in need’ in their area. Section 20 CA89 imposes a duty to accommodate children in need if they meet the relevant criteria.
Generally, once a child has been accommodated by a local authority continuously for more than 24 hours, they become a looked after child and should be safeguarded and have their welfare promoted in the same way as any other looked after child, taking account of their particular needs. Any child separated from their parents and family would likely remain accommodated by the local authority, until such time as they can be re-united when possible and appropriate.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department holds data on the impact of the extension of free school meals to children in families with no recourse to public funds on the educational attainment of those children.
Answered by Will Quince
The work that has been done on reviewing the relationship between the no resource to public funds (NRPF) condition, and access to free school meals (FSM) will not be published.
FSM eligibility will be extended to children from all groups with NRPF from the start of the summer term, with guidance for schools being published shortly. Information on the number of children who received a free meal, and attracted pupil premium funding under the temporary extension of free school meal eligibility to some NRPF households in the 2021/2022 financial year can be found in the third document here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-allocations-and-conditions-of-grant-2021-to-2022.
Asked by: David Simmonds (Conservative - Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish the review of free school meals to children from families with no recourse to public funds.
Answered by Will Quince
The work that has been done on reviewing the relationship between the no resource to public funds (NRPF) condition, and access to free school meals (FSM) will not be published.
FSM eligibility will be extended to children from all groups with NRPF from the start of the summer term, with guidance for schools being published shortly. Information on the number of children who received a free meal, and attracted pupil premium funding under the temporary extension of free school meal eligibility to some NRPF households in the 2021/2022 financial year can be found in the third document here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-allocations-and-conditions-of-grant-2021-to-2022.