Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to preserve the protections afforded to victims of fraud through the Financial Ombudsman Service's fair and reasonable remit during the current review into that service.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
On 15 July the government set out the conclusions and next steps of the Economic Secretary’s review of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/fs-sector-strategy-review-of-the-financial-ombudsman-service
The review concluded that in the majority of cases, the FOS fulfils its role as a simple, impartial dispute resolution service. However, in a small but significant minority of cases, the FOS is acting as a quasi-regulator. To stop this the government is now consulting on a package of reforms to the FOS, to improve the regulatory coherence between the FOS and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and provide greater certainty and predictability for firms and consumers.
The review also concluded that the FOS should retain the ‘Fair and Reasonable’ test for determining cases. The government is proposing to adapt the test to align it more closely to the FCA’s rules where, as the UK’s dedicated conduct regulator for financial services, the FCA has an objective to ensure an appropriate degree of protection for consumers and continues to prioritise fighting financial crime.
The government is committed to ensuring the FOS continues to provide customers with a cost-free route to easily resolve disputes with firms, including in cases relating to fraud.
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when she plans to conclude the review into the Financial Ombudsman Service.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
On 15 July the government set out the conclusions and next steps of the Economic Secretary’s review of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/fs-sector-strategy-review-of-the-financial-ombudsman-service
The review concluded that in the majority of cases, the FOS fulfils its role as a simple, impartial dispute resolution service. However, in a small but significant minority of cases, the FOS is acting as a quasi-regulator. To stop this the government is now consulting on a package of reforms to the FOS, to improve the regulatory coherence between the FOS and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and provide greater certainty and predictability for firms and consumers.
The review also concluded that the FOS should retain the ‘Fair and Reasonable’ test for determining cases. The government is proposing to adapt the test to align it more closely to the FCA’s rules where, as the UK’s dedicated conduct regulator for financial services, the FCA has an objective to ensure an appropriate degree of protection for consumers and continues to prioritise fighting financial crime.
The government is committed to ensuring the FOS continues to provide customers with a cost-free route to easily resolve disputes with firms, including in cases relating to fraud.
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how he plans to allocate the additional funding for the NHS announced in the Autumn Budget 2024.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Thanks to the choices the Chancellor made at the Budget, we are investing an additional £25.7 billion in health and care.
That includes funding that has already helped us to:
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of infrastructure developments on agricultural land.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government has launched a national conversation on land use in England. This includes the commitment to protect land with the greatest long-term potential for food production, whilst delivering on the potential of our landscapes to produce more energy and build 1.5 million homes. This will inform a Land Use Framework that is a win-win for development and nature.
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
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 ambulance handover times.
Answered by Steve Barclay
Reducing handover delays and improving ambulance response times for patients is one of my top priorities. We are increasing hospital capacity by 7,000 beds and providing £500 million to increase patient discharges. NHS England is providing targeted support to hospitals facing the greatest delays to help get ambulances back on the road quickly.
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government is taking to tackle noise pollution from vehicles.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The police and local authorities have powers to enforce against vehicles that have been modified, or are driven in a way, to create excessive noise. However, barriers exist to effective enforcement. Following encouraging initial research, the Department is conducting further trials of the latest “noise camera” technology to understand if it can be used to automatically detect excessively noisy vehicles.
As the research develops, the Government will keep under review the way “noise cameras” can be used to tackle noise pollution from vehicles.
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to ensure frequent and reliable transport is available and accessible to all rail commuters.
Answered by Wendy Morton - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
As the pandemic is changing travel habits, operators are reassessing their services to ensure they provide rail timetables that meet new passenger travel patterns and carefully balance cost, capacity and performance. New timetables will be flexible enough to deliver the right services where they are needed most, and operators will work with their local markets wherever possible to achieve this.
Our aim is to make all journeys accessible for all passengers. The Department has, extended the Access for All programme until 2024 at a cost of almost £400 million. So far, over 200 stations have benefitted from step-free accessible routes and over 1500 from smaller scale access improvements.
In addition, the Department continues to support initiatives, such as the Passenger Assist app, and is using the rail contracting process to make the network more accessible by introducing new requirements on train and station operators, such as the introduction of an enhanced disability awareness training for all customer-facing staff, and those with management responsibilities.
A new National Rail Accessibility Strategy is currently being developed by the Great British Railways Transition Team which will set out how we and the rail industry can work towards accessibility for all passengers.
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the size of the backlog of cases in crown courts.
Answered by James Cartlidge - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
There will always be outstanding cases in the Crown Court as these figures include cases that are being prepared to be heard in the courts.
The outstanding caseload in the Crown Court reduced from around 61,000 cases in June 2021 to around 58,993 cases at the end of January 2022.
The Government is committed to supporting the recovery of the courts. We have extended 30 Nightingale courtrooms beyond the end of March 2022 and removed the limit on the number of days the Crown Court can sit in the 2021/22 financial year. To secure enough capacity to sit at the required levels in 2022/23 and beyond we are expanding our plans for judicial recruitment.
To provide additional capacity in the Crown Courts we are extending magistrates’ court sentencing powers from 6 to 12 months’ imprisonment for a single Triable Either Way offence to allow more cases to be heard in the magistrates’ court and help to drive down the backlog of cases over the coming years.
These measures are already working, and as a result we expect to get through 20% more Crown Court cases this financial year than we did pre-Covid. Following an increase in funding as part of the Ministry of Justice’s Spending Review settlement, we aim to reduce the number of outstanding cases in the Crown Court to 53,000 by March 2025.
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question
To ask the President of COP26, what assessment he has made of the role of businesses in implementing the Glasgow Climate Pact.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The private sector has an absolutely vital role to play in implementing the Glasgow Climate Pact, building on the success it helped achieve at COP26 itself.
In particular, through taking immediate action to deliver on their commitments and supporting initiatives that were launched in Glasgow.
Asked by: Gagan Mohindra (Conservative - South West Hertfordshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to support the rollout of superfast fibre broadband in South West Hertfordshire constituency.
Answered by Julia Lopez - Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
Over 98% of premises in South West Hertfordshire can access superfast speeds (>=30Mbps). This compares with a UK average of 97%, and includes coverage provided by the Connected Counties superfast broadband project as part of the government’s Superfast Broadband Programme, which provided superfast access to over 50,000 premises in Hertfordshire.
The Government is now investing £5 billion through Project Gigabit to support gigabit broadband coverage at the same time as commercial rollout so that rural communities are not left behind. The regional supplier procurement for Hertfordshire, along with Buckinghamshire and the East of Berkshire, is scheduled to commence between May and July 2022, with a contract commencement date of April - June 2023.
67 premises in Hertfordshire have also gained gigabit coverage through the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which helps communities and businesses in rural areas not in line for commercial rollout or other government-funded projects to get more immediate help with the costs of installing gigabit broadband. A further 147 premises are awaiting connection, giving a combined total value of £440,445.