Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of prosecutions for domestic abuse related offences.
Answered by Ellie Reeves - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Domestic Abuse (DA) causes severe and lasting harm to victims. Bringing perpetrators of these crimes to justice is a top priority for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
In partnership with the National Police Chiefs Council, the CPS launched the Domestic Abuse Joint Justice Plan (DA JJP) in November 2024 to improve their collective response to the investigation and prosecution of DA cases.
The DA JJP sets out how the police and CPS will strengthen joint working – from building stronger cases from the outset to improving victim safeguarding to deliver more timely justice for victims. This coordinated approach is key to breaking cycles of abuse, securing prosecutions, and ensuring that victims are heard, protected, and supported throughout the justice process.
The focused work within the DA JJP has already had a positive impact on most CPS performance metrics. For example, referral volumes from police to CPS have increased by 14% since the DA JJP was launched. Charging pilots have also been launched to improve timeliness, with national rollout set for the end of 2025.
The forthcoming CPS VAWG Strategy, due for publication later this year, recognises the link between DA and VAWG related offending. Through the strategy, the CPS will further strengthen its response to DA through updated prosecution guidance, enhanced training modules and an improved services to victims of DA.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 the impact of chronic respiratory conditions on the NHS in winter 2025-26.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England, working with the Department, the UK Health Security Agency, and other partners, is taking action to reduce the impact of respiratory conditions on the National Health Service this winter. This includes robust, consistent infection prevention and control measures, and a campaign to encourage eligible people to get their winter vaccinations. Further information on the actions being taken to reduce the demand on acute services during winter is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/urgent-and-emergency-care-plan-2025-26/
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
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 help ensure that people with liver (b) cirrhosis, (b) advanced liver disease and (c) those at high risk of liver cancer receive systematic (i) surveillance and (ii) early diagnosis.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of a program to transform liver disease outcomes we will work with partners, including the British Liver Trust, to raise awareness and address the stigma related to hazardous and harmful levels of alcohol use, obesity, and viral hepatitis, which are key drivers of liver disease.
We will improve early detection of liver disease by developing best practice diagnostic pathways for primary care with agreed common referral thresholds. This includes exploring innovative approaches to increasing early detection, such as Intelligent Liver Function Testing, and improving access to treatments for liver disease, thereby tackling health inequalities in relation to access, uptake, patient experience, and outcomes.
We will continue to reach out to the communities that are worst affected by liver disease through the Community Liver Health Checks programme to proactively identify people with undiagnosed liver disease, who are suitable for liver cancer surveillance. The number of mobile liver scanning teams has almost doubled in the last two years. Over 100,000 people have had a fibroscan of their liver, and over 8,000 have been referred on for vital liver cancer checks since the programme began.
My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has announced that a National Cancer Plan for England will be published in the new year. It will seek to improve every aspect of cancer care to better the experiences and outcomes for people with cancer, including for liver cancer. Our goal is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer over the next 10 years.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to launch public awareness campaigns to promote earlier recognition of (a) liver disease and (b) liver cancer symptoms.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Awareness of liver disease can be raised by providing information to the public and by supporting health and care professionals to discuss liver disease with their patients. The NHS.UK website provides the public with essential information on the types of liver disease, their possible causes, symptoms, treatment, and prevention. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/liver-disease/
NHS England runs Help Us Help You campaigns in England to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner. The campaigns focus on a range of symptoms, as well as encouraging body awareness, to help people spot symptoms across a wide range of cancers at an earlier point, including abdominal cancers.
NHS England and other National Health Service organisations, nationally and locally, publish information on the signs and symptoms of many different types of cancer, including liver cancer. This information can be found at sources like the NHS.UK website, which is available at the following link:
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many and what proportion of pollution incidents did the Environment Agency attend in each of the last three years.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency (EA) responds to approximately 15,000 environmental incidents every year. Environmental incidents include environment management (pollution), waterways, fisheries, and water resources incidents. For each reported incident they assess the risk and likely impact and then respond accordingly.
Not all incidents reported result in site attendance, a response can be provision of advice and guidance remotely. The EA seeks to attend all serious pollution incidents (Category 1 and 2) which pose a significant risk to people or wildlife, and those incidents which could escalate to cause more serious impacts.
For example, in 2024, The EA attended 53 of 74 (72%) category 1 and 2 water industry incidents.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of a right to request workplace modifications for employees not covered under the duty to make reasonable adjustments established in the Equality Act 2010.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This Department has made no such assessment.
Reasonable adjustments are changes an employer makes to remove or reduce a disadvantage related to someone's disability. All employers have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ in the workplace where a disabled employee, would otherwise be put at a substantial disadvantage compared with their colleagues. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is responsible for enforcing the Equality Act and providing guidance on reasonable adjustments.
Employers have a key role to play in supporting workers with long term health conditions or disabilities in the workplace. DWP's current offer to employers includes a digital information service, www.support-with-employee-health-and-disability.dwp.gov.uk/ which provides tailored guidance to businesses to support employees to remain in work. This includes guidance on health disclosures and having conversations about health, plus guidance on legal obligations, including statutory sick pay and making reasonable adjustments.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of stipulating that GP practices only receive the uplift to the Global Sum if that funding is passed onto employees.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
General practices (GP) are independent businesses, contracted to provide National Health Services. Every year we consult the profession regarding what services GPs will provide and the funding they will receive in return for these services.
We are investing an additional £1.1 billion in GPs to reinforce the front door of the NHS, bringing total spend on the GP Contract to £13.4 billion in 2025/26, the biggest cash increase in over a decade.
The independent review body on Doctors’ and Dentists’ Remuneration (DDRB) recommended an uplift of 4% to the pay ranges for salaried GPs, and to GP contractor pay. As with last year, we have accepted the DDRB’s pay recommendation and have uplifted the pay elements of the GP Contract by 4% on a consolidated basis, an increase of 1.2% on top of the 2.8% interim uplift in April.
Funding for these awards will be backdated to April 2025. We expect GP contractors to implement pay rises to other GP staff in line with the uplift in funding they are receiving. As self-employed contractors to the NHS, it is for GPs to determine uplifts in pay for their employees.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking to increase support for victims of domestic abuse.
Answered by Alex Davies-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is absolutely committed to tackling domestic abuse and halving violence against women and girls in a decade. We are strengthening protections for victims, improving law enforcement responses, and ensuring perpetrators are held to account.
The 42 Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales receive annual grant funding from the Ministry of Justice to commission local practical, emotional, and therapeutic support services for victims. This includes ‘core’ funding for victims of all crime types and funding that is ring-fenced for domestic abuse and sexual violence services. For 2025/26, we protected dedicated VAWG victims spending in the department by maintaining 2024-25 funding levels for ringfenced sexual violence and domestic abuse support. Funding after March 2026 will be agreed through the allocations process which follows on the latest Spending Review, and we are unable to pre-empt the outcome of this.
Alongside this, we have committed to a range of measures which will support domestic abuse victims, including piloting the Domestic Abuse Protection Order and expanding the use of Domestic Abuse Specialist Courts, where trained staff support victims and agencies work together to drive better outcomes, as recommended by the Independent Sentencing Review. We are also introducing a new judicial finding of domestic abuse at sentencing, which will help ensure domestic abuse offenders are better identified and monitored throughout the system. This will support stronger protections for victims, whether the perpetrator is in custody or in the community.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking in response to the findings by Together for Short Lives in their report entitled The State of Children’s Palliative Care 2025.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Children and young people’s hospices do incredible work to support seriously ill children and their families and loved ones when they need it most, and we recognise the incredibly tough pressures they are facing.
We are providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which, until recently, was known as the Children’s Hospice Grant.
I can also now confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the three years of the next spending review period, 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This funding will see circa £26 million, adjusted for inflation, allocated to children’s and young people’s hospices in England each year, via their local ICBs on behalf of NHS England, as happened in 2024/25 and 2025/26. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
This revenue funding is intended to be spent by hospices to provide high-quality care and support for the children and the families they care for, either in the hospice or in the community, including in children's homes. They can, for example, use this funding for providing respite care for children who have high health needs, by providing physiotherapy or occupational therapy, or by providing 24/7 nursing support for a child at the end of their life.
We are also supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.
Asked by: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to introduce multi-year funding settlements for children’s hospices.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Children and young people’s hospices do incredible work to support seriously ill children and their families and loved ones when they need it most, and we recognise the incredibly tough pressures they are facing.
We are providing £26 million in revenue funding to support children and young people’s hospices for 2025/26. This is a continuation of the funding which, until recently, was known as the Children’s Hospice Grant.
I can also now confirm the continuation of this vital funding for the three years of the next spending review period, 2026/27 to 2028/29 inclusive. This funding will see circa £26 million, adjusted for inflation, allocated to children’s and young people’s hospices in England each year, via their local ICBs on behalf of NHS England, as happened in 2024/25 and 2025/26. This amounts to approximately £80 million over the next three years.
This revenue funding is intended to be spent by hospices to provide high-quality care and support for the children and the families they care for, either in the hospice or in the community, including in children's homes. They can, for example, use this funding for providing respite care for children who have high health needs, by providing physiotherapy or occupational therapy, or by providing 24/7 nursing support for a child at the end of their life.
We are also supporting the hospice sector with a £100 million capital funding boost for eligible adult and children’s hospices in England to ensure they have the best physical environment for care.