Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Helen Whately and Martin Vickers(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Helen Whately
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The growth of tourism is really important as part of the wider economic growth of the country, and I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman to talk about his proposal.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The designation of Immingham and Grimsby as part of the Humber ports freeport project highlights the need for increased infrastructure on the road network leading to those ports. Will the Minister agree to meet me and neighbouring MPs to discuss this, and particularly an upgrade for the A180?
Helen Whately
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the upgrade to that road. As I have said, we know that infrastructure is really important in supporting economic growth and levelling up all around the UK.
Social Care Reform
Debate between Helen Whately and Martin Vickers(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Helen Whately
The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point about respite for carers. Being a carer is hard and back-up support and respite services help make it more possible, but frustratingly, during the pandemic many of those services have not been able to function as normal. I am currently working with Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government Ministers to help local authorities across England ensure that day services and respite care are fully restarted as that is very important, and I would like to see that across the whole of the UK.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I appreciate this is very difficult for the Minister, because until we actually know what the Government’s proposals are, she is answering questions based on assumptions and guesswork, but she will know that the main concerns of families are twofold: that they get adequate care; and that they will not have to sell their family home to provide that care. What assurance can she give that the Government will take into account the fact that people want to hold on to their family home? On the assumption that the value of assets will play some part in whatever formula we come up with, what account will be taken of the vast difference in prices of property in London compared with, for example, Cleethorpes?
Helen Whately
I hope my hon. Friend will forgive me if I am not drawn on the assumption point that he made in the second part of his question, but what I can say to him is that the Prime Minister has been clear that he wants a social care system where no one needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Helen Whately and Martin Vickers(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Helen Whately
We are indeed determined to support social care, and particularly the care homes, with repeat, regular testing. As the hon. Member knows, because we have spoken about it, there has been a delay with our repeat testing of care homes because of a particular issue with some of the test kits. That was communicated to her and to the sector. As I said in my previous answer, we have now been able to offer repeat testing to all care homes for older people, to open up the portal to those care homes with working age adults as residents, and to initiate our second round of repeat testing for the older sector.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)