Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will provide a timetable for her consultation on the British Industry Supercharger.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
On 23 February 2023 it was announced that as part of the British Industry Supercharger, the Government will bring forward a consultation on its measures this coming spring. A specific date will be made clear in due course.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to maintain the accuracy of EPC ratings.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Government continues to keep the effectiveness of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) under review.
The EPC Action Plan sets out a programme of work to improve the accuracy of EPCs. This includes reviewing the underlying calculation methodology and working with the EPC assessor accreditation schemes to strengthen the arrangements for auditing assessors and their training.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will publish a timetable for the introduction of the Accessible Information Regulations for buses in England.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
We plan to require the provision of audible and visible information on local bus and coach services across Great Britain and intend to introduce the Accessible Information Regulations shortly.
We have no plans to publish a timetable prior to introducing these Regulations.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Spring Budget 2023, HC1183, published on 15 March 2023, if he will publish a timetable for the digitisation of the NHS Health Check.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Digital NHS Health Check will be an innovative national tool that aims to increase participation in the cardiovascular disease prevention service. The Department is in the process of procuring the Alpha Phase of the Digital NHS Health Check which will focus on testing different ideas and solutions, such as the approach to biometric testing, how to invite eligible individuals and feed results back. We are working towards a live version of the digital health check being available in Spring 2024.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether his Department is taking steps to reduce the cost of renting for (a) private and (b) social tenants.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
Reforming the private rented sector remains a top priority for this Government, and we will bring forward legislation as soon as we can within this Parliament. Our White Paper, 'A Fairer Private Rented Sector', published in June 2022, sets out our plans to end arbitrary rent review clauses, only allow one rent increase per year, improve tenants' ability to challenge excessive rent increases through the First-Tier Tribunal, and enable tenants to be repaid rent for non-decent homes.
At Autumn Statement 2022, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the social housing rent cap would be set at 7% for 2023-24. The cap was set at 7% as it strikes an appropriate balance between protecting social tenants from high rent increases and ensuring that Registered Providers of social housing are able to continue to invest in new and existing social housing and provide decent homes and services to tenants.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to roll out audio-visual passenger information on buses in England.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
We have required buses funded through the government’s Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme to provide audible and visible information as standard.
We also plan to require the provision of audible and visible information on local bus and coach services across Great Britain, and intend to introduce the Accessible Information Regulations shortly.
We have allocated £3.55m to the Real Time Information Group, who will be supporting small operators with the upfront costs of the planned Regulations.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
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 reduce waiting lists for autism assessments in England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
We expect integrated care boards to have due regard to relevant best practice guidelines when commissioning services, including for autism assessments. The waiting time standard recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is for a maximum waiting time of 13 weeks between a referral for an autism assessment and a first appointment.
NHS England are developing a national framework to set out the process of how children, young people and adults might receive a diagnostic assessment of autism. The aim of this work is to improve access to and the quality of these diagnostic processes and reduce waiting times. The framework will be published in due course.
Building on the 2021/22 investment of £13 million, through the NHS Long Term Plan and COVID-19 Mental Health Recovery Plan, we are investing £2.5 million in 2022/23 to support local areas with improvements in autism assessment pathways.
We are also investing £600,000 into expanding an autism early identification pilot to at least a hundred schools in the Bradford area over five years. This programme will help with the early identification of neurodivergent children.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
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 increase the number of dental training places in (a) England and (b) East of England.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The Government trains around 800 dentists per year but the cap on dental school places was temporarily lifted for students who completed A-Levels in 2020 and in 2021 and who had an offer from a university in England to study dentistry, subject to their grades. As a result, 895 dental students entered training in 2020 and 980 dental students entered training in 2021 helping ensure a larger potential pipeline for dentists in coming years, including in the East of England
The Government funded extra 19 dental specialty posts in 2022/23. Additional Dental Specialty Training posts are being targeted to high needs specialties and geographies to seek to improve dental training distribution, including in the East of England.
The Government has committed to publishing a workforce plan this year and this will include independently verified projections for the number of doctors, nurses and other professionals that will be needed in 5-, 10- and 15-years’ time, taking full account of improvements in retention and productivity. The workforce plan is for the whole of the NHS workforce, including dental care professionals.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of potential recent expansions of Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal.
Answered by David Rutley - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
It is the longstanding policy of successive British Governments that we do not comment on intelligence matters. The UK Government closely follows the security situation in the Middle East and maintains a regular dialogue with international counterparts on this.
Asked by: Holly Mumby-Croft (Conservative - Scunthorpe)
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 increase the number of dentists with NHS activity in the Humber and North Yorkshire integrated care board.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
In September 2022, we announced ‘Our plan for patients’, which outlines how we will meet oral health needs and increase access to dental care, including in the Humber and North Yorkshire. These will increase access to National Health Service dentistry by adults and children, whilst making the NHS dental contract more attractive to dental practices.
We have taken action to implement these changes, including through regulations that came into effect on 25 November 2022.
NHS England is holding further discussions with the British Dental Association and other stakeholders for additional reforms of the NHS Dental System planned to take place in 2023.