Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 29 April to Question 20692 on food labelling, what his timescale is for a decision on (a) next steps and (b) responding to the consultation.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A public consultation on fairer food labelling was undertaken last year by the previous Government.
We are now carefully considering all responses to the consultation before deciding on next steps. We recognise that this is an important matter and will respond to this consultation as soon as we are able to.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to extend the Nursery Milk Scheme entitlement to the end of the academic year in which a child turns five.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Nursery Milk Scheme is a statutory scheme which allows early years childcare settings to reclaim the cost of providing one-third of a pint of milk per day to children under the age of five who attend a setting for two or more hours per day. Schools can claim reimbursement from the scheme in respect of their pupils aged under five years old.
There are no plans to extend eligibility for the Nursery Milk Scheme to cover children until the end of the academic year, during which they reach their fifth birthday. Separate legislation allows pupils from lower-income families, and who are eligible for free school meals, to continue to receive free milk at school after the age of five years old.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of NHS hospital trusts unable to deliver comprehensive eyecare services to (a) adults and (b) children.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Integrated care boards are responsible for commissioning secondary eye care services to meet local population need. Appropriate levels of staffing are decided by local system workforce planning.
We recognise the challenges facing secondary eye care services. NHS England has been testing how IT connectivity can improve the triage and referral of patients between primary and secondary care, and how to allow more patients to be managed in the community, increasing secondary eye care capacity.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of patients to have undergone NHS cataract surgery in private clinics in each of the last six years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the number of patients who have undergone National Health Service cataract surgery in private clinics in each of the last six years:
Year | Independent provider total | Difference | ||
Admissions | Patients | Admissions | Patients | |
2017/18 | 75,096 | 57,676 | - | - |
2018/19 | 101,609 | 77,652 | 26,513 | 19,976 |
2019/20 | 132,980 | 100,815 | 31,371 | 23,163 |
2020/21 | 99,185 | 77,982 | 33,795 | 22,833 |
2021/22 | 230,717 | 175,985 | 131,532 | 98,003 |
2022/23 | 373,252 | 276,175 | 142,535 | 100,190 |
2023/24 | 457,714 | 327,121 | 84,462 | 50,946 |
2024/25 | 377,265 | 267,011 | 80,449 | 60,110 |
Source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS England.
Note: the data for 2024/25 is provisional as counts produced from provisional data are likely to be lower than those generated for the same period in the final data set.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if his Department will launch a consultation on the (a) production, (b) import and (c) sales of eggs from caged hens.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We remain firmly committed to maintaining and improving animal welfare and want to work closely with the farming sector to deliver high standards.
The use of cages for laying hens is an issue which we are currently considering very carefully.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the quality of lenses used by private providers of NHS cataract surgery.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
No assessment has been made of the quality of lenses used by private providers of National Health Service cataract surgery.
The safety of all patients, whether they are treated in the NHS or the independent sector, is a top priority for the Government. All providers of healthcare are regulated by the Care Quality Commission and follow a set of fundamental standards of safety and quality, below which care should never fall.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number and proportion of patients who have received NHS cataract surgery in private clinics and have then been re-admitted post-surgery to NHS providers in each of the last six years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
A table showing the number and proportion of patients who received National Health Service cataract surgery in private clinics, who were then re-admitted post-surgery to NHS providers in each of the last six years, is attached.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of people waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment for (a) wet macular degeneration and (b) glaucoma in (i) England, (ii) Merseyside and (iii) Liverpool.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The classification codes required to identify pathways where patients may have glaucoma or macular degeneration do not allow for distinction between the two conditions. The following table provides an estimate of the number of patients who have been waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment specifically for wet macular degeneration and glaucoma in England, Merseyside, and Liverpool, via the latter’s integrated care boards (ICBs), as a snapshot for the week ending 27 April 2025, extracted on 8 May 2025:
Condition | England | Cheshire and Merseyside ICB | NHS Liverpool Sub ICB |
Glaucoma or macular degeneration | 782 | 41 | 2 |
Source: Waiting List Minimum Data Set, NHS England.
However, these figures may include patients that also have other conditions, as full coding for glaucoma and macular degeneration procedures requires diagnostic codes that are not available in the Waiting List Minimum Data Set.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
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 the effectiveness of his policy on arms trade with Israel.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
In September 2024, we took decisive action, suspending licences for the Israeli Defence Forces that might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. We have maintained the suspension and assess there are no export licences currently being used for military operations in Gaza. This is subject to the specific measures taken with respect to the global F-35 programme.
Asked by: Ian Byrne (Labour - Liverpool West Derby)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timeline is to ban the import of foie gras.
Answered by Daniel Zeichner - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government shares the British public's high regard for animal welfare and has made clear that the production of foie gras from ducks or geese using force feeding raises serious welfare concerns.
We have been clear that we will use our Trade Strategy to promote the highest food production standards.