Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to support a funded pilot project aimed to create a national blueprint for the provision of Autism Assistance Dogs.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Department of Health and Social Care has no current plans to fund a pilot project aimed to create a national blueprint for the provision of Autism Assistance Dogs.
It is for local commissioners to ensure that the appropriate provision is available to meet the health and care needs of the local population, including considering whether they provide Autism Assistance Dogs as part of their provision. NHS England is developing a framework of best practice to assist commissioners to improve outcomes for autistic people.
Integrated care boards and National Health Service trusts should have due regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines ‘Autism spectrum disorder in under 19s: support and management’ and ‘Autism spectrum disorder in adults: diagnosis and management’. These evidenced guidelines set out how health and social care professionals can provide support for autistic people.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans he has to reduce health inequalities.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
No decisions have been taken in relation to the Health Disparities White Paper.
The Department continues to review how health disparities can be addressed and further information will be available in due course.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made of the potential impact on local communities of the projects funded through the latest tranche of awards from the (a) Levelling Up Fund and (b) Community Ownership Fund.
Answered by Michael Gove
The Levelling Up Fund considers the impact of projects in local communities, by looking at how strongly each bid aligns and supports local need.
The Community Ownership Fund considers the impact of projects in local communities by assessing how an asset under community ownership will deliver benefits to a local community and bolster pride of place.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he plans to take to ensure that people who own electric cars but do not have access to off-street parking will be able to charge their vehicles at home.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Government is supporting local authorities to deploy chargepoints for their residents without access to off-street parking to ensure this is not a barrier to drivers being able to realise the benefits of owning an EV. The On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is available to all UK local authorities, and has so far awarded funding to over 135 different local authorities, to install over 5,000 chargepoints. This year, £20 million is available under this scheme to ensure more local authorities and residents can benefit from the scheme.
A new Local EV Infrastructure fund will be made available to local authorities later in the 2022-23 financial year, which will facilitate the rollout of larger-scale chargepoint infrastructure projects across England.
Drivers without off-street parking at home can also take advantage of the Workplace Charging Scheme, which provides Government support of up to £350 towards the cost of installing a charge point socket for staff and fleet use, with a maximum of 40 sockets available per business. To date over 8,000 businesses have used this scheme to install over 19,000 chargepoint sockets. There are a growing number of solutions for drivers without private parking, such as initiatives like community charging, where those with personal chargepoints can share access with other residents.
The Government’s forthcoming EV Infrastructure Strategy will define our vision for the continued roll-out of a world-leading charging infrastructure network across the UK. The strategy will focus on how we will unlock the chargepoint rollout needed to enable the transition from early adoption to mass market uptake of EVs. We will set out our next steps to address barriers to private investment, and level up charge point provision. The strategy will clearly establish Government’s expectations for the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders in the planning and deployment of charging infrastructure alongside how we will intervene to address the gaps between the current market status and our vision, and how we will monitor progress.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
What steps he is taking to increase pay for low-paid workers.
Answered by Paul Scully
In April 2022, we will increase the National Living Wage by 59p to £9.50. This puts us back on track for it to reach two-thirds of median earnings by 2024. The minimum wage increases are expected to benefit two and a half million workers across the UK next year.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Scotland Office:
What recent progress the Government has made on establishing the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Answered by Alister Jack
From 2022, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund will target the people and places most in need, and we will publish our prospectus in due course.
This will complement work already underway on the Levelling Up Fund, Community Renewal Fund and Community Ownership Fund where applications are currently being considered.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to increase the availability of high quality social housing including (a) bungalows for pensioners and (b) homes for young families.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
The Government is committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing and is investing over £12 billion in affordable housing over 5 years, the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade. This includes the new £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme, which will leverage up to £38 billion of private finance and will provide up to 180,000 new affordable homes across the country, should economic conditions allow.
Around half of the new programme will be for social and affordable rent, and it will deliver more than double for social rent than the current programme. 10% of delivery will be used to increase the supply of much needed specialist or supported housing, including housing for older people.
We will also be using the new Affordable Homes Programme to fund a First Homes pilot of 1500 homes. The First Homes scheme will help local first-time buyers onto the property ladder by offering homes at a discount of at least 30% compared to the market price. That same percentage will then be passed on with the sale of the property to future first-time buyers, meaning homes will always be sold below market value, benefiting future generations. On 4 June, we launched the first phase with further sites set to launch across the country in the coming weeks.
Whilst we do not set requirements for the types of affordable housing that are delivered, Registered Providers work closely with local authorities to ensure that delivery meets local housing need.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Department is taking to support students experiencing financial difficulty who wish to undertake an unpaid placement year at university.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The government recognises that this academic year has been incredibly difficult for students. As a result of these exceptional circumstances, some students are facing financial hardship. Students experiencing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19 or for other reasons should contact their higher education (HE) provider.
We have made an additional £85 million of student hardship funding available to HE providers in the 2020/21 academic year. Providers have flexibility in how they distribute the funding to their students, in a way that best prioritises those in greatest need.
This is in addition to the £256 million of government-funded student premium funding already available to HE providers to draw on towards student hardship funds for the 2020/21 academic year.
We know that not all students will face financial hardship. The current measures aim to target support for students in greatest need and the government continues to monitor the situation to look at what impact this funding is having.
Undergraduate students undertaking work placement years with private employers receive a reduced-rate non-means tested loan for living costs from Student Finance England, on the expectation that the private employer who benefits from the student’s work should provide support for the student rather than the taxpayer.
The government, however, makes an exception for many work placements in the public sector by making available the full-rate partially means-tested loan for living costs package to encourage students to gain work experience in these areas. This ensures that low-income students undertaking working placements in the public sector receive targeted support through the student support system.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has been made of the effect of the increase in students undertaking unpaid work placement years.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The government recognises that this academic year has been incredibly difficult for students. As a result of these exceptional circumstances, some students are facing financial hardship. Students experiencing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19 or for other reasons should contact their higher education (HE) provider.
We have made an additional £85 million of student hardship funding available to HE providers in the 2020/21 academic year. Providers have flexibility in how they distribute the funding to their students, in a way that best prioritises those in greatest need.
This is in addition to the £256 million of government-funded student premium funding already available to HE providers to draw on towards student hardship funds for the 2020/21 academic year.
We know that not all students will face financial hardship. The current measures aim to target support for students in greatest need and the government continues to monitor the situation to look at what impact this funding is having.
Undergraduate students undertaking work placement years with private employers receive a reduced-rate non-means tested loan for living costs from Student Finance England, on the expectation that the private employer who benefits from the student’s work should provide support for the student rather than the taxpayer.
The government, however, makes an exception for many work placements in the public sector by making available the full-rate partially means-tested loan for living costs package to encourage students to gain work experience in these areas. This ensures that low-income students undertaking working placements in the public sector receive targeted support through the student support system.
Asked by: James Grundy (Conservative - Leigh)
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 financial effect of the fallow times required between dentistry appointments on a dentist's total funding from the Government, in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Jo Churchill
No such assessment has been made.