Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what plans his Department has to increase the number of homes built on brownfield land.
Answered by Lee Rowley
We are absolutely committed to building more houses in the right places – that is why we are prioritising brownfield sites in our towns and cities that already have the infrastructure in place to support households.
We have set out our intention to introduce a ‘presumption in favour of brownfield development’ to make it harder to block building on brownfield sites. We are currently consulting on this and will report back in due course.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Government is taking steps to help support the UK steel industry to decarbonise; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Net Zero Strategy, published on 19 October 2021, reaffirms the Government’s commitment to work with the steel industry on decarbonisation and to consider the implications of the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee: to ‘set targets for ore-based steelmaking to reach near-zero emissions by 2035’.
BEIS continues to work with companies, who are developing their own decarbonisation strategies, to understand the trajectories of their plans and to support them as they make commercial decisions on the optimum route for their sites.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average response time is for correspondence on immigration cases from hon. Members to the Home Office; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Kevin Foster
The Department works to a target of responding to 95% of Hon. Members written correspondence within 20 working days.
Performance has been impacted by a significant increase in the volume of correspondence received, including the unprecedented amount of correspondence about the situation in Afghanistan and more recently in Ukraine.
The Department continues to prioritise enquiries related to Ukraine and recognises it has not been able to meet service standard in other cases. An action plan has been implemented to clear backlogs and drive-up performance. MPs can escalate urgent and compassionate cases via the team at Portcullis House.
The Department continues to recruit additional resources and has recently been loaned staff from non-operational areas to assist in clearing the backlogs. A detailed recovery plan to support a return to an acceptable service standard is being prepared.
Data about intake and performance in answering Hon. Members correspondence are published quarterly with the latest Quarter available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/customer-service-operations-data-q1-2022
We do not publish average waiting times for substantive responses to correspondence.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with representatives of the social care sector on testing requirements for visitors to care homes after the ending of free covid-19 tests on 1 April 2022; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The Department has regular meetings with stakeholders and senior sector representatives to discuss a range of issues related to adult social care, including visitor testing. The testing regimes for adult social care after 1 April 2022 are currently under review. Further details will be provided shortly.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what statutory responsibilities local authorities have for maintaining grass verges.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
Local highway authorities have a duty under Section 41 of the Highways Act 1980, as amended, to maintain the highways network for which they are responsible, including highway grass verges.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent progress he has made on reducing rates of reoffending.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
This Government is committed to reducing crime and protecting the public by tackling reoffending. Over the last 10 years, there has been a broad decline in overall reoffending rates. We will invest £200 million a year by 2024-25 to further reduce reoffending and cut crime.
We will improve prison leaver’s access to accommodation by providing temporary accommodation for prison leavers through our new Community Accommodation Service.
Our Prisoner Education Service will focus on improving numeracy, literacy and the qualifications that increase prisoners’ prospects of finding work on their release. There are now 23 Employment Hubs, ‘job-centres in a prison’, that are directly supporting prisoners into jobs on release.
We will also introduce new personalised Resettlement Passports, bringing together the key information and services that an individual needs to resettle into society.
Our reforms to the Probation Service, supported by additional annual funding of £155 million, will help reduce reoffending through robust supervision, tougher community sentences, improved local partnership working and delivery of rehabilitative services.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans he has to provide financial support for businesses affected by covid-19 restrictions announced by Government on 8 December 2021.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Plan B has been designed to help control the virus’s spread while avoiding unduly damaging economic and social restrictions. Throughout the pandemic, the Government has demonstrated that it can respond proportionately to the changing path of the virus, and will continue to do so. The Government has a strong track record of responding quickly, flexibly and comprehensively in supporting jobs, businesses, individuals and families if needed.
As part of our £400bn package of support, businesses will continue to receive considerable support into the spring of next year. Small and medium-sized businesses can access Government-guaranteed finance through the extended Recovery Loans scheme until next June. Businesses will be protected from eviction if they are behind on rent on their premises, thanks to the moratorium in place until March 2022. Where applicable, businesses can also continue to apply for the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) scheme through their local authority, which is open until March 2022.
For the sectors who were hardest hit by previous restrictions and may need additional support, there is further support in place. Business rates relief for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure businesses in England is available until March 2022, and hospitality and tourism businesses will continue to benefit from a VAT reduction – paying only 12.5% until March 2022. The arts and culture sector can still access support from the £2 billion Culture Recovery Fund and Sports Recovery Package, and the Film and TV Production Restart Scheme, which is in place until 30 April 2022. While the £800m Live Events Reinsurance Scheme is giving events across the country the confidence needed for organisers to plan for the future.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support is available for full-time further education students seeking apprenticeship opportunities.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Apprenticeships provide people with the opportunity to earn and learn the skills needed to start an exciting career in a wide range of industries, everything from artificial intelligence, archaeology, data science, business management, and banking. We want more young people to benefit from high-quality apprenticeships.
To encourage more young people to consider apprenticeships, we are promoting apprenticeships in schools and colleges through our Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge programme. This free service provides resources and interventions to help better educate young people about apprenticeships and has reached over 600,000 students across England in the 2020/21 academic year.
In the ‘Skills for Jobs’ White Paper, published in January 2021, we announced the introduction of a three-point-plan to enforce provider access legislation. This requires that all maintained schools and academies provide opportunities for providers of technical education and apprenticeships to visit schools to talk to all year 8-13 pupils. This plan includes creating clear minimum legal requirements, specifying who is to be given access to which pupils and when. This is an important step towards real choice for every pupil.
We are introducing a range of measures to incentivise schools and colleges to prioritise careers guidance and hold them to account for the quality of their careers programmes. In addition to a strong statutory framework, this includes tougher enforcement and an Ofsted review of provision. To build a whole-school or whole-college approach, we will build careers awareness into every stage of teacher professional development and embed careers education into the secondary curriculum.
The National Careers Service, a free, government-funded careers information, advice and guidance service draws on a range of labour market information to support and guide individuals. The National Careers Service is impartial, and careers guidance is tailored to individual needs. Young people aged 13 to 18 can access ongoing in-depth information, advice and guidance from the service via local telephone-based advisers or the National Careers Service website.
The department offers guidance and support to young people who are considering applying for apprenticeships through our apprenticeships.gov.uk website, which explains the application stages in a step-by-step process. Students can search for new apprenticeship opportunities on our Find an Apprenticeship (FAA) service; over 15,000 apprenticeship vacancies were advertised on FAA in October 2021.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
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 ease covid-19 visiting restrictions in NHS hospitals over the Christmas and New Year period.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
We recognise the importance of being able to visit family, friends and loved ones in hospital, including over the Christmas and New Year period. Since the end of the national restrictions, hospital visiting is subject to local discretion by trusts and other National Health Service bodies, taking into account the local prevalence of COVID-19 and the health, safety and wellbeing of patients, communities and staff.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the impact of the rise in the price of magnesium and supply issues on the aluminium extrusion industry in the UK; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lee Rowley
This is a global issue initiated by a reduction in Chinese magnesium production. The Government is monitoring the situation. At present there are no reported disruptions to the aluminium sector or supply chains.
As part of the work to develop a strategy on Critical Minerals, the Government will establish an Expert Committee on critical minerals. This committee will provide high quality, independent and well-considered advice to the Government on technology-critical minerals and metals priorities, including magnesium.