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, if he will extend vaccination sites to hospitality and sports venues that are closed under covid-19 restrictions.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We are grateful for the offers from businesses up and down the country, including supermarkets and sporting arenas, to use their venues as vaccination centres. NHS England and NHS Improvement have been working to identify partners and work with those whose facilities have been identified as suitable. NHS England and NHS Improvement are ensuring that all offers are appropriately considered, alongside local leaders, including from local authorities, to understand potential partnerships that build on the existing network.
We have many partnerships already in place. Seven large scale vaccination centres opened on 11 January, a further ten opened on 18 January and over 30 opened on 25 January. The centres offer an alternative to general practice and hospital services and can each deliver thousands of vaccinations every week. The initial sites were chosen from those ready to vaccinate large numbers of people quickly to give a geographical spread covering as many people as possible.
Currently, in England, 96% of the population is within 10 miles of a vaccine service and by the end of January, everyone will live within 10 miles of a vaccination service. In a small number of highly rural areas, the vaccination centre will be a mobile unit. Regularly updated data on the locations of hospital hubs and local vaccination services is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/hospital-hubs-and-local-vaccination-services/
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 local authorities on the use of community buildings for covid-19 vaccinations clinics; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
We are grateful for the offers from businesses up and down the country, including supermarkets and sporting arenas, to use their venues as vaccination centres. NHS England and NHS Improvement have been working to identify partners and work with those whose facilities have been identified as suitable. NHS England and NHS Improvement are ensuring that all offers are appropriately considered, alongside local leaders, including from local authorities, to understand potential partnerships that build on the existing network.
We have many partnerships already in place. Seven large scale vaccination centres opened on 11 January, a further ten opened on 18 January and over 30 opened on 25 January. The centres offer an alternative to general practice and hospital services and can each deliver thousands of vaccinations every week. The initial sites were chosen from those ready to vaccinate large numbers of people quickly to give a geographical spread covering as many people as possible.
Currently, in England, 96% of the population is within 10 miles of a vaccine service and by the end of January, everyone will live within 10 miles of a vaccination service. In a small number of highly rural areas, the vaccination centre will be a mobile unit. Regularly updated data on the locations of hospital hubs and local vaccination services is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/hospital-hubs-and-local-vaccination-services/
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 his policy is on reopening covid-secure hospitality venues once the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation's priority groups one to four have been vaccinated.
Answered by Paul Scully
As my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, we intend to publish our plan for taking the country out of lockdown in the last week of February. That plan will depend on the continued success of our vaccination programme, and on deaths falling at the pace we would expect as more people are inoculated.
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 local authorities on the use of civic buildings for the covid-19 vaccination rollout.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The identification of appropriate venues for the delivery of COVID-19 vaccinations has been led locally by the National Health Service, working with partners including local authorities and local resilience forums. In many cases, this does or will include local authority owned or operated facilities. The Department for Health and Social Care, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and NHS England and NHS Improvement are in regular contact with the Local Government Association and other relevant groups to ensure local authorities have the information they need to support the vaccine programme, as well as to feed back any issues or improvements that could be made.
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 restrictions in local authority areas as covid-19 vaccinations are rolled out.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
We will keep the restrictions under review with a statutory review required every two weeks. We anticipate the current restrictions will be needed until at least mid-February.
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 steps he is taking to roll out mass covid-19 testing in (a) Wolverhampton and (b) Tier 3 areas.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
On 12 December it was confirmed that Wolverhampton is amongst the first 67 local authorities to begin enhanced testing support via the Community Testing Programme.
On 10 January, we announced that regular testing for people without symptoms of COVID-19 will be made available across the country, with the eligibility of the community testing programme expanded to cover all 317 local authorities.
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 reopen the Nightingale hospital in Birmingham for patients with covid-19.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
The NHS Nightingale hospital in Birmingham stands ready to provide support to local services and accept patients if needed based on local clinical advice.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the July 2020 stamp duty holiday on the housing market; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The SDLT holiday was designed to create an immediate boost in housing transactions. In April 2020, during the peak of the first lockdown, transactions fell by more than 50% on the month before.
The number of property transactions has increased each month since then and, according to the latest data from HMRC, in November 2020 there were 13% more transactions than in November 2019.
Officials are monitoring the housing market closely.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to roll out lateral flow tests to childminders and early years settings.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department is continuing to work closely with other government departments and local authorities to secure the most effective approach to asymptomatic testing for the whole of the early years sector. This includes ongoing discussions about providing testing via the education testing programme as well as strongly encouraging local authorities to prioritise appropriate testing for early years staff via Community Testing programmes, which now covers all local authorities. Many local authorities’ Community Testing programmes are already underway for early years staff to access asymptomatic testing where appropriate.
The Department is rolling out our asymptomatic testing programme to primary schools, schools-based nurseries and maintained nursery schools who will receive testing kits for staff from Monday 18th January. The asymptomatic testing programme will offer all primary school, schools-based nursery and maintained nursery school staff home Lateral Flow Device test kits for twice weekly testing. This will help to break the chains of transmission of COVID-19 in primary schools and nurseries by identifying asymptomatic positive cases. Those who test positive will then self-isolate, helping to reduce transmission of the virus.
Asked by: Jane Stevenson (Conservative - Wolverhampton North East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to mitigate the effect of state pension age changes on women born in the 1950s; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Guy Opperman
Since 1995, successive Governments have taken the same approach to this issue. The reforms have focused on maintaining the right balance between the sustainability of the State Pension, fairness between generations and affordability for the taxpayer who funds on-going State Pension.
The welfare system continues to provide a strong safety net for those who cannot work.