Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether Simon Blagden's status as a Conservative Party donor was taken into account as part of the appointment process for his roles at (a) Building Digital UK, (b) UK Health Security Agency and (c) the Trade Advisory Group for telecoms and technology.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
For all appointments, a declaration of interests is recorded and due diligence conducted on appointees. These appointments will have been decided on the individual’s experience against the essential criteria for the role.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether Simon Blagden's role at Fujitsu UK was taken in account as part of the appointment process for his roles at (a) Building Digital UK, (b) UK Health Security Agency and (c) the Trade Advisory Group on telecoms and technology.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
For all appointments, a declaration of interests is recorded and due diligence conducted on appointees. These appointments will have been decided on the individual’s experience against the essential criteria for the role.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps (a) her Department, (b) the Food Standards Agency and (c) the UK Health Security Agency have taken to help ensure that unsafe food is not placed on the market by companies that were involved in the outbreak of E.coli O157 in August 2020 and August 2022.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) and other health protection agencies undertook a thorough investigation of this outbreak linked to fresh produce, which involved the appropriate food safety enforcement authorities for each site involved. A review of food safety management systems provided reassurance that robust controls were in place. Where opportunities for improvement were identified, the FSA along with the enforcing local authorities provided risk management advice to food businesses.
Following engagement with industry trade associations to assess industry practices and approaches to risk assessment mitigation across the fresh produce sector, a multi-agency working group has been formed to review standard practices across the industry.
The UK Health Security Agency undertook a surveillance study which included a retail sampling survey of fresh produce in 2023. Early monitoring of results indicates good safety practices in the fresh produce sector with no evidence of serious public health consequences.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce waiting times for children and young people to access community paediatric services.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what his planned timetable for publishing the report on the E.coli O157 outbreak that started in August 2022.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The report is expected to be published in March 2024.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of trends in average waiting times to access (a) community paediatric services, (b) occupational therapy and (c) speech and language therapy in the last three years.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Addressing waiting lists is a priority for the Department and the National Health Service, and NHS England has asked local systems to develop and agree plans for reducing their community services waiting lists.
Community Health Service data was first published in October 2022 and is now published monthly. It is available at the following link:
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners serving sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection in category A prisons are categorized as C category prisoners.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
There are 108 prisoners serving sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection are in Category A prisons.
There are * prisoners serving sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection in Category A prisons which are categorised as C category prisoners. (*) has been used to suppress values of one or two. This is to prevent the disclosure of individual information.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners serving sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection are in category A prisons.
Answered by Edward Argar - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
There are 108 prisoners serving sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection are in Category A prisons.
There are * prisoners serving sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection in Category A prisons which are categorised as C category prisoners. (*) has been used to suppress values of one or two. This is to prevent the disclosure of individual information.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what is his planned timetable for announcing local housing allowance rates for 2025; and if he will launch a consultation on the level of those rates.
Answered by Mims Davies - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Secretary of State (SoS) has recently completed his review of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates for 2024/25. As announced by the Chancellor in the recent Autumn Statement, from April 2024 the Government will be investing £1.2 billion increasing LHA rates to the 30th percentile of local market rents. This ensures 1.6 million private renters in receipt of Housing Benefit, or the Housing Element of Universal Credit will gain, on average, nearly £800 per year in additional help towards their rental costs in 2024/25. This is a significant investment of £7bn over five years.
The SoS has committed to reviewing LHA rates annually, usually in the Autumn. The rates for 2025/26 have not yet been reviewed.
The department works closely with stakeholders, jobcentres, and local authorities to understand the impact of its policies.
Asked by: John McDonnell (Labour - Hayes and Harlington)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what additional funding has been made available to further education colleges since their reclassification as public sector organisations in November 2022.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department is investing an additional £185 million in the 2023/24 financial year and £285 million in the 2024/25 financial year to drive forward skills delivery in the further education sector. This funding is to help colleges and other providers to address their key priorities, particularly tackling recruitment and retention issues in high-value subject areas that are critical to the economy.
The above investment is in addition to the £125 million of funding made available in the 2023/24 financial year to boost the national 16 to 19 funding rate and subject-specific funding.
In the 2023/24 academic year, the department is applying a 2.2% increase to the final earnings for all adult education budget (AEB) formula-funded provision, excluding associated learner and learning support. In addition, the department is applying a 20% boost on top of earnings for all AEB formula-funded provision in six sector subject areas, including: Engineering, Manufacturing Technologies, Transport Operations and Maintenance, Building and Construction, ICT for Practitioners, and Mathematics and Statistics.
The department will make an initial downpayment over the next two years ahead of introducing the Advanced British Standard, with funding benefiting further education as follows:
- An additional investment of around £150 million each year to support those who do not pass mathematics and English GCSE at 16 to gain these qualifications. This will particularly benefit further education colleges, who play a vital role in helping close the attainment gap by 19.
- An increase in funding to colleges and schools so they can deliver maths to more students aged over 16, increasing the Core Maths and Advanced Maths Premium and investing in a digital platform for tutoring in Core Maths. In total this is £60 million of additional funding for maths education over the next two years of which further education institutions will potentially be able to benefit from the Core Maths Premium and Advanced Maths Premium.
- To improve the recruitment and retention of teachers of key shortage subjects around £100 million will be invested each year to double the rates of the Levelling Up Premium and expand it to cover all further education colleges. All teachers who are in the first five years of their career, teaching shortage subjects and working in disadvantaged schools and all further education colleges, will be paid up to £6,000 per year tax-free.
Since reclassification, £884 million of capital funding has been confirmed for further education colleges and designated institutions to fund condition improvement, expansion and the provision of specialist equipment and facilities. Some capital programmes have wider eligibility to also include sixth form colleges and other statutory sixth form providers.
The department has also opened the college capital loans scheme in April to enable capital projects reliant on commercial borrowing to proceed as planned.