Asked by: Kevin McKenna (Labour - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help reduce violence against women and girls; what funding is available to (a) local authorities and (b) policing agencies to reduce that violence; and what steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle the causes of that violence.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
This Government has set out the unprecedented ambition to halve violence against women and girls (VAWG) within a decade and will treat it as the national emergency that it is. Achieving this requires a transformative approach to the way we work together across Government, public services, the private sector, and charities.
Following the spending review announcements in October, the Home Office and other departments across Government are deciding how their budgets are allocated to deliver the Government’s priorities in 2025/26. This includes working with the police to ensure justice is delivered for victims of VAWG.
On 28th November 2024, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced a funding increase of £30 million, meaning a total investment of £160 million in the Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation Grant in 2025/26. This will enable local authorities to invest in essential support for victims in safe accommodation. MHCLG published details of the provisional local government finance settlement for 2025-26 on 18th December 2024.
The Safer Streets Mission is the vehicle to drive delivery across Government to halve VAWG, halve knife crime, and restore confidence in the policing and justice system. All relevant departments will be responsible for achieving the government’s ambition to halve VAWG. Discussions with Cabinet colleagues are continuing to take place, including through a VAWG Ministerial Group.
Asked by: Kevin McKenna (Labour - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
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 shift care from hospitals into the community.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
It is vital to move services from hospital to community. The Chancellor made funding available for 380,000 more talking therapies for patients and put in place a £26 million capital investment scheme for mental health crisis centres. A lot of work has been done, but there is a lot more still to do.
Asked by: Kevin McKenna (Labour - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to improve fire safety in residential buildings; and what support she has made available for (a) leaseholders and (b) building owners that do not qualify for the Cladding Safety Scheme.
Answered by Alex Norris - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The new building safety regime puts in place more stringent oversight for the safety of high-rise residential buildings, with clearer accountability backed by stronger enforcement and sanctions to deter and rectify non-compliance.
The new regulatory requirements also require all people responsible for higher-risk buildings to capture and report certain fire and structural safety issues (mandatory safety occurrences) to the Building Safety Regulator.
There is a pathway to fixing unsafe cladding in all 11 metres+ residential buildings in England through developer, social housing provider and government funded remediation programmes.
Any contribution required from qualifying leaseholders for non-cladding defects and interim measures is firmly capped and spread over 10 years, with costs already paid out since 28 June 2017 counting towards the cap. If remediation costs exceed the cap, building owners must make up the difference. This means that, for the majority of qualifying leaseholders, the maximum amount that can be charged for non-cladding remediation and interim measures is £15,000 in Greater London (or £10,000 elsewhere in England).
All leaseholders, including those who hold a non-qualifying lease, benefit from qualifying lease status for their principal residence on 14 February 2022 if it is in a relevant building above 11 metres or five storeys. Non-qualifying leaseholders cannot be required to pay more than they would have done in the absence of the leaseholder protections, i.e., they cannot be required to pay for others’ share of remediation costs.
The Building Safety Act enables provides a route for building owners to pursue remediation contribution orders against developers and contractors – and their associated companies – for funds they have spent or will spend remediating their buildings for relevant defects.
Asked by: Kevin McKenna (Labour - Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the £10 million allocated to the MHRA in March 2023, what progress has been made on accelerating routes for bringing innovative medical products developed onto the market.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) greatly welcomed the £10 million of funding announced by HM Treasury in March 2023, which has enabled the MHRA to make progress on the Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway (ILAP).
The ILAP harnesses the collective expertise of the regulatory and health technology assessment systems and National Health Service bodies, with the aim of supporting medicines from an early stage through to patient access more quickly. Since its launch in 2021, 166 Innovation Passports have been awarded.
The United Kingdom’s life sciences ecosystem within which the ILAP sits has evolved, with new regulatory initiatives such as the international recognition procedure. On Wednesday 6 November 2024, the ILAP partner organisations published a statement of policy intent on the relaunch of the ILAP. The new ILAP will continue to target timely patient benefit, take forward lessons learnt from the ILAP to date, and respond to the needs of our fast-paced life sciences sector by providing a more compelling offer of support to the medicine developer. The new ILAP will open to applications in March 2025, with full details of the pathway to be published in January 2025.