Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the closure of British Council offices overseas on British soft power.
Answered by Catherine West - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The British Council is operationally independent from the UK Government. Decisions relating to the size and model of its overseas network are operational matters for the British Council. In a digital age, the British Council's impact should be judged by the outcomes it delivers through its programmes and operations, rather than its physical presence.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to introduce a public health campaign on allergy awareness in children.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
To help promote awareness of allergies, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published guidance on a range of allergy conditions, including food allergy in people under the age of 19 years old, anaphylaxis and drug allergy. NICE promotes its guidance via its website, newsletters and other media.
In June 2023, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), with the support of allergy awareness advocates, launched a safety campaign to raise awareness of anaphylaxis and provide advice on the use of adrenaline auto-injectors (AAIs). MHRA produced a toolkit of resources for health and social care professionals to support the safe and effective use of AAIs.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) encourages food businesses to complete the FSA’s allergen e-learning course and recommends that it is retaken annually to refresh knowledge and ensure that businesses are up to date on any changes which may have occurred. The FSA online training is free and offers practical advice to anyone wanting to learn more about food allergy.
Section 100 of The Children and Families Act 2014 places a legal duty on schools to make arrangements for supporting pupils at their school with medical conditions, including allergies. The Department for Education recently reminded schools of their legal duties in their regular schools’ email bulletin, and also alerted schools to the newly created Schools Allergy Code, developed by The Allergy Team, the Independent Schools' Bursars Association and the Benedict Blythe Foundation. The Department for Education has now also added a link to the Code to their online allergy guidance on GOV.UK, which is available at the following link:
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many visas have been issued to Ukrainian children seeking medical evacuation to the UK since February 2022.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The requested information is not held by the Home Office. However, a range of data on Ukraine visa applications can be found at: Immigration system statistics data tables - GOV.UK and Migration transparency data - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions he has held with his Israeli counterparts on lifting restrictions on international journalists to enable them to report on the situation in Gaza.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Foreign Secretary and I have both paid tribute to journalists risking their lives to report in Gaza. Journalists covering conflicts are afforded protection under humanitarian law. The Media have a right to report freely and we urge all parties to permit journalists to carry out their crucial role. The UK remains committed to Media Freedom and to championing democracy and human rights around the world. Independent media is essential to a functioning society. There must be safe access for journalists to conflict situations in order to independently cover events.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information her Department holds on the number of children that live in families with a parent or carer that receives (a) the Universal Credit Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity element, (b) the Personal Independence Payment daily living component, where their claim was awarded less than four points in all daily living activities and (c) both, broken down by constituency.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
(a) Official statistics for the number of households on Universal Credit (UC) are published every three months on Stat-Xplore, with breakdowns available by various geographies including Westminster Parliamentary Constituency. In addition, breakdowns are available by the number of children and the different UC elements, including the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity payment. The latest statistics are available to November 2024.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access general guidance on how to extract the information required. For guidance on the UC datasets on Stat-Xplore, see the Universal Credit Official Statistics Stat-Xplore User Guide.
(b) (c) Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is an individual-based benefit and therefore DWP does not hold family information on its administrative systems, so this information is not available.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many (a) certificates of competency and (b) certificates of equivalent competency were issued to ships’ cooks by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in each year between 2015 and 2024.
Answered by Mike Kane - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Please see below table for the number of certificates of competency issued for ships’ cooks in each year between 2015 to 2024
| Ships Cooks Certificates of Competency issued |
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Year | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | Total |
Certs Issued | 141 | 141 | 190 | 254 | 397 | 134 | 83 | 65 | 75 | 92 | 1572 |
Please be advised that there is no requirement for a certificate of equivalent competency for Ships Cook.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many visas have been issued to Gazan children seeking medical evacuation to the UK since 5 July 2024.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The information requested on visas is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
The UK has supported an initiative by Project Pure Hope to bring a small number of children from Gaza to the UK for privately funded specialist care. On 1 May, the Minister for the Middle East announced that two children have arrived in the UK to begin treatment. The Government also announced a £7.5m package of support to bolster vital medical care in Gaza and the region, which includes additional funding for UK-Med, WHO Egypt and the OCHA OPTs Humanitarian Fund.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many visas have been denied for Gazan children seeking medical evacuation to the UK.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The information requested on visas is not currently available from published statistics, and the relevant data could only be collated and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
The UK has supported an initiative by Project Pure Hope to bring a small number of children from Gaza to the UK for privately funded specialist care. On 1 May, the Minister for the Middle East announced that two children have arrived in the UK to begin treatment. The Government also announced a £7.5m package of support to bolster vital medical care in Gaza and the region, which includes additional funding for UK-Med, WHO Egypt and the OCHA OPTs Humanitarian Fund.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to her Department's White Paper entitled Restoring control over the immigration system, published on 12 May 2025, whether the proposed extension of the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain will apply retrospectively to people already in the UK with the appropriate visa.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
We will reform our settlement and citizenship rules by expanding the Points-Based System and increasing the standard qualifying period for settlement to ten years. Individuals will have the opportunity to reduce the qualifying period to settlement and citizenship based on contributions to the UK economy and society.
We will be consulting on the earned settlement scheme later this year and will provide further details at that stage.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool Riverside)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many skilled worker visas have been issued for marine and waterways transport operatives under the points based system.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The Home Office publishes data on sponsored work visas by visa type and occupation in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on grants of visas are published in table ‘Occ_D02’ of the sponsored work visas by occupation and industry dataset. Information on how to use the dataset can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. Data is from January 2021 up to the end of December 2024.