Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help improve the process for families to obtain a diagnosis for foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department asked the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to produce a quality standard in England for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), to help the health and care system improve both diagnosis and support for people affected by FASD. The quality standard also covers support during pregnancy, to improve awareness and prevent the disorder. It was published in March 2022, and is available at the following link:
https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs204
The Department has also taken a number of steps to help prevent FASD. The UK Chief Medical Officers’ low risk drinking guidelines, published in 2016, provide clear advice to women not to drink alcohol if they are planning for a pregnancy or are pregnant, and these are available at the following link:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a80b7ed40f0b623026951db/UK_CMOs__report.pdf
The National Health Service’s website offers advice on the use of alcohol during pregnancy and sources of support, which includes speaking to a general practitioner, midwife, or local treatment service, or contacting the Government’s Talk to Frank website. The NHS’s website and the Talk to Frank website are available, respectively, at the following two links:
https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/keeping-well/drinking-alcohol-while-pregnant/
www.talktofrank.com/contact-frank
The Department will soon be publishing the first ever clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment for the United Kingdom. The aim of the guidelines is to promote and support good practice. The guidelines will set out how maternity, alcohol treatment, and other healthcare professionals should support women to reduce or stop their alcohol use as quickly and safely as possible, to reduce the ongoing exposure of the foetus to alcohol and the risk and severity of future disability.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of including people with learning disabilities in the spring Covid-19 booster vaccination programme.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to protecting those most vulnerable to COVID-19 through vaccination, as guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). On 13 November 2024, the JCVI published advice on the COVID-19 vaccination programme, covering vaccination in 2025 and spring 2026. This advice is available at the following link:
The Government is considering this advice carefully and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has made an assessment of the impact of carers losing access to Carers Allowance once they become entitled to the State Pension on those carers.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Although there is no upper age limit to claiming Carer’s Allowance, it cannot normally be paid with the State Pension. It has been a long held feature of the UK’s benefit system, under successive Governments, that where someone is entitled to two benefits for the same contingency, then whilst there may be entitlement to both benefits, only one will be paid to avoid duplication for the same need.
Although entitlement to State Pension and Carer’s Allowance arise in different circumstances they are nevertheless designed for the same contingency – as an income replacement.
Carer’s Allowance replaces income where the carer has given up the opportunity of full-time employment in order to care for a severely disabled person, while State Pension replaces income in retirement. For this reason, social security rules operate to prevent them being paid together, to avoid duplicate provision for the same need.
However, if a carer’s State Pension is less than Carer's Allowance, State Pension is paid and topped up with Carer's Allowance to the basic weekly rate of Carer's Allowance which is currently £81.90.
Where Carer’s Allowance cannot be paid, the person will keep underlying entitlement to the benefit. This gives access to the additional amount for carers in Pension Credit of £45.60 a week and even if a pensioner’s income is above the limit for Pension Credit, they may still be able to receive Housing Benefit.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Solicitor General, what steps she is taking to ensure transparency in Crown Prosecution Service decisions.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Code for Crown Prosecutors makes clear that, when making decisions, prosecutors must be fair and objective and act in the interests of justice. To maintain transparency around its legal decision-making, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has integrated several processes into its working practices to ensure that victims are informed about decisions and the support available to them.
Since January 2020, the CPS has published quarterly bulletins of data tables and summaries of main trends as part of the CPS’s commitment to transparency on prosecution performance, which contain performance data on overall prosecution figures, police referrals, and charging rates in a range of offence types. These can be found here: CPS quarterly data summaries | The Crown Prosecution Service.
Transparency is important in particular for victims. Under the Victim Communication and Liaison scheme, in certain circumstances the CPS communicates directly with victims to explain its legal decision-making for charging. It also provides enhanced services to bereaved families of victims, including meetings to explain its legal decisions. To improve this offer, the CPS is testing direct communication of its charging decisions in a small number of regional areas, using victims’ preferred method of contact.
Victims may also seek a review of certain CPS decisions not to start a prosecution or to stop a prosecution, under the Victims’ Right to Review scheme.
The CPS also engages with communities impacted by hate crime and Violence Against Women and Girls through convening Local Scrutiny Involvement Panels. These panels enable the CPS to explain its role in the criminal justice system and how prosecutors make charging decisions.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what his Department's policy is on future furniture and furnishings fire safety regulations.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government is committed to ensuring that only safe products are made available on the UK market, including products that fall under the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988.
Following the formation of the Government in July, the Department for Business and Trade is considering next steps for this important issue, including reviewing the evidence gathered from the 2023 consultation, Smarter Regulation: Fire safety of domestic upholstered furniture. The Government will engage with consumer organisations, businesses, and other interested groups and provide updates in due course.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Court of Protection's communications; and whether she has had discussions with them on improving their application processes.
Answered by Heidi Alexander - Secretary of State for Transport
The central office for the Court of Protection installed a new telephone system on 29 April 2024. This has helped the court to monitor demand and move resource to address peak call times as well as using the interactive voice response technology to direct callers to the most appropriate place for help.
Additionally, an online form for Property and Affairs Deputyship cases has enabled the digital submission of application for both legal professionals and citizens. The uptake of this digital service is at nearly 90% and it has enabled the court to process applications more quickly and efficiently. His Majesty’s Court Service is committed to continually improving this service and is looking for opportunities to expand the digital submission portal process to other types of application.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to ensure public protection as part of her Department's early release scheme.
Answered by Nicholas Dakin - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Amending the automatic release point for eligible Standard Determinate Sentences to 40% (SDS40) has allowed us to end more challenging measures like End of Custody Supervised Licence which gave us less predictability and stability in release planning.
Delivery of SDS40 prioritises public safety with strict probation supervision for those released from custody and, where necessary, conditions like tagging and curfews. Should offenders breach these conditions, they face being immediately recalled to prison. A pre-release plan will be ensured for everyone leaving custody.
The Probation Service plays a crucial role in protecting the public and reducing reoffending. We are strengthening probation by building a supported, skilled and resilient workforce that can deliver high quality supervision, focused on the areas of highest risk, and delivered within manageable caseloads. In recognition of this, we are recruiting at least 1,000 new trainee Probation Officers by the end of March 2025.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
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 increase awareness of urinary tract infections (UTIs); and if he will (a) take steps to support research on the (i) diagnosis and (ii) treatment of UTIs and (b) have discussions with the Secretary of State for Education on raising awareness of UTIs in schools.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has a number of existing partnerships to help promote awareness of urology conditions. NHS England is partnering with P-Wave for a campaign targeted at men, specifically focussing on blood in urine as a possible symptom of cancer. The partnership has seen more than 430,000 P-Wave urinal mats distributed around the United Kingdom since its launch, with the awareness message appearing in pubs, workplaces, and sporting and music venues. Further information is available at the following link:
NHS England has been focusing on improving the diagnosis and treatment of urological conditions. NHS England is undertaking a programme of work as part of its antimicrobial resistance programme focusing on prevention, diagnostics, and treatment of chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs).
Through funding the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the Department has invested and supported multiple studies investigating the diagnosis and treatment of UTIs. Some examples of NIHR-funded UTI diagnosis and treatment research are: investigating the application of novel diagnostic tests to improve the symptom-treatment cycle time of UTIs; improving the diagnosis of recurrent UTIs; and the use of antimicrobial-impregnated catheters to reduce episodes of catheter-associated UTIs.
More specifically, the NIHR has recently invested £3.1 million into the Improving Primary Care Antibiotic Prescribing UTI programme, a research programme investigating improvements to primary care prescribing, to reduce antibiotic resistant urine infections. NIHR-funded research into UTI diagnosis and treatment has proven to benefit UK patient treatment, and in 2022 research funded by the NIHR found methenamine to be as good as and therefore an alternative to antibiotics, at preventing UTIs, and may reduce the incidence on antibiotic-resistant UTIs.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published the guideline Urinary tract infection in under 16s: diagnosis and management in 2007, and reissued in 2022, following an update. The guideline covers diagnosing and managing first or recurrent upper or lower UTI in babies, children, and young people under 16 years old. It aims to achieve more consistent clinical practice, based on accurate diagnosis and effective management. We have not held any discussions with my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education about UTI diagnosis in schools.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking to steps to protect soft facilities management employment in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
National Health Service trusts are independent employers who need to determine how best their services are delivered, which includes the provision of soft facilities management.
Asked by: Kim Leadbeater (Labour - Spen Valley)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether she has plans to review and update the Overseas Scale Rates.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
Employers have a choice about whether to use the Overseas Scale Rates (OSR) or to pay the actual expenses incurred. If an employer pays actual expenses, they must check the employees’ receipts, but they do not have to do this if they use the OSR.
There will be occasions where OSR may not reflect the current prices in a particular location. If the employer chooses not to reimburse all of the actual expenses, the employee may claim tax relief on the difference from HMRC. The employee must provide HMRC with evidence such as receipts and what the employer has reimbursed.
The Government keeps all aspects of the tax system under review and any decisions on future changes will be taken in the context of the wider public finances.