Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he plans to open the Property Resilience Repair Grant Scheme in the context of the floods in Oxfordshire on 22-24 November 2024.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Property Flood Resilience (PFR) grant scheme can provide up to £5000 for eligible households and businesses to install PFR measures. The PFR grant scheme is typically activated alongside the Flood Recovery Framework (FRF) coordinated by MHCLG and only activated where there is large scale and widespread flooding. With localised flooding incidents, we expect Local Authorities to have well established contingency arrangements in place and to be able to respond and support their local communities within existing budgets. Below that local authorities provide support as needed. The flooding in November was not at the scale where we would expect to open FRF and PFR schemes.
To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, we will invest £2.4 billion in 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience, by building, maintaining, and repairing flood defences.
Included in this programme, the Environment Agency is working proactively with local authorities to deliver Property Flood Resilience (PFR) projects, where it is cost beneficial to do so, in areas where PFR is the best solution for reducing flood risk. The EA’s PFR programme is focused on reducing risk to those households and businesses at the highest risk.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of frequent flooding on the (a) economy and (b) social cohesion of areas impacted.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Flood defences are critical to the protection of life and property and the effective functioning of the economy. Resilience and adaptation to the changing climate provide economic resilience and are key to supporting the government’s mission to kickstart economic growth.
The Environment Agency gathers data on how flooding affects the economy. The economic losses from the winter 2019 to 2020 flooding are estimated to be about £333 million. However, the economic damage avoided because of the protection provided is at least 14 times greater, at around £4.6 billion to £9.3 billion.
Around 36% of the damages caused by floods are to publicly owned infrastructure like roads, railways, schools and hospitals.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to issue Severe Shortage Protocols for (a) methylphenidate, (b) dexamfetamine, (c) atomoxetine, (d) lisdexamfetamine, (e) guanfacine, (f) oestrogel, (g) buproprion and (h) lamotrigine.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Serious Shortage Protocols (SSPs) enable community pharmacists to supply a specified medicine or device in accordance with a protocol rather than a prescription, with the patient’s consent, and without needing to seek authorisation from the prescriber. SSPs are additional tools that have been used in recent years, alongside a range of other mechanisms, to manage and mitigate medicine and medical devices shortages. SSPs are not introduced unless sufficient supplies of the alternative product to be supplied in accordance with the SSP are available to support the market.
Furthermore, SSPs are not suitable for all medicines and patients. For example, patients with complex health needs may not be considered suitable for a supply in accordance with an SSP. In these cases, patients would always be referred back to the prescriber for any decision about their treatment before any therapeutic or generic alterative is supplied. SSPs are not issued for controlled drugs in Schedule II, such as methylphenidate, except under very restricted circumstances.
The Department is aware of a supply issue affecting methylphenidate prolonged-release tablets. These supply issues are taking longer to resolve than the Department originally anticipated, and the Department is working with the respective suppliers to further improve the United Kingdom’s supply for the short and long-term as soon as possible. There are no plans to issue a SSP for methylphenidate.
The Department is currently unaware of any medicine supply issues affecting dexamfetamine, atomoxetine, lisdexamfetamine, guanfacine, oestrogel, bupropionand, lamotrigine. Therefore, there are no plans to issue SSPs for these medicines.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish a timeframe for implementing the findings of the research by Ofsted entitled Best start in life part 3: the 4 specific areas of learning, published on 8 October 2024.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell - Minister of State (Education)
Ofsted is an independent non-ministerial government department and, as such, we are unable to comment on its processes or on specific issues. The department has responsibility for policy on inspection and registration, but how it is implemented is for Ofsted to decide and to be held to account by Parliament. The department will therefore not be publishing a timeline for implementation of findings in ‘Best Start in Life part 3: the 4 specific areas of learning’, nor were there any particular recommendations made by Ofsted for it to implement. The reviews published by Ofsted are publicly available on GOV.UK and are primarily intended to help early years practitioners to raise the quality of early years education.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of removing the referee requirement for UK citizenship applications, in the context of the introduction of biometric identity checks.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The application process for British citizenship is kept under regular review with a view to making it as efficient and straightforward as possible while upholding necessary security requirements.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the consultation entitled Smarter regulation: proposed changes to legislation for electrically assisted pedal cycles, which closed on 25 April 2024, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of amending regulations on (a) the classification of and (b) enabling throttle assistance for electrically-assisted pedal cycles.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department is carefully considering the responses to the consultation, and will make an announcement on the way forward as soon as possible.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on companies involved in supplying PPE which was subsequently marked as do not supply due to being unsuitable for use in the NHS.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department holds all pertinent contractual detail on those companies who provided personal protective equipment (PPE) products that were considered unsuitable for use. Between 1 November 2023 and 30 September 2024, approximately 432,700 pallets of unusable PPE have been disposed of.
It currently costs approximately £200,000 per week to store PPE unsuitable for National Health Service use. The figure is dynamic because the stock is reducing. NHS Supply Chain manages PPE product supply and logistics and they lease storage for PPE from the following companies GXO and Visku (Bis Henderson).
A programme of work is underway to reduce our excess stock. This work will significantly reduce the cost of our storage network and is due to be complete by January 2025 through sales, donations, recycling, and energy from waste.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the cost to the public purse is of storing PPE unsuitable for NHS use; and which companies are contracted to provide such storage services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department holds all pertinent contractual detail on those companies who provided personal protective equipment (PPE) products that were considered unsuitable for use. Between 1 November 2023 and 30 September 2024, approximately 432,700 pallets of unusable PPE have been disposed of.
It currently costs approximately £200,000 per week to store PPE unsuitable for National Health Service use. The figure is dynamic because the stock is reducing. NHS Supply Chain manages PPE product supply and logistics and they lease storage for PPE from the following companies GXO and Visku (Bis Henderson).
A programme of work is underway to reduce our excess stock. This work will significantly reduce the cost of our storage network and is due to be complete by January 2025 through sales, donations, recycling, and energy from waste.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much unusable PPE has been disposed of since November 2023.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department holds all pertinent contractual detail on those companies who provided personal protective equipment (PPE) products that were considered unsuitable for use. Between 1 November 2023 and 30 September 2024, approximately 432,700 pallets of unusable PPE have been disposed of.
It currently costs approximately £200,000 per week to store PPE unsuitable for National Health Service use. The figure is dynamic because the stock is reducing. NHS Supply Chain manages PPE product supply and logistics and they lease storage for PPE from the following companies GXO and Visku (Bis Henderson).
A programme of work is underway to reduce our excess stock. This work will significantly reduce the cost of our storage network and is due to be complete by January 2025 through sales, donations, recycling, and energy from waste.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to help ensure consular access to British tourists in Egypt who have been arrested.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The FCDO, via our consular staff, is available 24/7 to provide consular support to British nationals abroad. Whenever the FCDO is informed of the arrest of a British national in Egypt, our consular officials aim to make contact as soon as possible to seek more information and assess their situation, including requesting consular access. In the event consular access is delayed or denied, we can raise this with the Egyptian authorities where appropriate.