Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
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 engage with accredited (a) counsellors and (b) psychotherapists to reduce waiting times for mental health services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
To deliver the mental health commitments in the NHS Long Term Plan and help reduce waiting times, our aim is to grow the mental health workforce nationally by an additional 27,000 professionals by March 2024.
Accredited counsellors and psychotherapists constitute a significant proportion of the NHS Talking Therapies workforce. A collaborative campaign to encourage accredited counsellors and psychotherapists to apply to work in NHS Talking Therapies services has been developed by NHS England with several of the counselling and psychotherapy professional bodies. These professionals are a vital part of our mental health workforce and are fully integrated within it, delivering National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended psychological therapies for depression.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has made an assessment of the implications for her policies of the recent outbreak of avian influenza on fur farms in Finland; and whether she has held discussions with her counterparts in (a) Finland and (b) other EU countries on collective action to mitigate the risks of zoonotic disease on fur farms.
Answered by Mark Spencer
The Government shares the British public’s high regard for animal welfare. Fur farming has been banned in England and Wales since 2000 (2002 in Scotland and Northern Ireland). While fur farming is legal in some EU countries, there are strict rules in place to ensure that animals kept for fur production are farmed, trapped and killed humanely. The risk to the UK population from these outbreaks is negligible and the Finnish government is taking action to cull the affected farms.
Nevertheless, together with the UK Health Security Agency we are keeping a close eye on the findings in mink, foxes and other animals farmed for fur and the possible risk to human health. We have published a risk assessment on the transmission from animals to humans of influenza of avian origin.
International collaboration and knowledge exchange on avian influenza is facilitated through discussions between the UK Chief Veterinary Officer and representatives from the Animal and Plant Health Agency avian influenza national and international reference laboratories, and their counterparts in the EU and globally through the World Organisation for Animal Health and allied projects, including through the joint WOAH-FOA Scientific Network on animal influenza OFFLU.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
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 ensure equality of access to mental health services for blind and partially-sighted people.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Accessible Information Standard published by NHS England in 2016 sets out a specific, consistent approach to identifying, recording, flagging, sharing and meeting the information and communication support needs of patients, service users, carers and parents with a disability, impairment or sensory loss, including blind and partially-sighted people. NHS England is currently reviewing the Accessible Information Standard and will publish the updated standard in Summer 2023.
The advancing mental health equalities strategy was published by NHS England in 2020 to identify and drive opportunities for improving that way that NHS mental health services meet the needs of groups at risk of, or already experiencing, inequalities.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department holds on the number of people with sight loss who have accessed NHS mental health support services between 1 January 2023 and 10 May 2023.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when her Department plans to publish its response to the Animal Welfare Committee's Opinion on the Welfare of Farmed Fish at the Time of Killing.
Answered by Mark Spencer
I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, on 10 March 2023, PQ UIN 158986.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans he has to (a) recognise the contribution of civilian interpreters who worked for the Armed Forces in Afghanistan and (b) commemorate those who lost their lives because of their service.
Answered by James Heappey
The Ministry of Defence and the UK remains indebted to all Afghan nationals who risked their lives working for and alongside UK forces in Afghanistan. It is in recognition of this contribution and associated risk that the Government introduced the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP) scheme on 1 April 2021 to provide relocation or other assistance to Afghan nationals who meet the criteria set out in the Immigration Rules. As of June 2023, we have relocated over 12,200 people to safety in the UK under the ARAP scheme.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
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 help facilitate collaboration between (a) the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and (b) biotechnology companies developing (i) organ-on-a-chip technologies and (ii) human-specific methods for assessing the safety of new drugs.
Answered by Will Quince
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is aware of organ-on-chip technologies to better identify potential toxicity of novel medicines and has engaged with other organisations active in this space such as the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research who have hosted meetings on this theme. The MHRA has also provided scientific advice to at least one biotechnology company on the use of this technology to support proof of concept for a new medicine. The MHRA does not identify those with whom it may have had discussions for reasons of commercial sensitivity.
In relation to human specific methods, some medicines have been developed which only have activity in humans, such as eculizumab (Soliris), tebentafusp (Kimmtrak) or CAR T cell products (for instance, Kymriah, Yescarta and Tecartus). These medicines were developed using human specific methods; however, versions of these medicines that were active in animals were, in some cases, also used. The MHRA supports the developers of these products by its offer of scientific advice services, the Innovation Office and the Innovative Licensing and Access Pathway.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what funding his Department has allocated for conflict prevention in (a) 2022-23 and (b) 2023-24.
Answered by Leo Docherty
Conflict prevention is a broad term that describes activity that seeks to avert violence.
A range of programmes funded through Official Development Assistance (ODA) and the Conflict, Security, Stabilisation Fund (CSSF) can be considered conflict prevention, such as preventing violent extremism or promoting effective land management. The FCDO does not track conflict prevention spend as a separate activity.
The FCDO's latest estimate of its ODA spending for 2022-23 is £7.56 billion. The FCDO's indicative ODA budget for 2023-24 is £8.1 billion. The Integrated Security Fund (ISF) will replace the CSSF with a budget of almost £1 billion.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she has had discussions with the Leader of the House on finding parliamentary time for the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill.
Answered by Mark Spencer
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 17 May 2023 to the hon. Member for Preston, PQ 184295.
Asked by: Lisa Cameron (Conservative - East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
Whether her Department is taking steps to help support the development and use of blockchain technology.
Answered by Paul Scully
In the spring 2023 Budget, the government committed to be ahead of the curve on the future of web technology, which includes Web3 and other blockchain-based technologies.
My department will work to maximise the potential of Web3 and spur UK growth and innovation, alongside empowering individuals to influence how their data is used, and minimising any harms to the economy, security, and society.