Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will provide a breakdown by nation of origin of the number of physiotherapists granted visas in the last 12 months.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
Data for workers and temporary worker visas by occupation can be found at published occupation data
The Home Office does not routinely publish data that breaks this down by nationality or nation of origin.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero,if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of energy costs on the viability of the businesses of self employed physiotherapists.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government has made no such assessment.
However, the Government is committed to ensuring that the costs of the UK's energy transition are fair and affordable for all consumers. The Energy Bills Discount Scheme will continue to provide energy support to businesses until March 2024.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, with reference to the press release entitled Supply of accessible homes to receive vital boost, published on 29 July 2022, what recent progress his Department has made on raising the minimum accessibility standard for new homes; and what his planned timetable is for the implementation of this standard.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer to Question UIN HL8422 on 26 June 2023.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the speed of the roll-out of Project Gigabit.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Over 76% of UK premises can access gigabit-capable broadband. We are on track to meet our target of 85% coverage across the UK by 2025 and more than 99% by 2030.
I am proud to see the progress we have made on Project Gigabit, with twelve contracts awarded so far to suppliers to extend gigabit-capable coverage in hard-to-reach areas.
On top of this, over 117,000 vouchers have been issued so far under the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme and its previous iterations. 89,000 of these have been used to provide a gigabit-capable connection.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many inspections of (a) adult social care providers, (b) primary medical services, (c) hospitals and (d) mental health services were carried out by the Care Quality Commission in the (i) London and (ii) East of England network in each of the last 24 months.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
A table showing how many inspections of (a) adult social care providers, (b) primary medical services, (c) hospitals and (d) mental health services were carried out by the Care Quality Commission in (i) London (ii) East of England network (iii) the South East and (iv) the South West, in each of the last 24 months, is attached.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many inspections of (a) adult social care providers, (b) primary medical services, (c) hospitals and (d) mental health services were carried out by the Care Quality Commission in the (i) south east and (ii) south west in each of the last 24 months.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
A table showing how many inspections of (a) adult social care providers, (b) primary medical services, (c) hospitals and (d) mental health services were carried out by the Care Quality Commission in (i) London (ii) East of England network (iii) the South East and (iv) the South West, in each of the last 24 months, is attached.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the impact of food price inflation on levels of demand for emergency parcels from food banks.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Tackling inflation is this Government’s number one priority. We continue to support households through our £94 billion package, worth £3,300 on average per household this year and last. We are also providing £100 million of support for charities and community organisations in England targeted at supporting critical frontline services.
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the results of the Special School Eye Care Service trial; and what steps he is taking to support the long-term commissioning of that service.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
I refer the hon. Member to the written statement HCWS861 that I gave to the House on 19 June 2023 regarding Sight Testing in Special Schools. The Department will continue to support NHS England with implementation, including considering whether any regulatory changes may be necessary. The written statement is available at the following link:
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-06-19/hcws861
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much and what proportion of the funding for suicide prevention and bereavement services in the NHS Long Term Plan has been spent on a) suicide prevention and b) bereavement services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
A total of £57 million was allocated through the NHS Long Term Plan to enable every area of the country to receive funding for suicide prevention and bereavement services by 2023/24. Approximately two thirds of this £57 million, £38 million, has been spent on suicide prevention and the remainder on suicide bereavement services.
The ‘NHS Mental Health Implementation Plan 2019/20 – 2023/24’ provides a detailed breakdown of this investment and the activity that it is due to fund. This is available at the following link: https://www.longtermplan.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/nhs-mental-health-implementation-plan-2019-20-2023-24.pdf.
The NHS Mental Health Dashboard sets out year by year spending plans for local and national NHS commissioning organisations, which is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/taskforce/imp/mh-dashboard/
Asked by: Liz Twist (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
What steps she is taking to support the commercialisation of science and technology research in the North East.
Answered by George Freeman
Innovation in the North East is supported by significant public investment. For example, universities in the region received £12 million this year through the Higher Education Innovation Fund, and six received a further £5 million from the Connecting Capability Fund to help spinout their research. We have also invested £5 million in the North East Technology Park to attract more science and technology companies, and the North East hosts Catapult centres that de-risk the transition from research to commercialisation, including the Offshore Renewable Catapult (Blyth), the Digital Catapult (Sunderland) and the Satellite Applications Catapult (County Durham).