Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to ensure access to services for disabled people with assistance dogs.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Equality Act 2010 places a general duty on businesses and service providers to make reasonable adjustments to allow disabled people, including people with assistance dogs, access to goods and services so they are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled people.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Equality Act. It has published guidance - ‘Assistance Dogs: a guide for businesses and service providers’ - to help businesses and service providers understand what they can do to meet their legal duties to assistance dog owners.
Duties and protections under the Equality Act are ultimately enforceable through the courts, and anybody who thinks that they have been discriminated against - including where access to an assistance dog has been refused - can take legal action to seek to resolve the issue. The EHRC will support people who have experienced discrimination through that process.
This Government supports Guide Dogs UK’s ‘Open Doors’ campaign which aims to achieve the fullest possible access for owners of guide dogs and assistance dogs and has met Guide Dogs UK several times over the last 18 months. I have also met with other MPs and continued discussions with stakeholders on how to improve access to public spaces for disabled people with assistance dogs. This Government will continue to reinforce the message that assistance dogs should be allowed access to businesses and services, except in the most exceptional circumstances.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people with (a) multiple sclerosis and (b) other progressive neurological conditions received Access to Work support in 2024-25 by provision type.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Although the Department collects information on the medical condition(s) of Access to Work customers, readily available primary medical condition categories do not allow for the disaggregation of people with multiple sclerosis or other progressive neurological conditions. Where this information is recorded it may be stored as descriptive free-text and extracting it would require manual review of individual records therefore incurring a disproportionate cost. Statistics on the number of people in receipt of payment for Access to Work by readily available primary medical condition categories are published annually in Table PAY03a-d of the Access to Work official statistics: Access to Work statistics - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to help increase participation in women’s football.
Answered by Stephanie Peacock - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is determined to drive participation opportunities for women and girls across sport, including football. The Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme will invest £85 million in 2026/27, with 30% of priority slots reserved for women’s and girls’ teams. We will also continue to use the Women’s Football Taskforce to deliver tangible change for women and girls from grassroots to elite level.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
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 tackle health inequalities in liver disease in Blackpool.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Liver disease is a broad term for several conditions affecting the liver and pancreas and the Government is taking decisive action to tackle ill health and shift the focus on diseases such as liver disease from treatment to prevention.
The most prevalent cause of liver-related ill health and death is alcohol-related liver disease. From 2026/27, all alcohol and drug treatment and recovery funding will be channelled through the Public Health Grant, with ringfenced funding in which Blackpool Council will receive £4,554,578 in 2026/27 and indicative totals of £4,647,350 and £4,737,845 for 2027/28 and 2028/29 respectively. The Department has also published the United Kingdom’s first clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment which include guidance on early identification of liver disease and treating alcohol dependence in people with liver disease. To help people make healthier choices about alcohol we are making it a legal requirement for alcohol labels to display health warnings and consistent nutritional information.
Locally, Blackpool Teaching Hospital’s Liver Service has recently achieved micro‑elimination of hepatitis C, with all drug and alcohol services across Lancashire now declared micro‑eliminated. The region’s Liver Health Check Team supports earlier detection of liver disease by referring at‑risk individuals, including those with high body mass index, diabetes, or high alcohol consumption for community fibroscans available in general practices (GPs), community venues, and via mobile units.
NHS England’s liver transformation programme focusses on awareness, prevention, diagnosis, detection, and treatment of all forms of liver disease and has developed a data pack for regional commissioners using the Department’s Fingertips data to support this. It is for commissioners in integrated care boards to determine how best to use this information as part of local commissioning decisions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is assessing new treatments for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), the broader term for fat buildup of the liver, which metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) falls under. This includes resmetirom and semaglutide. Outputs and recommendations are expected to be published mid-2026.
As part of our 10-Year Health Plan, we are improving diets, reducing physical inactivity, and creating healthier environments so that fewer people reach the point of needing treatment for diseases such as MASH. This includes updating the standards behind the advertising and promotions restrictions on ‘less healthy’ food and drink, requiring all large food businesses to report against standardised metrics on the healthiness of food sales and getting millions moving more through our national movement campaign.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what targeted interventions he plans to introduce to reduce the effects of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) in areas with high levels of deprivation.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Liver disease is a broad term for several conditions affecting the liver and pancreas and the Government is taking decisive action to tackle ill health and shift the focus on diseases such as liver disease from treatment to prevention.
The most prevalent cause of liver-related ill health and death is alcohol-related liver disease. From 2026/27, all alcohol and drug treatment and recovery funding will be channelled through the Public Health Grant, with ringfenced funding in which Blackpool Council will receive £4,554,578 in 2026/27 and indicative totals of £4,647,350 and £4,737,845 for 2027/28 and 2028/29 respectively. The Department has also published the United Kingdom’s first clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment which include guidance on early identification of liver disease and treating alcohol dependence in people with liver disease. To help people make healthier choices about alcohol we are making it a legal requirement for alcohol labels to display health warnings and consistent nutritional information.
Locally, Blackpool Teaching Hospital’s Liver Service has recently achieved micro‑elimination of hepatitis C, with all drug and alcohol services across Lancashire now declared micro‑eliminated. The region’s Liver Health Check Team supports earlier detection of liver disease by referring at‑risk individuals, including those with high body mass index, diabetes, or high alcohol consumption for community fibroscans available in general practices (GPs), community venues, and via mobile units.
NHS England’s liver transformation programme focusses on awareness, prevention, diagnosis, detection, and treatment of all forms of liver disease and has developed a data pack for regional commissioners using the Department’s Fingertips data to support this. It is for commissioners in integrated care boards to determine how best to use this information as part of local commissioning decisions. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is assessing new treatments for metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), the broader term for fat buildup of the liver, which metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) falls under. This includes resmetirom and semaglutide. Outputs and recommendations are expected to be published mid-2026.
As part of our 10-Year Health Plan, we are improving diets, reducing physical inactivity, and creating healthier environments so that fewer people reach the point of needing treatment for diseases such as MASH. This includes updating the standards behind the advertising and promotions restrictions on ‘less healthy’ food and drink, requiring all large food businesses to report against standardised metrics on the healthiness of food sales and getting millions moving more through our national movement campaign.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
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 potential merits of a cross-government alcohol strategy.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises that alcohol-related harm has wide ranging impacts across health, crime, productivity, and communities.
Commitments to addressing harms from alcohol feature in several of the Government's current strategies and plans. The National Health Service 10-Year Health Plan outlines crucial steps to help people make healthier choices about alcohol, including making it a legal requirement for alcohol labels to display health warnings and consistent nutritional information. This was reemphasised in the National Cancer Plan. The Men’s Health Strategy outlines the impact alcohol can have on men’s health, and announced the pilot of a new brief intervention to target the rise in cardiovascular disease deaths from combined alcohol and cocaine use among older men. To support better outcomes for people experiencing harmful drinking, the first ever United Kingdom clinical guidelines on alcohol treatment were published in November 2025.
The Government keeps the evidence on alcohol-related harm and the effectiveness of different policy approaches under review, and continues to consider how cross-Government action can best support improvements in population health and reduce health inequalities.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
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 potential impact of the decision to cease updates to fatty liver disease data on Office for Health Improvement and Disparities Fingertips profiles on trends in the level of those diseases.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) ceased to update non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) hospital admissions rates and premature deaths, in people aged under 75 years old, on the Fingertips profiles in December 2025. These only measure the most serious, and a small proportion of cases of the disease, and did not relate directly to the disease prevalence, level of disease, within the population.
These are not accurate measures of NAFLD within the population, a condition that is linked to obesity and which can be prevented and treated at early stages with healthy lifestyle changes. The latest reported data for England showed that 345 deaths due to NAFLD in 2023 and 3,126 hospital admissions in 2022/23. There is no data measuring the prevalence of NAFLD.
The decision to cease updates occurred after a process that examined data usage, potential duplication, and relative impact of the indicator on disease prevention and monitoring.
We concluded that the cessation of publication of these indicators would have limited impact on our efforts to monitor trends on the level of these diseases within the population.
Alternative data sources to monitor the population risk of this condition include measures of obesity, physical activity, and nutrition which continue to be published by OHID.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people received funding through an Access to Work grant to purchase hearing aids in the last 12 months.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Although the Department holds information on the specific types of support for which Access to Work payments are made, data which would allow payments for ‘hearing aids’ to be identified is not readily available. The data is recorded as descriptive free-text information and extracting it would require manual review of individual records, incurring disproportionate cost.
Statistics on the number of people receiving Access to Work payments by readily available element and support worker categories are published annually in Table PAY02 of the Access to Work official statistics: Access to Work statistics: April 2007 to March 2025 - GOV.UK.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who use Access to Work for the provision of British Sign Language interpretation receive funding for an additional condition to difficulty in hearing.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Although the Department collects information on the medical condition(s) of Access to Work customers and the types of support they are awarded and claim payment for, we are unable to link awarded support elements to specific medical conditions without manually examining individual case notes. It would therefore incur a disproportionate cost to identify what support, if any, customers receiving a ‘BSL Interpreter’ have been awarded in relation to medical conditions other than ‘Difficulty in hearing’.
Asked by: Lorraine Beavers (Labour - Blackpool North and Fleetwood)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many users of Access to Work received funding for a British Sign Language interpreter in each of the last five years for which figures are available; and what was the average cost per person of those awards.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Statistics on the number of people in receipt of payment for Access to Work support and average annual payments per person, by support worker type which includes a category for ‘BSL Interpreter’ are published in tables PAY02 and AVG02 of the Access to Work official statistics: Access to Work statistics: April 2007 to March 2025 - GOV.UK. Table 1 summarises these figures:
Table 1. Number of customers in receipt of payment and average annual payment received per customer for ‘BSL Interpreter between financial years 2020/21 and 2024/25
Financial Year | Number of customers in receipt of payment for a ‘BSL Interpreter’ | Average annual payment per customer for ‘BSL Interpreter’ (£ nominal) | Average annual payment per customer for ‘BSL Interpreter’ (£ 2024/25 prices) |
2020/21 | 2,810 | 12,700 | 14,900 |
2021/22 | 2,890 | 15,200 | 17,900 |
2022/23 | 2,940 | 16,600 | 18,300 |
2023/24 | 3,170 | 17,200 | 17,900 |
2024/25 | 3,210 | 18,200 | 18,200 |
Notes