Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will take steps to ensure that the budget for the Special Schools Eye Care Service is not reduced so that (a) children with Special Educational Needs can receive free eye care in schools and (b) optometrists can afford to continue providing the service.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has committed to invest up to £12.7 million annually for the provision of sight tests and associated optical vouchers in special educational settings. This represents an approximate 87% increase compared to the current budget. This additional investment has the potential to increase coverage from 4% of special educational settings to 100%. This is a new additional budget for providing sight tests and vouchers in these settings, and so represents a recurrent increased investment in sight testing and the sight testing sector. Service delivery will continue within the proof-of-concept settings, to ensure continuity of service, whilst the required regulatory changes are laid in Parliament to underpin wider rollout during 2024/25.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of cutting the special schools eye care budget on children with special educational needs.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has committed to invest up to £12.7 million annually for the provision of sight tests and associated optical vouchers in special educational settings. This represents an approximate 87% increase compared to the current budget. This additional investment has the potential to increase coverage from 4% of special educational settings to 100%. This is a new additional budget for providing sight tests and vouchers in these settings, and so represents a recurrent increased investment in sight testing and the sight testing sector. Service delivery will continue within the proof-of-concept settings, to ensure continuity of service, whilst the required regulatory changes are laid in Parliament to underpin wider rollout during 2024/25.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of trends in the special schools eye care service budget on service delivery.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has committed to invest up to £12.7 million annually for the provision of sight tests and associated optical vouchers in special educational settings. This represents an approximate 87% increase compared to the current budget. This additional investment has the potential to increase coverage from 4% of special educational settings to 100%. This is a new additional budget for providing sight tests and vouchers in these settings, and so represents a recurrent increased investment in sight testing and the sight testing sector. Service delivery will continue within the proof-of-concept settings, to ensure continuity of service, whilst the required regulatory changes are laid in Parliament to underpin wider rollout during 2024/25.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure that the Special Schools Eye Care service is fully funded.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has committed to invest up to £12.7 million annually for the provision of sight tests and associated optical vouchers in special educational settings. This represents an approximate 87% increase compared to the current budget. This additional investment has the potential to increase coverage from 4% of special educational settings to 100%. This is a new additional budget for providing sight tests and vouchers in these settings, and so represents a recurrent increased investment in sight testing and the sight testing sector. Service delivery will continue within the proof-of-concept settings, to ensure continuity of service, whilst the required regulatory changes are laid in Parliament to underpin wider rollout during 2024/25.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what steps his Department is taking with its international partners to help ensure that people living with tuberculosis have access to healthcare.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK is a leading donor to the fight against tuberculosis. Our £1 billion replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will provide TB treatment and care to more than one million people between 2023 and 2025. We are a leading funder of TB research, including through the TB Alliance and also invest in improving access and affordability for key TB products and testing innovative approaches to providing TB services. These investments contribute to achieving the commitments made in the TB High Level 2023 political declaration, including supporting people to have access to appropriate healthcare.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what steps his Department is taking to help achieve the commitments made in the 2023 TB High-Level Meeting Political Declaration by 2028.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK is a leading donor to the fight against tuberculosis. Our £1 billion replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will provide TB treatment and care to more than one million people between 2023 and 2025. We are a leading funder of TB research, including through the TB Alliance and also invest in improving access and affordability for key TB products and testing innovative approaches to providing TB services. These investments contribute to achieving the commitments made in the TB High Level 2023 political declaration, including supporting people to have access to appropriate healthcare.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of devolving employment support services to (a) London boroughs and (b) the Mayor of London.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As part of the English Devolution Trailblazer deeper devolution deals, the Department of Work and Pensions have agreed with Greater Manchester and West Midlands Combined Authorities to test a new approach to design of future Contracted Employment Programmes including co-design and a delegated delivery model, aligned with the Combined Authorities geographical footprint.
We will evaluate the impacts and outcomes of this new approach to further understand the opportunities and risks involved, before considering the Department’s approach to future contracted employment programmes.
Full details of the ‘Trailblazer’ deals can be found here:
Greater Manchester Combined Authority Trailblazer deeper devolution deal - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
West Midlands Combined Authority: “Trailblazer” deeper devolution deal - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of youth unemployment (a) in London and (b) per London borough in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested on youth unemployment is published and available here.
The small sample sizes of the boroughs means that the latest survey-based trends in youth ILO unemployment across the year are not robust. However, Claimant Count administrative data for 16-24 year olds for London and all the boroughs for the last twelve months is available.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of people receiving the personal independence payment are in paid employment.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on the 2nd of May to PQ 24056.
Asked by: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to recommendation 90(a) of the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities' Report on follow-up to the inquiry concerning the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, advance unedited version published on 22 March 2024, whether he is taking steps with Cabinet colleagues to (a) consult (i) disabled people and (ii) representative organisations on the national disability strategy and (b) otherwise involve those stakeholders with the strategy.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The National Disability Strategy (NDS) was published in 2021, bringing together an ambitious and comprehensive set of commitments across Government and setting out the long term vision to improve disabled people’s daily lives.
The Cabinet Office Disability Unit (DU) continues to engage with disabled people and their representative organisations to deliver the outstanding commitments in the NDS and now also the Actions in the Disability Action Plan, via its systematic stakeholder engagement framework. The framework has been designed to ensure that voices across the disability sector (disabled people and their communities, disabled people-led organisations, charities, and business leaders working on accessibility and inclusion) are meaningfully considered throughout the development, implementation and evaluation of the DU’s work, from the earliest possible opportunity.