Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of land in England is covered by an adopted local plan.
Answered by Lord Barwell
As at 31 December 2016, 74 per cent of land in England is covered by an adopted Local Plan.
We want all areas to be covered by an up to date plan and that is why we have bought forward a statutory requirement in the Neighbourhood Planning Bill for local planning authorities to identify strategic priorities, and set out policies to address them in their development plan documents.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many neighbourhood plans have been adopted in England.
Answered by Lord Barwell
There is no requirement for the Department to be notified when a neighbourhood plan is adopted. Our records show that 268 neighbourhood plans have been adopted in England since April 2013.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will increase the Local Majors Fund.
Answered by David Gauke
The Local Majors Fund supports local transport scheme bids which are too big to receive support from the Local Growth Fund. At the Spending Review in 2015, the Government announced the Local Majors Fund would comprise £475 million of funding over this Parliament. This Fund forms part of the Government’s commitment to infrastructure – over 3000 infrastructure projects have been delivered across the country since 2010.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the implications of a reduction in the number of healthcare professionals trained to fit intra-uterine methods of contraception on women's access to contraception.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
No such assessment has been made. Since 2013, local authorities have been mandated to commission open access contraceptive services, including intra-uterine methods that meet the needs of their local populations. Data published by NHS Digital on 19 October 2016 showed that the number of women fitted with intra-uterine methods in sexual and reproductive health services increased slightly from 2014/15 (121,900) to 2015/16 (123,500) and by 79% compared to 10 years ago.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of land in England is covered by an adopted local plan.
Answered by Lord Barwell
244 of 338 local planning authorities (72%) have an adopted Local Plan, compared to 58 (17%) in May 2010. Approximately 69% of England's land area is covered by adopted Local Plans. In order to ensure areas get plans in place the Government has tabled an amendment to the Neighbourhood Planning Bill to place a statutory duty on every local planning authority to have a development plan document and to give the Secretary of State power to direct the relevant county council to produce a plan if a local planning authority in a two-tier area has failed to do so.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many pharmacies are now clustered.
Answered by David Mowat
We know that 40% of pharmacies are in clusters of three or more meaning that two-fifths of pharmacies are within 10 minutes’ walk of two or more other pharmacies.
But we also know that in many places there are far more than this. For example, on Loughborough Road in Leicester there are 12 pharmacies, all within 10 minutes’ walk of each other. Similarly on Clodeshall Road in Birmingham, there are 11 pharmacies within 10 minutes’ walk. There are many more examples of clusters of pharmacies throughout England, with one cluster in London of 18 pharmacies within 10 minutes of each other. The median average pharmacy currently receives £220,000 per year in National Health Service funding. This includes a fixed payment of £25,000 per year for almost all pharmacies, regardless of their size or quality. This represents an inefficient allocation of NHS funds.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the strength of a designation as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in determining planning applications.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The National Planning Policy Framework provides strong protection for Sites of Special Scientific Interest. It makes clear that proposed development likely to have an adverse effect on a Site of Special Scientific Interest should not normally be permitted. Planning law requires local planning authorities to consult Natural England on applications for development in or likely to affect Sites of Special Scientific Interest.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the use of air quality management areas by local authorities.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
Air quality has improved significantly in recent decades and we are working at local, national and international levels to continue those improvements. The UK currently meets legal limits for almost all pollutants; however, reducing levels for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) remains the most challenging.
Local authorities (LAs) have opportunities to improve air quality for the protection of public health and the environment through decisions they make on land use planning, permitting, roads and air quality management areas (AQMAs).
Across the UK, 259 LAs declared 715 AQMAs since 1999. Most AQMAs in the UK are in urban areas and have been established to address the contribution to air pollution from traffic emissions of NO2 or particulate matter (PM10). Details of the current AQMAs declared by LAs, broken down by region and pollutant, are set out in the table below.
Region | Total LAs | Number of LAs with AQMAs | For NO2 | For PM10 | For SO2 |
England (outside London) | 294 | 193 | 497 | 38 | 6 |
London | 33 | 33 | 33 | 29 | 0 |
Scotland | 32 | 14 | 25 | 21 | 1 |
Wales | 22 | 10 | 37 | 1 | 0 |
N. Ireland | 11 | 9 | 20 | 7 | 0 |
TOTAL | 393 | 259 | 612 | 96 | 7 |
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many councils do not currently have a five-year land supply.
Answered by Lord Barwell
We do not hold information centrally on how many local planning authorities do not have a five-year land supply for housing. A local planning authority's five-year land supply position changes frequently and is subject to market conditions. The National Planning Policy Framework requires local planning authorities to keep their land supply under regular review.
Asked by: Mims Davies (Conservative - Mid Sussex)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the Italian model for screening heart conditions in young people who participate in organised sport.
Answered by David Mowat
Last year the United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UK NSC) reviewed published evidence and literature on the risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) relating to a variety of conditions including in young people who participated in organised sport and recommended that screening should not be offered.
Cardiac screening is mandatory in Italy where young people undertake sport. This has resulted in an 89% decrease in mortality of those tested based data published in 2005 from one region in Italy.
There are a number of questions relating to the effectiveness of the Italian programme that are not available in published literature. We are awaiting a response from the Italian Health Minister on behalf of the UK NSC requesting access to the data for the whole of Italy so that the UK NSC could see to what extent the data is representative of Italy as a country overall. The UK NSC will be reviewing the evidence for SCD again in 2018/19 and welcomes any data from the Italian government.