Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average time taken by his Department to respond to a freedom of information request was in each of the last five years; how many and what proportion of such requests his Department did not answer within the target time in each of those years; and how many such requests to his Department had not been answered within the target time as of 1 May 2024.
Answered by Anthony Browne
The department does not record the time spent in answering individual Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and is therefore unable to calculate an average time for answering such requests in any of the last five years.
Statistical information on the Department’s performance in answering FOI requests over the last five years is published by the Cabinet Office at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-foi-statistics.
These statistics, which cover all Government departments, include the number that were not answered within the target time. They are published by calendar year, with the latest year being 2023. The annual statistics for 2024 will be published in April 2025 but quarterly statistics may be available sooner.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether his Department carried out impact assessments prior to its decision to delay the implementation of the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake
The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act, which became law in May 2023, will require employers to pass all tips on to workers, without deductions.
The accompanying statutory Code of Practice laid before Parliament on 22nd April 2024, and the other measures in the Act, will be effective from 1st October 2024.
The implementation date for the Act was revised from 1st July 2024 to 1st October 2024 to ensure sufficient time for those affected by the changes to prepare.
The impacts of the new requirements were considered in the impact assessment prepared for the Act: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3197/publications.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has had discussions with Avanti West Coast on the closure of the ticket office at Euston railway station.
Answered by Huw Merriman
The Department is aware of the current temporary closure of the ticket office at Euston station arising from a bird infestation. Network Rail is responsible for managing Euston and is working on a remedy for staff and passengers.
The Government has been clear to the industry that no ticket offices should close.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 March 2024 to Question 17965 on Stepping Hill Hospital: Repairs and Maintenance, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the state of repair of buildings at Stepping Hill hospital on capacity in (a) Stockport and (b) Greater Manchester.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Department does not currently collect information on the impact of the condition of the National Health Service estate on capacity. However, we recognise the importance of modern healthcare estates in tackling hospital waiting lists. We are investing significant sums to upgrade and modernise NHS buildings, so staff have the facilities needed to provide world-class care for patients, including £4.2 billion this financial year for trusts to spend on necessary maintenance and repairs. This is on top of expected investment of over £20 billion in the New Hospital Programme, as well as £1.7 billion for over 70 hospital upgrades across England.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 25 April 2024 to Question 23061 on Cancer: Health Services, what steps she is taking to ensure that NHS trusts have sufficient cancer treatment capacity to adequately support the number of people that are being diagnosed.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
The Government has allocated an additional £8 billion across this Spending Review period, to increase capacity and support elective recovery. Cancer treatment levels are at a record high, with approximately 345,000 people having received their first cancer treatment in the twelve months to February 2024.
As outlined in the 2024/25 NHS England Planning Guidance, NHS England is providing over £266 million in cancer service development funding to Cancer Alliances, to support the delivery of the operational priorities for cancer.
We are expanding capacity through our community diagnostic centres (CDCs), supported by £2.3 billion of capital funding, with 160 CDCs currently operational and having delivered almost 8 million additional tests, checks, and scans, including vital cancer checks.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been (a) arrested, (b) prosecuted and (c) convicted using facial recognition software.
Answered by Chris Philp
Facial recognition is used by police as an identification tool to search an image of an unknown suspect against the images of people taken on arrest (‘custody images’), or to locate people in an intelligence-led way, by scanning live crowds and comparing them with the images of wanted people on a specific watchlist instantaneously, with very high levels of accuracy.
An arrest may result from a match made by facial recognition software, but not without the match being carefully reviewed by a trained officer and consideration being made of the wider context and other available information. Investigating officers will consider all of the evidence available and follow up all reasonable enquiries as in any normal investigation. Moreover, a prosecution and/or conviction would never be based solely on a match made by facial recognition software.
There are no centrally held figures on the number of arrests that result from police forces using facial recognition technology. South Wales Police and the Metropolitan Police Service publish information on their use of facial recognition, including arrests figures and other positive outcomes from deploying live facial recognition. These can be found at the following links:
https://www.met.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/fr/facial-recognition-technology/
Given that a facial match using facial recognition software would be one of many factors under consideration in reaching the decision to prosecute and/or resulting in a person being convicted of an offence it is not possible to attribute exact numbers of prosecutions and convictions. However, we are undertaking evaluation work to enhance our understanding of the impact of facial recognition in this regard.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2024 to Question 21862 on Cost of Living Payments: Disability, what estimate he has made of the average financial impact per claimant of the discontinuation of Disability Cost of Living Payments.
Answered by Mims Davies
No estimate has been made about the discontinuation of Disability Cost of Living Payments.
As of April 2024, the rate of inflation has slowed, and the Government has also implemented uprating to benefits to reflect increased costs. We also increased extra costs disability benefits by 10.1 per cent from April 2023 and by 6.7% from April 2024 in line with the Consumer Price Index.
For 2023/24 we estimate that nearly 60 per cent of individuals who received an extra costs disability benefit would have received the means-tested benefit Cost of Living Payments, worth up to £900. Over 85 per cent would have received either or both of the means-tested and the £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment.
An evaluation of the Cost of Living Payments is underway. This will seek to understand their effectiveness as a means of support for low-income and vulnerable household.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, how many staff in his Department were based in the Republic of India as of 15 April 2024.
Answered by David Rutley
The FCDO currently has between 40-49 staff, as at the end of March 2024, working in India.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 29 April 2024 to Question 23065 on NHS: Databases, if he will hold discussions with the Federation of Clinical Registries on the (a) procurement and (b) centralising of clinical registries by the Medical Devices Outcome Registry programme.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
NHS England’s Patient Outcomes and Registries Programme is not centralising all clinical registries. The programme is: providing a new, improved national approach to NHS England funded clinical registries that optimises the security and use of patient data to improve patient safety vigilance and to improve patient outcomes, innovation, and value; and expanding the coverage of NHS England’s clinical registries and patient reported outcome measurement into new areas, to meet the independent Cumberlege and Paterson enquiry requirements to improve patient outcomes. The programme is undertaking extensive engagement, and we propose that any meetings with specific stakeholder groups about the programme are organised via the Medical Devices Outcome Registry Programme Director.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether the United Kingdom and India collaborate on space programmes.
Answered by Andrew Griffith
India is a hugely important partner for the UK, not least because of its size, scale of ambition in science and technology. The UK and India collaborate on space programmes, for example the UK Space Agency is funding the development of an X-Ray imaging instrument, AXIS, in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation.