Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps the Government is taking to help tackle refusal of entry of guide dogs into business establishments.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Under the Equality Act 2010, businesses and public bodies that provide goods and services to the public must not unlawfully discriminate against disabled people, including those with assistance dogs.
The Act places a duty on service providers to make reasonable adjustments to improve access to premises, buildings and services. This could include allowing the use of assistance dogs so that disabled customers are not placed at a substantial disadvantage compared to non-disabled customers.
The Disability Action Plan published on 5th February 2024 includes an action to establish an assistance dogs and animals working group, which will consider issues including how to educate businesses on the rights of assistance dog owners and to help simplify reporting access refusals.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support land-based education.
Answered by Robert Halfon
Land-based colleges play a central role in meeting local and national skills needs, including supporting the department's commitments on Net Zero. These colleges are significant assets to their local communities, enabling people of all backgrounds to gain sought-after skills, get good jobs and climb the ladder of opportunity.
Departmental officials are working closely with Landex and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to develop a strategy for land-based colleges which recognises their central role in supporting the delivery of key national priorities. This strategy will position land-based colleges within the Green Jobs Plan as hubs of skills training and technical innovation, boosting take-up in rural areas of high-quality skills training and ensuring high-quality, updated technical qualifications are available in each local area.
In addition to receiving capital funding, land-based colleges have benefitted from the £300 million the department has invested in the 21 employer led Institutes of Technology, which are leading the development of technical qualifications in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics related areas.
In the 2023/24 academic year, land-based colleges also benefitted from a significant uplift in the specialist programme cost weighting from 1.75 to 1.975. This means where young people are taking specialist land-based courses at these institutions, they now attract a 97.5% uplift on the core funding rate.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps her Department has taken to support hospices.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the Health and Care Act 2022, the Government added palliative care services to the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission, which will ensure a more consistent national approach and support commissioners in prioritising palliative and end of life care, including from hospices.
The majority of palliative and end of life care is provided by NHS staff and services. However, we also recognise the vital part that voluntary sector organisations, including hospices, play in providing support to people at end of life and their families. Most hospices are charitable, independent organisations which receive some statutory funding for providing services within the National Health Service. The amount of funding hospices receive is dependent on many factors, including what other statutory services are available within the ICB footprint. Charitable hospices provide a range of services which go beyond that which statutory services are legally required to provide. Consequently, the funding arrangements reflect this.
At a national level, NHS England supports children’s hospices through the Children and Young People’s hospice grant. It has confirmed that it will be renewing the grant for 2024/25, once again allocating £25 million of grant funding for children’s hospices using the same prevalence-based allocation approach as in 2022/23 and 2023/24.
The Government has provided additional funding to help deliver the one-off payments to eligible staff employed by non-NHS organisations, which employ their staff on dynamically linked Agenda for Change contracts. Organisations, such as hospices, were able to apply for the funding if they were able to show they had been negatively financially impacted by the pay deal, and that their staff are employed on dynamically linked Agenda for Change contracts.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether her Department is taking steps to support hospices with energy costs.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government recognises that organisations within the care sector including hospices have faced significant energy and other cost of living increases. The Government values the contribution that this sector makes in supporting the National Health Service and the wellbeing of vulnerable people. The Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) provides a baseline level of support to all eligible non-domestic energy users paying the highest energy prices starting from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. The EBDS unit discount is capped at £6.97 per megawatt hour (MWh) for gas and £19.61 per MWh for electricity. This will be subject to a wholesale price threshold of £107/MWh for gas and £302/MWh for electricity. Suppliers will automatically apply the baseline reduction to the bills.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
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 General Practices have adequate funding in (a) Penrith and The Border constituency and (b) Cumbria.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The majority of the Department’s funding is allocated to NHS England. In turn, NHS England allocates funding to integrated care boards (ICBs) for primary care, taking account of nationally agreed contracts, such as general practitioner (GP) contracts. The Department and NHS England set the contract and associated funding for GPs each year in consultation with the profession. ICBs have delegated responsibility for commissioning healthcare services, including GP services, for their populations.
In 2022/23, practices in NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB received £171.07 per registered patient and practices in NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB received £173.00 per registered patient. This is higher than the England average of £163.50 per registered patient.
Spending on GPs has risen by almost a fifth in real terms, or 19%, between 2017/18 and the most recent data in 2021/22, from £11.3 billion to £13.5 billion. The Government continues to invest in GPs to ensure it is sustainable in the long-term.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
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 support General Practices in rural areas.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Delivery Plan for Recovering Access to Primary Care outlines how we will support general practices (GPs), including in rural areas, by empowering patients to manage their own health, implementing the Modern General Practice Access model, expanding community pharmacy services, and cutting bureaucracy to reduce workload.
We acknowledge that some areas of the country are experiencing recruitment and retention issues with regard to National Health Service GPs, and we are taking steps to address this. In 2016, the Government launched the Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme, which has attracted hundreds of doctors to train in hard to recruit locations, including many rural areas, by providing a one-off financial incentive of £20,000.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what support his Department is providing for those affected by flooding.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
On Saturday 6th January the Government announced a significant package of support that will be available to areas in England that have experienced exceptional localised flooding as a result of Storm Henk (2nd – 12th Jan).
DLUHC has activated the Flood Recovery Framework and its package of support measures include;
Following approval from Defra’s Secretary of State, Defra also activated the PFR Grant scheme and the Farming Recovery Fund.
The PFR Scheme is a package of funding for property owners directly flooded by a specific weather event that grants them up to £5,000 per property to install PFR measures. The Farming Recovery Fund pays out to farmers with uninsurable damage for grants of up to £25,000 for repair and reinstatement costs.
All schemes, with the exception of the Farming Recovery Fund, will be administered through local authorities, who will confirm application process to eligible households and businesses in the coming weeks.
The Farming Recovery Fund is administered by the Rural Payments Agency and not Local Authorities. Defra will confirm detailed eligibility for the Farming Recovery Fund over the coming weeks.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether her Department has made an assessment of the ability of the electrical power companies to respond to recent storm events.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government annually reviews the electricity industry’s preparedness for a range of scenarios including severe weather events ahead of each winter. This is in addition to specific reviews after major disruptive events, the latest being the Storm Arwen Review in 2022.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce the risk of cardiac arrest among young people.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme tests for 11 specific physical conditions including congenital heart disease. All parents are also offered a physical examination of their baby within 72 hours of giving birth, which includes checking the baby for heart murmurs.
To improve survival rates for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest cases, on 29 December 2022 the Government announced a new £1 million one-off fund that will expand defibrillator access in the community. The Government is acting on the drivers of cardiovascular diseases, including smoking. We have set out plans to create the first smokefree generation and announced significant new funding to support current smokers.
Asked by: Neil Hudson (Conservative - Penrith and The Border)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department have taken to support the NHS to mitigate the impact of (a) flooding and (b) storms on the provision of healthcare.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The National Health Service has well established measures in place to prepare for, and respond to, flooding and storms. The Department for Health and Social Care works closely with the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, the Met Office and the Environment Agency to monitor risks from storms and flooding. This information is shared with NHS England to support their planning and response activity.
Prior to flooding or storm events, notice is given through Environment Agency and Met Office warning systems. The Department for Health and Social Care coordinates with NHS England, the Environment Agency, and other cross-Government partners to monitor impacts and coordinate the response.