Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the impact of delays in processing British passport applications on the processing times for other types of visa applications.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
The response to the unprecedented demand for passports in 2022 has had no impact upon the processing times for UK visas.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an estimate of the (a) number and (b) proportion of applications for British passports that have taken longer than 10 weeks to be processed in 2022.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Between January and July 2022, 96.4% of the 5.3 million standard UK applications processed were completed within the published processing time of ten weeks.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she has taken to ensure that staff operating the passport advice line receive adequate training.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Teleperformance, who operate the Passport Adviceline, carry out a full training programme for all call agents. The training materials used are subject to review and approval by His Majesty’s Passport Office.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the customer service provided by Teleperformance, the company contracted to deliver the passport advice line.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Teleperformance have been responding to a formal rectification plan, and the service has significantly improved in response. In August, 98.73% of calls were answered within 30 seconds, exceeding the required service level of 80%.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what public health advice is being issued regarding the increasing infection rates of Omicron variant BA-5.
Answered by Maggie Throup
Due to the COVID-19 vaccination and booster programme and the availability of antiviral treatments, there is a lower risk to the population of severe illness or hospitalisation. The Government’s guidance has transitioned to encouraging responsible behaviours, while targeting protection towards those individuals most at risk from the virus.
In April 2022, guidance for the public was issued which set out how the risk of infection and transmission of respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19, can be reduced in addition to guidance for people with symptoms of a respiratory illness. Public health principles were also published to reduce the spread of respiratory infections in the workplace.
The UK Health Security Agency and the National Health Service continue to promote safe behaviours and vaccination to the public through the media and local authorities, including Directors of Public Health and their teams. The Government continues to monitor a range of data to ensure the country’s response to COVID-19 remains effective and proportionate and will communicate public health advice through all available channels.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the form entitled Model articles of association for academy trusts, published on 3 January 2013, whether it remains his policy that the maximum aggregate number of votes exercisable by local authority associated persons should not exceed 19.9 per cent of the total number of votes exercisable by Members in general meeting.
Answered by Will Quince
The most recent model articles of association for use by mainstream academies, last updated on 30 June 2021 states:
“Notwithstanding the number of Members from time to time, the maximum aggregate number of votes exercisable by Local Authority Associated Persons shall never exceed 19.9% of the total number of votes exercisable by Members in general meeting and the votes of the other Members having a right to vote at the meeting will be increased on a pro-rata basis.”
This remains the department’s policy position, and we have no plans to change this approach for most types of academy trusts.
The department is testing an approach to allow local authorities to establish new multi academy trusts, where there is a need, to which the above limit on local authority Associated Persons shall not apply. We will, however, require at least one member to be independent of any association with the local authority. We will work with a small number of local authorities to test the concept. Local authority-established multi-academy trusts will be subject to the same oversight and, where necessary, intervention as all trusts. More information about this policy can be found in the registration of interest document, here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-authority-established-mats-registration-of-interest.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
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 ensure that dental practices in West Sussex accept NHS-funded patients.
Answered by James Morris
We provided an additional £50 million for National Health Service dentistry for the final quarter of 2021/22 to provide urgent care to patients. Of this funding, £6,887,000 was made available to the South East region, including West Sussex. NHS England and NHS Improvement have asked practices to deliver 100% of contracted units of dental activity and 100% of units of orthodontic activity to safely improve access for patients.
Dental patients are not registered to a particular practice outside a course of treatment. A dental practice can accept a patient for a course of treatment and there are no geographical restrictions on which practice a patient may attend. In addition, NHS Digital has written to practices to ensure that information on appointment availability via NHS.UK is updated to allow patients to access NHS dental care. Patients can contact NHS England’s Customer Contact Centre for assistance in finding a local dental practice or NHS 111 if seeking urgent dental care.
The Department and NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with stakeholders, including the British Dental Association, to improve NHS dentistry and negotiations are underway on initial measures. This aims to increase access to NHS dentistry, including in West Sussex.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when he plans to respond to the email correspondence of 10 March 2022 from the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton on the reclassification of rental properties.
Answered by Kemi Badenoch - President of the Board of Trade
A response was issued to my Rt Hon Friend on 27 June.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to offer a second booster vaccination to all adults, in the context of rising hospitalisations from covid-19.
Answered by Maggie Throup
On 21 February 2022, the Government accepted advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to offer an additional spring booster dose to all residents in care homes for older adults, individuals aged 12 years old and over who are immunosuppressed, and all adults aged 75 years old and over.
On 19 May 2022, the JCVI published interim advice on an autumn COVID-19 booster programme which states that a COVID-19 vaccine should be offered to residents in a care home for older adults and staff; frontline health and social care workers; all those aged 65 years old and over; and adults aged 16 to 64 years old in a clinical risk group. The JCVI is considering the vaccination of other patient groups and the detail of the definitions of clinical risk groups. The JCVI keeps the current epidemiological data under review and will issue further advice if necessary.
Asked by: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has provided to help improve access to NHS dental services in West Sussex.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
An additional £50 million was provided for National Health Service dentistry in the final quarter of 2021/22 to provide urgent care to patients. Of this funding, £6,887,000 was made available to the South East of England, including West Sussex. NHS England provides regional commissioning teams with a combined allocation for dental services, community pharmacy and primary care ophthalmology. In 2022/23, this allocation is £5,384 million.