Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of women impacted by the maladministration of pension communications as highlighted by the WASPI campaign in South Ribble constituency.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
ONS population estimates suggest that in 2021 there were 6,495 females born in the 1950s resident in the South Ribble constituency, who are impacted by the equalisation of the State Pension age.
We do not know how many of these women were impacted by maladministration in the communication of state pension age changes.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many outstanding asylum applications there are for people living in South Ribble constituency.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum seekers awaiting an initial decision is published in table Asy_D03 of the ‘Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement detailed datasets’. This table is not broken down by constituency.
Data on asylum seekers on support by local authority is published in table Asy_D11 of the ‘Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement detailed datasets’. Please note that not all asylum seekers awaiting a decision will be on support.
Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbooks.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, which hospices (a) have all medication supplied (i) for free and (ii) at a discounted rate and (b) do not have medication supplied by the NHS.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative and end of life care is commissioned at a local level by integrated care boards (ICBs). Consequently, neither the Department nor NHS England hold data centrally on which hospices have all medication supplied for free or at a discounted rate by the National Health Service or which hospices do not have medication supplied by the NHS.
There are no plans currently to make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring the NHS to pay for all medications supplied to hospices, because medication supply to charitable hospices is dependent on local arrangements with ICBs. Hospices are advised to reach individual agreements with their ICBs, which have a broader picture of local arrangements on medication prescribing and provision within their areas.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring the NHS to pay for all medications supplied to hospices.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative and end of life care is commissioned at a local level by integrated care boards (ICBs). Consequently, neither the Department nor NHS England hold data centrally on which hospices have all medication supplied for free or at a discounted rate by the National Health Service or which hospices do not have medication supplied by the NHS.
There are no plans currently to make an assessment of the potential merits of requiring the NHS to pay for all medications supplied to hospices, because medication supply to charitable hospices is dependent on local arrangements with ICBs. Hospices are advised to reach individual agreements with their ICBs, which have a broader picture of local arrangements on medication prescribing and provision within their areas.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much compensation was paid under the delay repay scheme for journeys on Avanti West Coast in 2024; and how much and what proportion of this compensation was paid from the public purse.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Annual Delay Repay compensation figures are published by Financial Year for train operating companies on the Government website at the following link:
Further compensation figures will be available later in the year.
Avanti West Coast also publishes periodic Delay Repay compensation paid out to passengers on its website at the following link:
Under the terms of the National Rail Contract, the Department ordinarily funds all Delay Repay spend.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of pensioners receive Pension Credit in South Ribble constituency; and how many of these are new recipients since 31 July 2024.
Answered by Torsten Bell - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The latest available data shows that in Winter 2023 to 2024, there were 14,717 pensioner households living in the South Ribble constituency. This is based on winter-fuel-payments-household-2023-to-2024.ods.
At that point in time, 1,528 pensioner households received Pension Credit in the South Ribble constituency. This is based on February 2024 Pension Credit statistics which are available via DWP Stat-Xplore.
Based on these figures, 10.4% of pensioner households in the South Ribble constituency received Pension Credit in February 2024.
The latest Pension Credit statistics were published in November 2024 and cover the period up to May 2024. The next iteration of Pension Credit caseload statistics will be released on 18th February, as part of the DWP Benefits Statistics quarterly release. This will contain data for the period from June 2024 to the end of August 2024. Following release, the data can also be accessed at Stat-Xplore - Home.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much has been spent on flood prevention works to protect the village of Croston in South Ribble constituency in the last five years; and what funds are allocated for future improvements.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Protecting communities around the country from flooding is one of the Secretary of State’s five core priorities.
To ensure we protect the country from the devastating impacts of flooding, the Government will invest £2.4 billion in 2024/25 and 2025/26 to improve flood resilience by maintaining, repairing and building flood defences.
In South Ribble, the £7.3 million Croston Flood Scheme was completed in 2017 - protecting 438 properties. In the last 5 years (2019 -2024) there has been a further investment of around £500,000 for reconditioning projects, electricity running costs and repair works for the scheme and flood defence in Croston Village. An additional £42,000 is planned for 2024/25.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will undertake a review of NHS policy on the assessment of individual funding requests to support children for whom prescribing medical cannabis could help prevent repeated admissions to hospital.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published technology appraisals recommending Epidyolex, a licensed form of cannabidiol extracted from cannabis, for the treatment of seizures associated with two rare forms of epilepsies, specifically Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, and tuberous sclerosis complex.
Deciding whether to prescribe an unlicensed cannabis-based medicine, a medicine that has not been assessed or approved by the medicines regulator, is a clinical decision, and the funding of medicines within the National Health Service is governed by well-established processes and evidence-based guidelines produced by the NICE. The NICE found that there is insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness to support a population-wide recommendation in relation to unlicensed cannabis-based medicines for severe treatment-resistant epilepsy. The NICE also calls for further research.
Following the publication of the NICE’s guidance, NHS England and The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has agreed funding for two trials relating to the use of cannabis-based medicines for the treatment of difficult-to-treat epilepsies. These will be world-first trials and will be crucial in informing future NHS funding decisions. Due to commercial confidentiality, further information on the trials cannot be released at this time.
Where a treatment is not currently routinely funded by the NHS in England, an NHS clinician can, on behalf of their patient, make an application for funding in exceptional clinical circumstances. This is known as an Individual Funding Request (IFR). In making an application for an IFR, clinicians must demonstrate that the patient in question is clinically exceptional compared to the wider group of patients with the same condition, and is likely to derive greater benefit from the treatment. Each case is assessed on an individual basis, and is not a process the Government can seek to influence.
Until the evidence base improves, prescribers will remain reticent in prescribing, and no decision can be made by the NHS on routine funding. That is why the Government is committed to research and catalysing the generation of evidence to support use of these products.
Like any other area of medicine, manufacturers of these products must invest in research and clinical trials to ensure that cannabis-based medicines are proven both safe and effective before they can be considered for routine funding by the NHS. The NIHR remains open to receiving good quality proposals for research in this area as a priority, and stands ready to support researchers and manufacturers to develop applications.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will hold discussions with the Lancashire Teaching Hospital Trust on the potential merits of enabling clinicians to prescribe unlicensed cannabis products to children for clinical reasons.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published technology appraisals recommending Epidyolex, a licensed form of cannabidiol extracted from cannabis, for the treatment of seizures associated with two rare forms of epilepsies, specifically Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, and tuberous sclerosis complex.
Deciding whether to prescribe an unlicensed cannabis-based medicine, a medicine that has not been assessed or approved by the medicines regulator, is a clinical decision, and the funding of medicines within the National Health Service is governed by well-established processes and evidence-based guidelines produced by the NICE. The NICE found that there is insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness to support a population-wide recommendation in relation to unlicensed cannabis-based medicines for severe treatment-resistant epilepsy. The NICE also calls for further research.
Following the publication of the NICE’s guidance, NHS England and The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has agreed funding for two trials relating to the use of cannabis-based medicines for the treatment of difficult-to-treat epilepsies. These will be world-first trials and will be crucial in informing future NHS funding decisions. Due to commercial confidentiality, further information on the trials cannot be released at this time.
Where a treatment is not currently routinely funded by the NHS in England, an NHS clinician can, on behalf of their patient, make an application for funding in exceptional clinical circumstances. This is known as an Individual Funding Request (IFR). In making an application for an IFR, clinicians must demonstrate that the patient in question is clinically exceptional compared to the wider group of patients with the same condition, and is likely to derive greater benefit from the treatment. Each case is assessed on an individual basis, and is not a process the Government can seek to influence.
Until the evidence base improves, prescribers will remain reticent in prescribing, and no decision can be made by the NHS on routine funding. That is why the Government is committed to research and catalysing the generation of evidence to support use of these products.
Like any other area of medicine, manufacturers of these products must invest in research and clinical trials to ensure that cannabis-based medicines are proven both safe and effective before they can be considered for routine funding by the NHS. The NIHR remains open to receiving good quality proposals for research in this area as a priority, and stands ready to support researchers and manufacturers to develop applications.
Asked by: Paul Foster (Labour - South Ribble)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has undertaken recent research on the use of medical cannabis for the treatment of (a) Dravet and (b) Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published technology appraisals recommending Epidyolex, a licensed form of cannabidiol extracted from cannabis, for the treatment of seizures associated with two rare forms of epilepsies, specifically Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, and tuberous sclerosis complex.
Deciding whether to prescribe an unlicensed cannabis-based medicine, a medicine that has not been assessed or approved by the medicines regulator, is a clinical decision, and the funding of medicines within the National Health Service is governed by well-established processes and evidence-based guidelines produced by the NICE. The NICE found that there is insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness to support a population-wide recommendation in relation to unlicensed cannabis-based medicines for severe treatment-resistant epilepsy. The NICE also calls for further research.
Following the publication of the NICE’s guidance, NHS England and The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has agreed funding for two trials relating to the use of cannabis-based medicines for the treatment of difficult-to-treat epilepsies. These will be world-first trials and will be crucial in informing future NHS funding decisions. Due to commercial confidentiality, further information on the trials cannot be released at this time.
Where a treatment is not currently routinely funded by the NHS in England, an NHS clinician can, on behalf of their patient, make an application for funding in exceptional clinical circumstances. This is known as an Individual Funding Request (IFR). In making an application for an IFR, clinicians must demonstrate that the patient in question is clinically exceptional compared to the wider group of patients with the same condition, and is likely to derive greater benefit from the treatment. Each case is assessed on an individual basis, and is not a process the Government can seek to influence.
Until the evidence base improves, prescribers will remain reticent in prescribing, and no decision can be made by the NHS on routine funding. That is why the Government is committed to research and catalysing the generation of evidence to support use of these products.
Like any other area of medicine, manufacturers of these products must invest in research and clinical trials to ensure that cannabis-based medicines are proven both safe and effective before they can be considered for routine funding by the NHS. The NIHR remains open to receiving good quality proposals for research in this area as a priority, and stands ready to support researchers and manufacturers to develop applications.