Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department has made on developing a Behavioural Delivery Plan.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Children and staff should be able to learn and work in safe, calm environments and good behaviour is essential to ensuring all pupils can benefit from a high-quality education.
To support schools the department has announced up to 90 new Attendance and Behaviour Hubs. These Hubs will be led by schools with excellent attendance and behaviour practice who will work closely with other schools to help improve their approach and drive-up standards of behaviour across our classrooms.
Around 500 schools every year will benefit from intensive, one to one support and a further 4,500 schools will benefit from a schedule of termly regional events including training, best practice sharing events and open days.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 ensure that clinical staff have an adequate understanding of deaf awareness.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Employers in the health system are responsible for ensuring that their staff are trained to the required standards to deliver safe and effective treatment for patients, and to deploy their staff in the best way to ensure the delivery of health services to their local populations.
Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the recommended approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, including deaf people.
NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement, and with a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS. The intention is to ensure that staff, providers, and commissioners of services are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of the disabled people using these services.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 improve implementation of the Accessible Information Standard to support deaf people.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Employers in the health system are responsible for ensuring that their staff are trained to the required standards to deliver safe and effective treatment for patients, and to deploy their staff in the best way to ensure the delivery of health services to their local populations.
Since 2016, all National Health Service organisations and publicly funded social care providers are expected to meet the Accessible Information Standard (AIS), which details the recommended approach to supporting the information and communication support needs of patients and carers with a disability, impairment, or sensory loss, including deaf people.
NHS England is working to support implementation of the AIS with awareness raising, communication, and engagement, and with a review of the current e-learning modules on the AIS. The intention is to ensure that staff, providers, and commissioners of services are aware of the AIS and the importance of meeting the information and communication needs of the disabled people using these services.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions she has had with insurers on the potential impact of the cost of monthly insurance payments on levels of financial inclusion.
Answered by Emma Reynolds - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
Treasury Ministers and officials have regular meetings with a wide variety of organisations in the public and private sectors, including insurers, on an ongoing basis.
Insurers make commercial decisions about pricing and the terms of cover they offer based on their assessment on the likelihood of a claim being made and the cost of those claims. The Government does not set the terms, conditions, or prices for insurance policies. However, the Government is determined that insurers treat customers fairly and firms are required to do so under Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rules.
Last October, the FCA launched a market study on premium finance – a form of credit that allows insurance customers to spread the upfront annual cost of their premium. The FCA noted their concern that premium finance may not represent fair value for some customers. The FCA will publish an update on its work in due course.
The Government has also convened a committee of consumer and industry representatives to inform the development of a Financial Inclusion Strategy which will be published later this year. As part of this, the committee is considering barriers consumers face to accessing insurance products.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of improving basic amenities for Park Home residents.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
On privately owned park home sites, the site owner is responsible for the amenities on site.
Site owners are required to have a site licence, issued by local authorities. Local authorities have discretion to attach conditions to licences which may cover matters such as the site amenities, physical standards, and layout of the park.
The Mobile Homes Act 2013 gave local authorities substantial enforcement powers to ensure they can take action if a site owner is found to have breached any of their site licence conditions.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to assess the UK’s economically recoverable reserves of geothermal energy.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government has supported research on geothermal in which some assessment of the UK potential is made. This includes funding a 2023 evidence-based assessment of the UK opportunity (https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/new-report-assesses-deep-geothermal-energy-in-the-uk/); and commissioning additional research projects which will be published this summer. Together they will provide an update on geothermal energy generation cost estimates and make accessible currently disparate technical sources of geothermal data and information. The Mining Remediation Authority has also released opportunity maps for mine water heat (https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/0a4d95c1-5977-41a1-9c35-83017b871d22/mine-water-heat-opportunity-mapping-for-10-cities-in-england).
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
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 reform dental contracts.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
To rebuild dentistry in the long term, we will reform the dental contract with the sector, with a shift to focus on prevention and the retention of National Health Service dentists. There are no perfect payment systems and careful consideration needs to be given to any potential changes to the complex dental system, so that we deliver a system better for patients and the profession.
We are continuing to meet the British Dental Association and other representatives of the dental sector to discuss how we can best deliver our shared ambition to improve access for NHS dental patients.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress her Department has made on (a) reducing insurance costs for drivers and (b) the cross-Government motor insurance taskforce.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This Government is committed to tackle the high costs of motor insurance. The cross-Government motor insurance taskforce, launched in October, is comprised of ministers from relevant government departments and the Financial Conduct Authority and Competition and Markets Authority. The taskforce is supported by a separate stakeholder panel of industry experts representing the insurance, motor, and consumer sector.
This Taskforce has a strategic remit to set the direction for UK Government policy, identifying short- and long-term actions for departments that may contribute to stabilising or reducing premiums. It will look at the increased insurance costs on consumers and the insurance industry, including how this impacts different demographics, geographies, and communities.
The Government will provide updates in due course.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department is taking to improve postal services carried out by the Royal Mail in rural areas.
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Ministers and officials have discussions with Royal Mail on a regular basis in its capacity as the universal service provider. It is for Ofcom, as the independent regulator of postal services, to set and monitor Royal Mail's service standards and decide how to use its powers to investigate and take enforcement action should Royal Mail fail to achieve its obligations without good justification.
The Government's objective in relation to postal services continues to be to secure a sustainable universal service for users throughout the UK, including those in remote and rural areas.
Asked by: Perran Moon (Labour - Camborne and Redruth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to secure seasonal workers for the (a) horticulture and (b) agriculture sector.
Answered by Seema Malhotra - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
On 25 February, the Government announced that the Seasonal Worker route had been extended for five years, with 45,000 visas available for 2025, consisting of 43,000 for horticulture and agriculture and 2,000 for the poultry sector. The Government keeps the Seasonal Worker route under regular review.