Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what his Department's standard completion timetable is for processing DBS applications; how many applications his Department are processing and how many applications have been processed outside the standard timetable in the last 12 months.
Answered by Laura Farris - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Ministry of Justice) (jointly with Home Office)
For the 2023/24 financial year, the Disclosure and Barring Service’s (DBS) targets are to complete 85% of Basic checks within two days, 85% of Standard checks within three days, and 80% of Enhanced checks within 14 days.
DBS publishes its performance against these targets on a quarterly basis at DBS dataset 1: DBS checks, the DBS Update Service, and disputes - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This includes the total monthly volumes of applications processed and the totals issued within target. The latest published information is up to December 2023.
In addition to this data, DBS’s performance for January and February 2024 is as follows:
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the status of the planning and scoping process is for electrification of the North Wales mainline as of 27 February 2024.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
We are working closely with the rail industry to develop the Government priorities outlined in the Prime Minister’s Network North announcement, which includes an unprecedented £1 billion investment to fund the electrification of the North Wales Main Line. We are in the early stages of establishing the next steps for the North Wales electrification scheme, including the costs and programme for development and delivery. We will share further information when that work is complete.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of PISA test scores.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The OECD’s PISA 2022 results showed that 15-year-old pupils in England performed above the OECD averages for all of reading, mathematics and science. While the pandemic has had an adverse impact on education across the world, and also affected the study, England was ranked 11th in maths and 13th in both reading and science – up from 27th in maths, 25th in reading and 16th in science in 2009.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2024 to Question 8220 on Inflation, what specific (a) fiscal and (b) other steps he has taken to help reduce inflation; and what the outcome of each of those steps was.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
There are four key things the government has done to reduce inflation:
The OBR confirms policies in the Autumn Statement reduce inflation next year and do not “have a material impact on the path of inflation” over the scorecard.
Inflation has more than halved, but it remains a challenge. The OBR forecasts inflation to return to the 2% target in the first half of 2025 and helping the Bank of England in its fight to do so remains a key focus.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to his Oral Statement of 22 November 2023 on the Autumn Statement, column 325, what assessment his Department has made of how much each of the steps he is taking has contributed to the reduction in inflation.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) is responsible for producing forecasts for the UK economy, including making assessments of the impacts that Government policies have on inflation.
The full EFO can be seen here: Economic and fiscal outlook – November 2023 - Office for Budget Responsibility (obr.uk)
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answers of 20 November to Questions 2738 and 2739 on Intensive Care: Hospital Beds and Hospital Beds respectively, if she will make a comparative estimate of the number of NHS acute hospital beds (a) available and (b) required in winter 2023-24; how many and what proportion of the 5,000 additional beds that were promised have been deployed; and what her planned timeframe is for the deployment of the remainder of the 5,000 beds in each constituency.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Published data from NHS England shows that there were 99,067 total general and acute (G&A) beds available in October 2023, including 96,781 core beds and 2,285 escalation beds.
Our Delivery Plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition to increase the core G&A bed base by 5,000 permanent staffed beds in 2023/24 compared to planned levels for 2022/23. This would increase the number of core beds to 99,500. As of October, the National Health Service has delivered 2,281 additional core beds. NHS England continues to work with local systems and trusts to deliver this ambition this winter.
G&A bed numbers are expected to peak in January 2024 in response to expected demand. A breakdown of these additional beds by constituency is not available centrally.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS England publication of 20 January 2023 entitled Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services, what his planned timetable is for delivering 5,000 additional permanent beds; and what steps the Government is taking to progress delivery of those additional beds.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Delivery Plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition to increase the core general and acute bed base, above originally planned 2022/23 levels, by 5,000 sustainable, permanent beds in 2023/24. This takes the funded core bed base to over 99,000. NHS England in continuing to work with local systems and trusts to deliver this ambition.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the number of hospital beds for acute treatment.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Delivery Plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition to increase the core general and acute bed base, above originally planned 2022/23 levels, by 5,000 sustainable, permanent beds in 2023/24. This takes the funded core bed base to over 99,000. NHS England in continuing to work with local systems and trusts to deliver this ambition.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish statistics on the number of words spoken in Cabinet meetings in the last 12 months broken down by individual.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet, and its Committees, is not normally shared publicly.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the impact of devolution arrangements on the strength of the Union.
Answered by Felicity Buchan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
In line with the practice of successive administrations, details of internal discussions are not normally disclosed.