Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps her Department is taking to improve road safety for (a) cyclists and (b) pedestrians.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This Government takes road safety seriously, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. My Department is developing our road safety strategy, and will set out more details in due course.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of strengthening legal penalties for motorists at fault in hit-and-run incidents.
Answered by Lilian Greenwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This Government takes road safety seriously, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. My Department is developing our road safety strategy and will set out more details in due course.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether his Department is taking steps with private mobile network operators to improve (a) mobile phone signal and (b) 5G coverage in London.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government wants all areas of the UK, including London, to benefit from reliable and good quality mobile coverage. Our ambition is for all populated areas to have higher-quality standalone 5G by 2030, and to increase 4G coverage to 95% of the UK landmass by the end of 2025.
Vodafone, Virgin Media O2 and BT/EE have all launched standalone 5G services in London.
We work closely with the mobile industry and are committed to ensuring we have the right policy and regulatory framework to support investment and competition in the market.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 the number of breast cancer diagnoses at mammogram or other early stages.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Lord Darzi’s report has set out the scale of the challenges we face in fixing the National Health Service and the need to improve cancer waiting time performance and cancer survival, including for breast cancer. In particular, he has highlighted the need to improve the number of patients starting their treatment within 62 days of referral and to increase the number of patients diagnosed at an earlier stage.
The Government is committed to meeting all three NHS cancer waiting time standards across England within the next five years. Meeting these will ensure no patient waits longer than they should for diagnosis or treatment.
The NHS Breast Screening Programme offers all women in England from 50 years old up to their 71st birthday the opportunity to be screened every three years for breast cancer, to help detect abnormalities and intervene early to reduce the number of lives lost to invasive breast cancer.
NHS England has also developed a national plan in collaboration with key stakeholders such as cancer alliances to improve uptake within the breast screening programme. The plan sets out the priorities, interventions and monitoring of impact and outcomes to be achieved to improve uptake through: Expanding access, data and analytics, reducing inequalities, contracting, communication and IT developments.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of increasing the (a) acceptable and (b) achievable levels of S07b incident screenings for mammograms.
Answered by Andrew Gwynne - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
As part of the NHS Breast Screening Programme, S07b is the ‘screening standard’ whereby ‘incident screens’, that is any subsequent breast screen after first screen, are referred for further assessment.
NHS England has advised that there is expected to be an initial light touch review of the breast screening standards by the end of March 2025, with a full review of all standards in screening year 2025/6. During the full review in 2025/26, the programme performance in ‘percentage referrals to assessment’ will be reviewed to determine whether the acceptable and achievable limits should be changed.
However, increasing the thresholds for this standard, will mean that the number of women referred for follow up tests, namely biopsy, mammograms, and ultrasound, will increase, many of whom will have no cancer. Screening programmes must continue to maximise benefit while minimising harm.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of regulating websites that promote (a) eating disorders, (b) suicide and (c) self harm.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act requires all in-scope services to swiftly remove illegal content as soon as they become aware of it. This includes content that intentionally encourages or assists suicide and self-harm, including eating disorder behaviours. User-to-user services which are likely to be accessed by children must use highly effective age assurance to prevent children encountering this material.
Search services also have targeted duties that focus on minimising the risk of all users encountering illegal suicide and self-harm search content, and children from harmful but legal suicide and self-harm content.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he plans to regulate websites that promote (a) eating disorders, (b) suicide and (c) self harm.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act requires all in-scope services to swiftly remove illegal content as soon as they become aware of it. This includes content that intentionally encourages or assists suicide and self-harm, including eating disorder behaviours. User-to-user services which are likely to be accessed by children must use highly effective age assurance to prevent children encountering this material.
Search services also have targeted duties that focus on minimising the risk of all users encountering illegal suicide and self-harm search content, and children from harmful but legal suicide and self-harm content.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the affordability of childcare for families ineligible for free childcare for working parents.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Ensuring that parents are able to access affordable and high quality childcare is a priority for this government. Our focus in reforming the system will be to ensure that there are greater and more equal opportunities to access early education for every family, and that there are greater opportunities for children to thrive and develop. As an initial step, we are progressing work to deliver new places in 3,000 nurseries through upgrading space in primary schools.
Families that are not eligible for the childcare entitlements for working parents may be entitled to other forms of support, including the 15 hours entitlement for disadvantaged two year olds and the 15 hours universal entitlement for three and four year olds. The universal entitlement is available to all parents of three and four year olds, regardless of income or immigration status. In terms of the disadvantaged two year olds entitlement, parents do not need to work to claim this entitlement. However, they will need to be claiming certain benefits and have a household net income of less than £15,400 per year. All two year olds with an education, health and care (EHC) plan, those in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and looked after children are eligible regardless of household income. Some two year olds with ‘no recourse to public funds’ immigration status may also be eligible subject to different income thresholds.
Working families claiming universal credit can also claim up to 84% of the childcare costs back through Universal Credit Childcare. This offer can be used alongside the entitlements set out above.
We will be undertaking a comprehensive evaluation programme of the expansion of childcare entitlements for working parents which will explore how families not eligible for the new entitlements experience finding and accessing childcare, including the associated costs. Further, the impact evaluation will assess how the expansion has impacted upon the quality of childcare provision and children’s development, for all children, and wider family outcomes. As per Government Social Research guidelines, evaluation findings will be available within 12 weeks of the projects being finalised. We expect the first to be available from spring 2026.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he plans to respond to the correspondence of 7 August 2024 from the hon. Member for Tooting on children's cancer services in the South East.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We replied to the hon. Member’s letter on 16 September 2024. We apologise for the delay in replying, as this was due to Conference.
Asked by: Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour - Tooting)
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 prevent fraudulent practices by online shopping sites
Answered by Justin Madders - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade)
DBT is implementing the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act which strengthens consumer law enforcement by giving the CMA new administrative powers, and the CMA and courts the ability to impose significant monetary penalties.
The Act also updates the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, setting out new ‘banned practices’ relating to the buying, selling, and publishing of fake consumer reviews and prohibiting ‘drip pricing’.
The Product Regulation and Metrology Bill was introduced on 4 September and aims to address the gap in consumer protections which allow online marketplaces to facilitate the sale of unsafe and illegal products.