Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to increase girls' access to mental health services.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Health policy is devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive. In England, through the NHS Long Term Plan, the Government is providing record levels of investment and increasing the mental health workforce, to expand and transform National Health Service mental health services in England. Almost £16 billion was invested in mental health in 2022/23, enabling 3.6 million people to be in contact with mental health services, a 10% increase on the previous year. Of these, nearly 560,000 were females under the age of 18 years old, a 12% increase on the previous year.
We are rolling out mental health support teams to schools and colleges in England. There are now around 400 mental health support teams in place, covering 3.4 million children, or approximately 35% of pupils. We estimate that this will increase to 44% by April 2024, and we are working to increase this coverage to 50% of pupils by March 2025.
In addition, we announced in October 2023 that £4.92 million would be available for 10 early support hubs in England. We are now providing an additional £3 million to expand the number of hubs to 24 across the country. This £8 million overall package will improve access for children and young people to vital mental health support, offering early interventions to improve wellbeing before their condition escalates further.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to improve girls' health.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Health policy is devolved to the Northern Ireland Executive. The Women’s Health Strategy for England sets out our plans for boosting the health and wellbeing of women and girls. It takes a life course approach, focused on understanding the changing health and care needs of women and girls across their lives, from adolescents and young adults to later life. We recently set out our priorities for 2024, which include actions to improve girls’ health, such as improving care for menstrual problems like endometriosis, continuing to roll out women’s health hubs, and boosting research.
In addition, the Department and the National Health Service have a number of universal public health interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of all children, and respond to further needs and safeguarding concerns. This includes investing approximately £300 million over three years to improve support for families though the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme, the Family Nurse Partnership to support vulnerable young mothers, the Healthy Start scheme to encourage a healthy diet for pregnant women, babies, and young children under four years old from low-income households, and Mental Health Support Teams in schools.
To support our ambition to eliminate cervical cancer, all children aged 12 to 13 years old are offered the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. Due to the success of the adolescent HPV programme, there has been an 87% reduction in cervical cancers for those vaccinated when compared to previous generations.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken to (a) promote and (b) support education exports.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department has taken a number of steps to promote and support education exports, including the launch of the UK’s International Education Strategy in 2019. The strategy outlined the department’s ambition to increase the value of education exports to £35 billion per year by 2030. The department is on track and continues working towards meeting this ambition with £25.6 billion revenue in 2020.
The department will continue to support education exports by hosting the Education Sector Advisory Group, bringing together industry and government to achieve its export ambitions. The UK’s International Education Champion, Professor Sir Steve Smith, has promoted UK education export growth in key markets, addressing barriers and creating opportunities for education exporters across the UK’s education sector.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the income to the public purse from international students in each of the last three years.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The department does not collect or estimate the impact of international students to the exchequer. International tuition fee income at higher education (HE) providers can be found on the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/finances/income.
The benefits and costs of international HE students to the UK economy and the Exchequer can be found in the Higher Education Policy Institute/Universities UK International/Kaplan report at: https://hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Full-Report-Benefits-and-costs-of-international-students.pdf.
The total net impact on the UK economy of the cohort of first year international students enrolled at UK HE Institutions in the 2021/22 academic year was estimated at £37.4 billion across the duration of their studies. The economic impact is spread across the entire UK, with international students making a £58 million net economic contribution to the UK economy per parliamentary constituency across the duration of their studies. This is equivalent to £560 per member of the resident population.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress she has made with Cabinet colleagues on implementing the International Education Strategy.
Answered by Robert Halfon
I refer the right hon. Member for East Antrim to the answer of 7 March 2024 to Question 16186.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his Department's planned timetable is for consultation on activity regulations under the Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023 provides a framework for the introduction of future bans on the advertising and offering for sale, in England and Northern Ireland, of low-welfare animal activities abroad.
Future decisions on which specific animal activities will fall in scope of the advertising ban will be evidence-based and subject to Parliamentary scrutiny. Sufficient, compelling evidence will be required to demonstrate why any specific advertising ban is needed.
This Government continues to make animal welfare a priority and we are currently exploring a number of options to ensure progress as soon as is practicable.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many section 684 notices were issued by HMRC in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
In the context of Disguised Remuneration (DR), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has in some circumstances used the power provided under s.684(7A)(b) of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 (the Discretion) to collect the tax owed; and since 2022, HMRC has issued around 2,700 decisions using the Discretion.
In his independent review, Lord Morse recommended that the Loan Charge should no longer apply to loans made before 9 December 2010. However, Lord Morse said “HMRC should continue being able to settle and investigate cases prior to this point under their normal powers where they have appropriate grounds, and a legal basis, to do so”.
In line with this recommendation, HMRC is still seeking to recover the tax due where it had taken the necessary steps in the past to ensure there is an open tax enquiry or assessment which gives it the legal basis to do so.
In May 2022, the Court of Appeal said that HMRC could consider using the Discretion to collect tax directly from the individual who received income through a DR scheme.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many notices under section 684 of the Income Tax Act 2007 have been issued to individuals with Loan Charge liabilities incurred before December 2010.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
In the context of Disguised Remuneration (DR), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has in some circumstances used the power provided under s.684(7A)(b) of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 (the Discretion) to collect the tax owed; and since 2022, HMRC has issued around 2,700 decisions using the Discretion.
In his independent review, Lord Morse recommended that the Loan Charge should no longer apply to loans made before 9 December 2010. However, Lord Morse said “HMRC should continue being able to settle and investigate cases prior to this point under their normal powers where they have appropriate grounds, and a legal basis, to do so”.
In line with this recommendation, HMRC is still seeking to recover the tax due where it had taken the necessary steps in the past to ensure there is an open tax enquiry or assessment which gives it the legal basis to do so.
In May 2022, the Court of Appeal said that HMRC could consider using the Discretion to collect tax directly from the individual who received income through a DR scheme.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he plans to enable litigants who win First Tier Tribunal cases to recover costs.
Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)
The tribunals of the unified tribunal system are designed to be an informal, accessible and low cost means of resolving disputes, in which legal representation is not needed. For this reason, costs are not generally recoverable between the parties in proceedings before the First-tier Tribunal.
Procedure rules for some chambers of the First-tier Tribunal do provide for costs to be awarded in certain circumstances, for example where a party has conducted the litigation unreasonably.
We have no plans to change the rules so that costs can be awarded routinely in proceedings in the First-tier Tribunal.
Asked by: Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party - East Antrim)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much HMRC spent on legal fees in tax litigation cases in each of the last five years.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Solicitors Office and Legal Services provide a range of legal and professional services to HMRC, including conduct of tax litigation.
The operating expenditure for HMRC’s Solicitors Office and Legal Services is published in HMRC’s annual reports and accounts and can be found for the last five years at
www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmrcs-annual-report-and-accounts.
For 2022/23 accounts, details can be found on page 246.