Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many sections of dual carriageway are subject to reduced speed limits due to the condition of central reservation safety barriers as of 28 November 2023.
Answered by Guy Opperman
There are currently no speed restrictions in place on any stretch of dual carriageway on the Strategic Road Network due to the condition of the central reservation safety barriers.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of how many and what proportion of repeat prescriptions are unused.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
As identified in the National Overprescribing Review, published in September 2021, addressing overprescribing is a key area of opportunity for delivering greater value for money in medicines in the National Health Service, and it forms part of NHS England’s ongoing Medicines Value programme priorities. Evidence is limited but the review estimated that at least 10% of the total number of prescription items in primary care need not have been issued.
The review report is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-overprescribing-review-report
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of dog legislation officer capacity to implement the ban on American Bully XL type dogs.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We will be supporting the police to deliver additional training to Dog Legislation Officers to make sure the ban is effectively enforced. We are liaising with the Home Office about any additional resourcing needs that may be required once the ban is in force.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timetable is for dog legislation officers to be trained to enforce the ban on American Bully XL type dogs.
Answered by Mark Spencer
We will be supporting the police to deliver additional training to Dog Legislation Officers to make sure the ban is effectively enforced. We are liaising with the Home Office about any additional resourcing needs that may be required once the ban is in force.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many tents prisons have provided to people leaving prison in (a) 2022-23 and (b) 2023-24 to date.
Answered by Edward Argar - Shadow Secretary of State for Justice
There is no official policy to issue tents as part of releasing people from prison, therefore the Ministry of Justice does not collect data on the number of tents issued. As such no information can be provided.
Our Prisons Strategy White Paper set out our plans to reduce reoffending, including improving prison leavers’ access to accommodation. This includes delivering our transitional accommodation service, known as Community Accommodation Service – Tier 3 (CAS-3), which provides up to 84 nights of basic temporary accommodation for prison leavers who would otherwise be homeless.
CAS-3 launched in five initial probation regions in July 2021. The service was expanded to Wales in June 2022, with expansion to the remaining six probation regions in England by the end of the year, to support the thousands of offenders who leave prison homeless.
Between 01 July 2021 and 31 March 2023 5,796 individuals, who would have otherwise been homeless, were accepted on to CAS-3.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 21 November 2023 to Question 2154 on Gynaecology: Waiting Lists, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of waiting times for NHS gynaecology services in Rotherham.
Answered by Maria Caulfield
The Government is taking action to recover elective services, including for patients waiting for National Health Service gynaecology services in Rotherham, by providing record levels of staffing and funding as the NHS implements the Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care. We have not made a specific assessment of waiting times for NHS gynaecology services in Rotherham.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions he has had with his Scottish and Welsh counterparts on banning the import and sale of fur since April 2022.
Answered by Mark Spencer
Defra has regular discussions with the Devolved Administrations about a range of animal welfare topics. This includes our work to build the evidence base on the fur sector.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help parents access specialist support needed to enable their child to (a) fully participate in school life and (b) avoid being regularly absent.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Shadow Secretary of State for Education
Specialist support for children with additional needs to participate in education and avoid being regularly absent is vitally important. The department is taking a number of steps towards both these goals. In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023, the department set out plans to build a consistent national SEND and AP system that parents and carers can trust, easily navigate, and have confidence in.
The foundation for the new nationally consistent system will be evidenced-based National Standards for early and accurate identification of need, and timely access to support to meet those needs. The Standards will clarify the types of support that should be ordinarily available in mainstream settings and who is responsible for securing the support. This will help families, practitioners and providers understand what support every child or young person should be receiving from early years through to further education, no matter where they live or what their needs are.
On 22 November 2023, the department also announced Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools. This new programme, backed by £13 million of investment, will bring together Integrated Care Boards, local authorities, and schools, working in partnership with parents and carer to support schools to better meet the needs of neurodiverse children. These measures will also benefit attendance, improving which is a top priority for the government. The department recognises that pupils with SEND can face additional barriers.
To ensure pupils receive the support they need to regularly attend and participate in school, the department has published guidance expecting schools to have sensitive conversations with families about attendance, work with parents to develop specific support approaches, establish strategies for removing any in-school barriers and ensure joined up pastoral care is in place where needed.
A range of programmes including attendance hubs spreading best practice across school and attendance mentors providing one-to-one support will also tackle absence for children with SEND.
In addition, the department is investing £2.6 billion between now and 2025 to fund new special and AP places and improve existing provision, including opening 33 new special free schools, with a further 48 in the pipeline; and £21 million to go towards training 400 more educational psychologists, building on the £10 million investment announced earlier in 2022.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason her Department has indefinitely delayed the introduction of the Liberty Protection Standards.
Answered by Helen Whately - Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
The difficult decision to delay the implementation of the Liberty Protection Safeguards was not taken lightly. We have done so to enable the Department, and local partners, to prioritise the reforms set out in the Next Steps to Put People at the Heart of Care plan. These include investment in the workforce, technology, and support for unpaid carers.
These priorities, alongside the funding uplift of up to £8.1 billion over this year and next to strengthen adult social care provision, will drive forward our ambition of ensuring that everyone can access the right care, in the right place, at the right time. Until the Liberty Protection Safeguards come into force, the existing Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, which form a key part of the Mental Capacity Act, remain in place and ensure that decisions are made in a person's best interests.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the annual cost to the public purse is of NHS repeat prescriptions.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson
Information is not held in the format requested. The NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) holds information on the net ingredient cost (NIC) for both repeat dispensing, where a patient is able to obtain repeat supplies of National Health Service prescriptions without the need for their general practitioner (GP) to issue a prescription each time a supply is required, and repeat prescribing, where the patient still needs to obtain an NHS prescription from their GP each time they require their prescribed medication or appliances. The NIC is the basic reimbursement cost of a medicine. It does not consider discounts, amount for containers or other added reimbursement expenses so the final amount the NHS pays will be different.
The following table shows the total number of items and NIC for both repeat dispensing and repeat prescribing for prescriptions that have been dispensed in the community in England for financial year 2022/23:
| Total Number of Items | Total Net Ingredient Cost (£) |
NHS Repeat Dispensing | 156,550,745 | 490,019,357 |
NHS Repeat Prescribing | 734,963,250 | 7,100,020,164 |
Source: NHSBSA
As identified in Good for you, good for us, good for everybody: a plan to reduce overprescribing to make patient care better and safer, support the NHS, and reduce carbon emissions in 2021, addressing overprescribing is a key area of opportunity for delivering greater value for money in medicines in the NHS, and it forms part of NHS England’s ongoing Medicines Value programme priorities.
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