Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
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 ensure adult hospices are sustainably funded in (a) Northwest England (b) Cheshire and Merseyside ICB and (c) Congleton constituency.
Answered by Alison McGovern - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer provided on 13 July in response to Question 16185, which sets out the steps the Government is taking to support hospices throughout England.
The Prime Minister and my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, have also made clear their commitment to improve the quality and availability of palliative care and end-of-life care through a new Modern Service Framework, as set out in the answer of 14 September to Question 27682.
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the planned timetable is for the publication of the 10-Year Workplace Plan.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer provided on 19 October to Question 32217.
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to improve the access to domestic abuse services for disabled women.
Answered by Satvir Kaur - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
This Government recognises the importance of ensuring support is accessible to all victims of domestic abuse, including disabled victims.
As part of 'Freedom from Violence and Abuse: a cross-government strategy to build a safer society for women and girls’, work is ongoing across government to improve the support for disabled victims of domestic abuse including:
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what mechanisms will be put in place for his Department to recoup the costs from other departments of legal aid representation for bereaved families under the Public Office (Accountability) Bill; and what plans does he have to report to Parliament on the operation of this process.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Public Office (Accountability) Bill will provide non-means tested legal aid for bereaved families at inquests where a public authority is an interested person. The cost of the legal aid expansion will be met by public authorities, or their central Government department, where they are an interested person at an inquest.
We intend for this to help foster proportionate participation and spending behaviours amongst interested public authorities, including in the use of their own legal representation, at inquests. We have been working closely with Departments to develop this model.
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many current or prospective legal aid providers submitted a tender for an inquest category of law contract specification by the initial deadline of Friday 4 September 2026; and how many of these providers already hold a contract in another category of legal aid.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Information about the number of legal aid providers which submitted a tender for an inquest category of law contract specification is due to be published on 6 November 2026. Once published the information will be accessible here on GOV.UK here: news - News and communications - GOV.UK
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
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 help increase the number of speech and language therapists recruited in (a) the North West (b) Congleton constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions on the employment of allied health professionals are a matter for individual National Health Service trusts which manage their recruitment at a local level, ensuring they have the right number of staff in place, with the right skill mix, to deliver safe and effective care.
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps he is taking to help increase funding for clean energy in the North West.
Answered by Chris McDonald - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is directly investing into the North-West, funding key initiatives such as the Hynet CCUS cluster, projects in our Hydrogen Allocation Rounds, the Green Heat Network Fund and Local Growth Fund.
Great British Energy has funded solar panels at 19 NHS trusts and 3 schools in the region as well as launching the Great British Energy Community Fund, and the National Wealth Fund has recently launched a £500m collaboration with Greater Manchester Combined Authority supporting key growth projects.
These investments will continue to unlock further investment into clean energy in the region.
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many rapes were tried in the youth court last year and in each of the preceding three years; and of those, for each year, (a) how many resulted in a guilty verdict, (b) how many were sentenced in the youth court and (c) how many were referred to the Crown Court for sentencing.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice publishes magistrates’ court data on prosecutions and resulting outcomes for rape offences by age of the defendant. This can be downloaded from the Criminal Justice Statistics landing page here: Criminal Justice Statistics.
Although youth courts are not separately identifiable, the published statistics can be filtered to identify cases where the defendant was under the age of 18.
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether all HMRC forms are available in paper form on request.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with HM Treasury)
HMRC remains committed to its digital‑first strategy. As part of this, it is delivering a programme to move at least 75% of communications currently issued by paper to digital channels in the current spending review period.
However, HMRC recognises that not all customers will choose to engage digitally on every occasion. Providing viable alternatives, that may in some cases be through paper forms, is a key part of the digital-first strategy.
HMRC will keep the provision of those alternatives under review on an ongoing basis to reflect customer need and customer feedback.
Asked by: Sarah Russell (Labour - Congleton)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of making all HMRC forms available (a) online and (b) in paper form.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (Cabinet Office) (Jointly with HM Treasury)
HMRC remains committed to its digital‑first strategy. As part of this, it is delivering a programme to move at least 75% of communications currently issued by paper to digital channels in the current spending review period.
However, HMRC recognises that not all customers will choose to engage digitally on every occasion. Providing viable alternatives, that may in some cases be through paper forms, is a key part of the digital-first strategy.
HMRC will keep the provision of those alternatives under review on an ongoing basis to reflect customer need and customer feedback.