Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking to increase the number of community policing teams in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Decisions about how neighbourhood policing is delivered, including the deployment and composition of community policing teams, are for operationally independent Chief Constables. They are best placed to use their local knowledge and experience to serve local communities. Democratically elected PCCs are responsible for holding Chief Constables to account for the running of their force.
We are ensuring that policing has the resources it needs. As a result of the Police Uplift Programme there are now almost 150,000 officers in police forces across England and Wales - the highest number on record. As at 31 March 2023, West Midlands Police had recruited 1,376 additional officers against a total three-year uplift allocation of 1,218 officers.
The number of police officers within local policing roles in England and Wales is the highest since comparable data began. As at 31 March 2023, West Midlands Police had 3,629 full time equivalent police officers employed in local policing roles, a 4.2% increase on the previous year (3,483 FTE in March 2022).
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many dogs have been destroyed by police since 2019.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not collect data on the number of dogs destroyed by the police.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent community pharmacy closures.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is closely monitoring changes to the pharmacy network. Access to services remains good with 80% of people in England living within 20 minutes walking distance of a pharmacy and twice as many pharmacies in the most deprived areas of the country.
The Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework 2019-24 five-year deal commits £2.592 billion each year to these private contractors and the Government recently announced further funding to back the introduction of Pharmacy First and an expanded service offer. The Pharmacy Access Scheme also provides targeted financial support to pharmacies in areas where there are fewer pharmacies.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department are taking steps to (a) support community-based organisations that work directly with at-risk populations to provide targeted HIV prevention and support services, (b) encourage research and development on HIV prevention, (c) encourage (i) social media platforms, (ii) influencers and (iii) celebrities to promote accurate information on HIV, safer sex practices and testing, (d) support black-led organisations that focus on HIV prevention, education and support and (e) consult with black-led organisations on HIV prevention strategies.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
HIV Prevention England (HPE) is the national HIV prevention programme for England and is funded at £3.5 million by the Department. The programme aims to support communities who are disproportionately affected by HIV, including gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men and Black African heterosexual men and women. The Department has appointed Terrence Higgins Trust, a national charity who provide services related to sexual heath and HIV, to deliver the programme from 2021 to 2024. HPE delivers a nationally co-ordinated programme of HIV prevention work, including public campaigns such as National HIV Testing Week, that is designed to complement locally commissioned prevention activities in areas of high HIV prevalence. HPE also aims to improve knowledge and understating of HIV transmission and reducing stigma within affected communities.
HPE works with a wide range of models and their network of influencers and develops its strategies based on comprehensive data, audience insight and knowledge from local partners within England which ensure a wide range of patient’s voices and experiences are represented including with black-led organisations. Campaigns are promoted using a multi-channel approach including specialist channels relevant to the audiences and targeting via digital platforms and social media.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent children being (a) exploited, (b) recruited into criminal organisations and (c) involved in knife crime in the West Midlands.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
This Government is determined to crack down on knife crime and the criminal gangs who are exploiting our children and have a devastating impact on our communities.
That is why we are investing in a number of programmes to respond to child exploitation including the Prevention Programme, delivered by The Children’s Society, who work with partners across sectors to tackle and prevent a range of exploitation types.
In addition, we are investing up to £145m over three years in our County Lines Programme which provides funding for targeted operational activity in the four largest exporting force areas including West Midlands Police. We are also investing in dedicated specialist support provided by Catch-22 to help those who are criminally exploited through county lines to safely reduce and exit their involvement. Since the County Lines Programme was launched in 2019, police activity has resulted in over 4,700 lines closed, over 14,800 arrests and over 7,200 safeguarding referrals.
The Government is also committed to ensuring that the police have the tools and powers they need to tackle the scourge of knife crime on our streets. We are currently piloting Serious Violence Reduction Orders in the West Midlands which give the police more powers to stop and search convicted knife offenders. We also plan to legislate on banning zombie-style machetes and knives that have no practical use, more powers for police to seize knives that could be used in crimes, and a new offence and higher sentencing to those who sell and possess these dangerous weapons.
Since 2019, West Midlands Police have received over £20m of funding for a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) (including £4.38m this year) and £19m (including £3.4m this year) for the Grip programme. Collectively, these programmes are providing a multi-agency preventative response designed to tackle the drivers of violence, alongside additional, high visibility patrols and problem-solving tactics in the areas worst affected.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of night work on (a) the level of risk of diagnosis with diabetes, (b) the level of risk of diagnosis with cardiovascular disease and (c) other health outcomes.
Answered by Will Quince
We have made no such assessment.
The Major Conditions Strategy will set out how we intend to tackle conditions that contribute most to morbidity and mortality across the population in England which include cancers; cardiovascular disease, including stroke and diabetes; chronic respiratory diseases; dementia; mental ill health; and musculoskeletal conditions.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department spent on (a) consulting on the new name for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services, b) rebranding these services (i) digitally and (ii) physically on (A) signs and (B) official documents and (c) informing patients of this name change.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The new name of NHS Talking Therapies, for services previously known as Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, was chosen following an extensive consultation process involving clinical leads, staff members, patients and the public. NHS Talking Therapies was chosen as the most accessible and easy to remember name for the public, which was the main objective of the rebranding exercise.
NHS England has advised that it spent £20,000 on the consultation and implementation of the rebrand, which was funded from within existing budgets. NHS England also provided national support to minimise any additional costs at a local level, including a suite of editable branding resources and a 12-month timeframe for implementation.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
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 ensure that people with dementia are routinely offered the option of taking part in research.
Answered by Will Quince
The Government is strongly committed to supporting research into dementia. Join Dementia Research (JDR), delivered by the Department via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and in partnership with Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer Scotland and Alzheimer’s Research UK, is our main tool for enabling people to register their interest in dementia research and be matched to trials. The goal is to improve participation and diversity in dementia research by making it possible for anyone who wants to be involved in dementia research to get the chance to do so.
To increase uptake and awareness of research opportunities, the NIHR is undertaking several actions, including, direct text messaging from general practitioners to patients at selected sites across England, establishing links with NHS Memory Services and other care networks to integrate discussion of JDR into their processes, working with the NHS Admiral Nurses to develop training materials to support healthcare professionals when discussing research with patients and working to establish a national network of local JDR champions who will build on relationships with local organisations, charities and local groups representing under-represented communities to engage people with JDR.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the second interim report of the Infected Blood Inquiry, published on 5 April 2023, what steps he is taking to respond to recommendation (k).
Answered by Jeremy Quin
The Government continues to make progress with the work necessary to enable a response to the full report, when it is published. In July 2022, I provided evidence to the Infected Blood Inquiry setting out the current Government thinking and I will update the House as soon as I am able to provide further information.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Written Statement of 17 April 2023, HCWS710, on Achieving Smokefree 2030: cutting smoking and stopping kids vaping, whether his Department has conducted modelling on the potential impact of the measures outlined in that statement on progress towards the target of reducing smoking rates to 5% or less by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Annex 1 of ‘Stopping the start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation’ sets out the modelling used to forecast changes in smoking prevalence over time based on legislating for a smokefree generation. This modelling is preliminary and will continue to be further refined ahead of publication of a full impact assessment.
Annex 1 is available at the following link: