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:
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 it remains the Government's policy to reduce the prevalence of adult smoking to 5% or less by 2030.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
Smoking rates in England have been consistently falling and are currently at the lowest rate on record at 12.7%, based on 2022 data.
The Government remains firmly committed to the ambition of England being Smokefree by 2030, namely a smoking prevalence of 5% or less, and recognises that progress must be accelerated to meet this bold ambition. On 4 October 2023, the Prime Minister unveiled plans to introduce a new law to stop children who turn 14 this year or younger from ever legally being sold cigarettes, in a bid to create the first ‘smokefree generation’. This announcement was accompanied with additional funding including £70 million extra per year to fund local stop smoking services and £5 million this year and then £15 million per year thereafter to fund national stop smoking marketing campaigns.
This is in addition to a range of other measures which we announced in April 2023. The measures included a new national swap to stop scheme to provide vapes to one million smokers to help them to quit, and an evidence-based financial incentives scheme to help all pregnant smokers to quit.
We are confident that these new measures, in addition to the actions we are already taking, will set us on course to achieve our Smokefree 2030 ambition. We will continue to monitor progress.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in which constituencies the provision of temporary accommodation in hotels for asylum seekers is being reduced; and in which constituencies capacity in already used hotels is being increased.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The latest published Immigration Statistics detail the number of supported asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority area. These statistics can be found at Asylum and resettlement datasets Asylum and resettlement datasets - GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets), under the document Asylum seekers in receipt of support (second edition). Data sets are published on a quarterly basis, the latest quarterly figures were released on 24 August 2023.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to ensure that when people aged over 70s renew their driving licences the new licences are dated from the expiry of the previous document.
Answered by Richard Holden
The Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA) sends a renewal application form to all drivers who are aged 70 or over 90 days before the licence expires. This allows drivers adequate time to submit their renewal application to ensure continuous entitlement to drive. This means that when a new licence is issued before the expiry of the previous one, it will be valid from the date the new licence is issued.
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 help to ensure areas of higher deprivation receive the necessary support to continue current services within the Integrated care systems.
Answered by Helen Whately
The Government is committed to supporting individuals to live healthier lives and established integrated care systems (ICSs) to improve outcomes in population health including by tackling health inequalities. ICSs bring together a wide range of partners to help plan and deliver well-joined up care and to ensure that population health needs are met.
Within ICSs, integrated care boards (ICBs) are responsible for planning healthcare services and have a duty to reduce inequalities between persons with respect to their ability to access health services and to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of health services. Furthermore, when planning healthcare services, ICBs must also have due regard to the Integrated Care Strategy. The Integrated Care Strategy is prepared by the Integrated Care Partnership and should include measures to improve health and wellbeing outcomes and experiences across the whole population, including addressing the wider determinants of health and wellbeing.
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 health inequalities are not exacerbated (a) during and (b) after transition to new Integrated care systems.
Answered by Helen Whately
The Health and Care Act 2022 established integrated care boards (ICBs) and sets out a specific duty for ICBs in Section 14Z35 to reduce inequalities. It states that each ICB must, in the exercise of its functions, have regard to the need to reduce inequalities between persons with respect to their ability to access health services, and reduce inequalities between patients with respect to the outcomes achieved for them by the provision of health services.
ICBs and its partner trusts are also expected to seek the views of underserved groups during formulation of their Joint Forward Plans.
NHS England has a legal duty to annually assess the performance of each ICB and publish a summary of its findings. In undertaking this assessment, NHS England will consider how successfully each ICB has discharged its duties set out by the Act including the duty as to reducing inequalities. The annual assessment for 2022/23 is expected to be completed by end of July 2023 and will be shared with ICB chairs. NHS England will also publish the outcome of all annual assessments within its own annual report.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to (a) reduce waiting times for drivers to take practical tests and (b) license new driving test centres.
Answered by Richard Holden
People can book driving tests up to 6 months before they take their test.
As of 26 June 2023, there were 546,545 car practical driving tests booked, and 54,480 driving tests available within the 24-week booking window.
Since April 2021, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has created over one million extra car test appointments by recruiting new examiners, conducting out-of-hours testing, such as on public holidays and weekends, asking all those qualified to conduct tests but who do not do so as part of their current day job, to return to conducting tests and asking recently retired driving examiners to return. On average, this has created approximately 39,000 extra car test appointments each month.
The DVSA does not licence driving test centres.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the implications for his policies of reports of the arrest of four Baha'i leaders in Iran on 1 May 2023.
Answered by David Rutley
The UK unequivocally condemns the persecution of religious minorities in Iran. We are appalled by reports of the regime's increased detentions of Baha'is, as well as expropriation of land and destruction of homes of the Baha'i community. On 20 December 2022, the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB), Fiona Bruce, expressed the UK's condemnation of Iran's imprisonment of Baha'i leaders. We raise FoRB and wider human rights issues with the regime at all appropriate opportunities, and we continue to work closely with our international partners to hold Iran to account for its dire human rights record.