Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of staff in women’s health services.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions about recruitment are a matter for individual National Health Service employers, who manage this at a local level to ensure they have the staff they need to deliver safe and effective care.
As set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is committed to making the NHS the best place to work, by supporting and retaining our hardworking and dedicated healthcare professionals.
To support this ambition, the Government plans to introduce a new set of standards for modern employment in April 2026. The new standards will reaffirm our commitment to improving retention by tackling the issues that matter to staff including promoting flexible working, improving staff health and wellbeing, and dealing with violence, racism, and sexual harassment in the NHS workplace. They will provide a framework for leaders across the NHS to build a supportive culture that embeds retention.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many officials were investigated under their Department's disciplinary processes in each of the last five years.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra’s casework data is held for three years from the date of case closure.
Over the last three years, 139 officials were investigated under Defra’s disciplinary process. The 139 cases are broken down into the following:
2022 = 7 disciplinary cases were raised
2023 = 33 disciplinary cases were raised
2024 = 60 disciplinary cases were raised
2025 to date = 39 disciplinary cases have been raised
The information requested for 2020 and 2021 is not held centrally and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many additional cases are expected to be heard each year under the new swift courts compared with existing Crown Court processes.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Of the 3% of criminal trial cases that proceed to a jury trial in the Crown Court, over half would still proceed to the Crown Court and get a jury trial post-reform. The remainder would be expected to stay in the magistrates’ courts or would be allocated to the new ‘swift courts’.
The new ‘swift courts’ will operate within the existing Crown Court, and this means they will be dealing with the same cases that come into the Crown Court. As mode of trial allocations and trial listing remain a matter for the independent judiciary and are dependent on case mix, the Ministry of Justice is unable to comment on how cases arriving at the Crown Court will be distributed between ‘swift courts’ and jury trials.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has assessed the potential impact of annual funding cycles for the Nursery Milk Scheme on suppliers and delivery partners.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Nursery Milk Scheme is a statutory scheme which allows registered early years childcare settings to claim one-third of a pint of milk for all children under the age of five years old who attend the setting for at least two hours per day. The statutory nature of the scheme means that it is not impacted by annual funding discussions, and these discussions therefore have no impact on the childcare settings who use the scheme, or on the suppliers who supply them.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with NHS trusts on the provision of (a) anti-racism and (b) unconscious bias training for NHS staff.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department and NHS England have been working together to announce a series of measures to tackle antisemitism and racism across the National Health Service, which includes the introduction of mandatory antisemitism and anti-racism training for all NHS staff.
In terms of unconscious bias training, there is no national NHS-wide policy on this training in the NHS. Individual NHS organisations have responsibility for training their own staff and provide relevant training where appropriate.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances are classified as Substances of Very High Concern.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The UK Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations provide for a list of Substances of Very High Concern to be established. This list currently contains six entries relating to Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), each covering a group of PFAS.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps has she taken to ensure Home Office casework involving allegations of domestic abuse linked to spousal visa arrangements is investigated with appropriate (a) sensitivity and (b) cultural awareness.
Answered by Mike Tapp - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We are committed to reducing Violence against Women and Girls and this means continuing to support migrant victims of domestic abuse on spousal or partner visas.
That is why we offer immediate settlement for migrant victims of domestic abuse, under the Immigration Rules (Appendix Victim of Domestic Abuse (Appendix VDA)) for those granted permission to stay as a spouse or partner under the family Immigration Rules.
We consulted with a range of expert stakeholders including refuge service providers, specialist migrant domestic abuse charities, and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner when we published the first version of the Appendix VDA casework guidance in January 2024 to capture the significant cultural and language barriers that exist for migrant victims.
All applications under Appendix VDA are made directly to a specialist and experienced decision-making team to consider all the information and evidence provided to decide whether, on the balance of probabilities, the applicant can be granted settlement as a victim of domestic abuse. They are explicitly instructed to deal with cases sensitively, flexibly and cooperatively giving applicants support to demonstrate their eligibility where this is needed.