Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
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 support people with severe Myalgic encephalomyelitis in the context of delays to the consideration of a specialised service for people with very severe Myalgic encephalomyelitis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Officials in the Department and NHS England, together with stakeholders, are currently considering interim measures to support patients with very severe myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).
Officials have considered the impact of the abolition of NHS England and the changes to integrated care boards (ICBs) on the actions within the final delivery plan on ME/CFS from July 2025.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impacts of a) the abolition of NHS England and b) changes to ICBs on the final delivery plan for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.
Answered by Sharon Hodgson - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Officials in the Department and NHS England, together with stakeholders, are currently considering interim measures to support patients with very severe myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).
Officials have considered the impact of the abolition of NHS England and the changes to integrated care boards (ICBs) on the actions within the final delivery plan on ME/CFS from July 2025.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of a potential link between children going missing and the risk of exploitation, including child criminal exploitation and child sexual exploitation.
Answered by Sarah Jones - Minister of State (Home Office)
We recognise that missing episodes, especially repeat missing episodes, however brief, can often be a red flag for a number of harms including child sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation.
Each missing child case represents a vulnerable young person at risk, often with complex underlying causes that need to be understood and addressed. We are working to support the NPCC and its rollout of its ‘Children who go Missing from Care’ Framework as another vital tool when tackling head-on the underlying vulnerabilities in children that often lead to missing episodes and further strengthening frontline response.
In addition, the new National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection (NCVPP) launched in April 2025 to improve the response to violence against women and girls and child sexual abuse. The Home Office has already invested £13.1 million into the Centre in 2025-25 and will provide a further £13.9m funding this financial year. The NCVPP will improve the response to missing children by driving up standards; developing best practices and delivering training to officers across a range of vulnerabilities.
We will continue to work closely across Government Departments, with the police and other safeguarding partners, to improve the whole system response to missing children.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to help prevent delays to spinal operations including where infrastructure such as operating room seals are broken leading to operations being cancelled and delayed.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the significant impact that delays to spinal surgery can have on patients and is taking action to reduce waiting times and minimise cancellations.
As set out in the Elective Reform Plan, we are increasing elective capacity and improving productivity across the National Health Service, including through the expansion of dedicated surgical hubs. These hubs use ringfenced staff and facilities to protect planned operations from urgent and emergency pressures.
NHS England also provides targeted national and regional support to trusts with the greatest waiting list pressures, including through the clinically led Getting It Right First Time programme and their Further Faster programme for spinal services.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the impact of delayed and cancelled spinal operations on patients' lives and b) what support is available to patients awaiting spinal operations for months or years.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the significant impact that delays to spinal surgery can have on patients and is taking action to reduce waiting times and minimise cancellations.
As set out in the Elective Reform Plan, we are increasing elective capacity and improving productivity across the National Health Service, including through the expansion of dedicated surgical hubs. These hubs use ringfenced staff and facilities to protect planned operations from urgent and emergency pressures.
NHS England also provides targeted national and regional support to trusts with the greatest waiting list pressures, including through the clinically led Getting It Right First Time programme and their Further Faster programme for spinal services.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of removing the 4% collection fees for receiving parents using the child maintenance service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Following a public consultation on wider reforms to consolidate the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) into a single service type where the CMS collects and transfers payments, the Government published its response setting out plans to reform the CMS. This includes plans to reduce fees to 2% for both receiving parents and compliant paying parents, maintaining the 20% rate for non-compliant paying parents on top of their calculated maintenance amount.
The reformed service is expected to improve CMS’s ability to re-establish compliance more efficiently when payments break down. Retaining fees at this substantially reduced level will balance the interests of customers with the need to offset the cost of the service and provide the investment needed to make the reforms, reducing the burden on the taxpayer.
Our intention is to implement these changes as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
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 help ensure that delays to spinal operations are mitigated against and minimised.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government recognises the significant impact that delays to spinal surgery can have on patients and is taking action to reduce waiting times and minimise cancellations.
As set out in the Elective Reform Plan, we are increasing elective capacity and improving productivity across the National Health Service, including through the expansion of dedicated surgical hubs. These hubs use ringfenced staff and facilities to protect planned operations from urgent and emergency pressures.
NHS England also provides targeted national and regional support to trusts with the greatest waiting list pressures, including through the clinically led Getting It Right First Time programme and their Further Faster programme for spinal services.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve data sharing between schools, local authorities and safeguarding agencies to support the identification of children at risk of going missing.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government takes the issue of any child going missing, from home or care, extremely seriously and has provided clear guidance about responsibilities for all children who go missing. When a child is found, they must be offered an independent Return Home Interview and local authorities, police and voluntary services should also work together to understand why the child went missing and what support they may need, including with their mental health, in the future to prevent them from going missing again.
The department has announced a £7 million funding boost to early support hubs across England providing drop-in mental health support for young people aged 11 to 25. Alongside this, we are investing an extra £688 million in mental health services this year and are recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers across children’s and adult services.
Measures from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and Crime and Policing Bill, reforms being delivered through the Families First Partnership Programme, supported by £2.4 billion, updates to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance, and oversight from the Keeping Children Safe ministerial board will ensure that we better respond when children go missing and intervene earlier to tackle the underlying drivers.
Measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill aim to put an end to misconceptions about legal barriers to sharing information, through introducing an Information Sharing Duty and making provision for a Single Unique Identifier to improve information sharing between agencies.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of mental health support available to children who are at risk of going missing.
Answered by Josh MacAlister - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The government takes the issue of any child going missing, from home or care, extremely seriously and has provided clear guidance about responsibilities for all children who go missing. When a child is found, they must be offered an independent Return Home Interview and local authorities, police and voluntary services should also work together to understand why the child went missing and what support they may need, including with their mental health, in the future to prevent them from going missing again.
The department has announced a £7 million funding boost to early support hubs across England providing drop-in mental health support for young people aged 11 to 25. Alongside this, we are investing an extra £688 million in mental health services this year and are recruiting 8,500 additional mental health workers across children’s and adult services.
Measures from the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and Crime and Policing Bill, reforms being delivered through the Families First Partnership Programme, supported by £2.4 billion, updates to the Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance, and oversight from the Keeping Children Safe ministerial board will ensure that we better respond when children go missing and intervene earlier to tackle the underlying drivers.
Measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill aim to put an end to misconceptions about legal barriers to sharing information, through introducing an Information Sharing Duty and making provision for a Single Unique Identifier to improve information sharing between agencies.
Asked by: Tom Morrison (Liberal Democrat - Cheadle)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve standards in relation to bailiffs.
Answered by Sarah Sackman - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Government is committed to strengthening the regulation of the private enforcement (bailiff) sector and establishing an independent regulatory framework as soon as parliamentary time allows. Last year, we consulted on how to do so in a way that ensures that regulation is targeted, proportionate, as well as ensuring fair treatment for everyone, including people in vulnerable circumstances. This will build on the excellent work that the Enforcement Conduct Board (ECB) is already doing on a voluntary basis to improve standards in the sector. This includes the recent publication in March 2026 of Vulnerability and Ability to Pay Standards, strengthening expectations on the identification of vulnerability, affordability assessments and the use of sustainable repayment arrangements.