Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many staff are employed at the birthing suites at Edgware Birth Centre.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The following table shows the numbers of births delivered at birthing suites at Edgware Birth Centre, in each of the last five years:
Year | Births delivered |
2018/19 | 68 |
2019/20 | 73 |
2020/21 | 18 |
2021/22 | 45 |
2022/23 | 34 |
Edgware Birth Centre is a standalone birth centre which is staffed by midwifery teams employed by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust who work across a number of locations. Because of this it is difficult to determine the cost for the centre separately. The centre is the base for three teams that work across the maternity services provided by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. The staff are deployed across a number of birth settings, including home births, Edgware Birth Centre, and Barnet Hospital. Staff working at the centre also deliver antenatal and postnatal clinics.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the annual cost to the public purse is of the birthing suites at Edgware Birth Centre.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The following table shows the numbers of births delivered at birthing suites at Edgware Birth Centre, in each of the last five years:
Year | Births delivered |
2018/19 | 68 |
2019/20 | 73 |
2020/21 | 18 |
2021/22 | 45 |
2022/23 | 34 |
Edgware Birth Centre is a standalone birth centre which is staffed by midwifery teams employed by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust who work across a number of locations. Because of this it is difficult to determine the cost for the centre separately. The centre is the base for three teams that work across the maternity services provided by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. The staff are deployed across a number of birth settings, including home births, Edgware Birth Centre, and Barnet Hospital. Staff working at the centre also deliver antenatal and postnatal clinics.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many births were delivered at the birthing suites at Edgware Birth Centre in each of the last five years.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The following table shows the numbers of births delivered at birthing suites at Edgware Birth Centre, in each of the last five years:
Year | Births delivered |
2018/19 | 68 |
2019/20 | 73 |
2020/21 | 18 |
2021/22 | 45 |
2022/23 | 34 |
Edgware Birth Centre is a standalone birth centre which is staffed by midwifery teams employed by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust who work across a number of locations. Because of this it is difficult to determine the cost for the centre separately. The centre is the base for three teams that work across the maternity services provided by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. The staff are deployed across a number of birth settings, including home births, Edgware Birth Centre, and Barnet Hospital. Staff working at the centre also deliver antenatal and postnatal clinics.
Asked by: Gregory Campbell (Democratic Unionist Party - East Londonderry)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate his Department has made of the number of live births that occurred to women who arrived in the UK while pregnant and seeking asylum in the last five years.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
This information is not recorded in a reportable format.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department takes to (a) mitigate delays in producing and (b) ensure the correct (i) names and (ii) bate of births are printed on newly issued biometric residence permits.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
Home Office colleagues are working closely together to improve our processes and ensure Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) are issued as quickly as possible.
Caseworkers must ensure that the individual’s name, nationality and date of birth are correct and correspond to caseworking system records.
We are improving address data accuracy and ensuring that updated address data flows into the main case working system more efficiently. This will maintain the integrity of the system so that the BRP card is issued to the correct address and help reduce delays in the system.
BRP production is an automated function on our caseworking systems. However, delays can arise due to process errors. We have introduced a dedicated support function to work at speed to resolve user/process issues and to drive BRP process improvements across the end-to-end system.
Where customers encounter a delay in the receipt of their BRP, we offer a range of services to allow customers to report the delay, and we aim to resolve the problem within five working days of notification. Employers and landlords can use the Employer Checking Service and the Landlord Checking Service to verify a right to work or rent in the absence of a BRP, while Government departments and public bodies can verify status in the absence of a BRP through the Status Verification and Enquiries Checking (SVEC) team.
Asked by: Christopher Pincher (Independent - Tamworth)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) guidelines and (b) service level targets her Department has issued to Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages on issuing a (a) death certificate and (b) certificate for burial to a deceased person's next of kin once the death has been registered.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The General Register Office for England and Wales provides written guidance to registrars that details the procedures to follow on the registration of a death.
The statutory timescale to register a death that is not subject to coronial investigation, is five days. Death certificates are available as soon as a death has been registered and, in most cases, they are requested by informants at the time of registration. Similarly, the certificate for burial is normally issued immediately following a registration.
Asked by: Taiwo Owatemi (Labour - Coventry North West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason HM Passport Office requires applicants to submit birth, marriage and death certificates; and if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of using General Register Office reference numbers.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
HMPO requires applicants to submit birth, marriage and death certificates as part of the passport issuing process to enable determinations as to a customer’s nationality, identity and eligibility for a British passport.
In some circumstances, HMPO is able to check against electronic birth data for births occurring in England and Wales rather than requesting a paper certificate.
Asked by: Desmond Swayne (Conservative - New Forest West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent estimate she has made of average time it takes to register a death.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
No estimate has been made. The General Register Office is part of His Majesty's Passport Office and oversees civil registration in England and Wales
In England and Wales, the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 requires a qualified informant to register the death of an individual within 5 days of the death taking place.
Asked by: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)
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 ensure hospital maternity services are able to offer home births.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
While all trusts providing maternity services in England offer a home birth service, there is occasionally a need for a trust to suspend home births for operational reasons, such as temporary staff shortages.
In March 2022, NHS England announced that more than £50 million would be provided over the next two years to increase the number of staff in maternity and neonatal services. This is in addition to a further £95 million per year for recruitment and training.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department takes to support people with no birth record to receive a certification of their birth.
Answered by Kevin Foster
Civil registration in the UK is a devolved matter and there are separate systems in place for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
For births occurring in England and Wales, a birth certificate can be issued once the birth has been registered. Although the law requires births to be registered within 42 days, they can still be registered after this time where sufficient evidence of the date and place of birth is provided.