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Written Question
Sickle Cell Diseases: Research
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she has taken to support (a) research into and (b) treatment of sickle cell disease in (i) England and (ii) Romford constituency.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

We’re working hard to support research, and provide the best possible care to those living with sickle cell disease (SCD) across the country. The Department funds health and care research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Over the past five financial years, the NIHR has invested more than £8 million in funding and support for SCD research.

NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) is the largest provider of apheresis services, a blood transfusion used to treat SCD. NHSBT will be delivering projects over the next 12 months that will increase both nursing capacity and the physical space in which apheresis occurs. We are also working to increase Ro subtype blood donation numbers, the blood type used to treat SCD, identify opportunities to improve clinical pathways, and deliver world-leading treatments, such as the new blood matching genetic test announced by NHS England earlier this year, which will reduce the risk of side effects and offer more personalised care.

NHS England’s Chief Executive Officer has committed to improving the treatment and outcomes of patients with SCD, and has commissioned a Sickle Cell Pathway Quality Improvement work package. A quality improvement review of existing processes has led to a range of improvements including awareness, education, and training of both patients and professionals.

The National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme (HiQiP) has recently introduced a number of initiatives as part of the wider aim of tackling inequalities for people living with SCD. This includes: piloting of urgent and emergency department bypass units in London and Manchester, which will ensure people with SCD with an uncomplicated vaso-occlusive crisis are assessed and given pain relief in a timely manner; the provision of a credit card sized Sickle Cell Alert Card to all people with SCD, to alert medical and clinical staff that the carrier is a registered SCD patient and that they should be managed as a medical emergency; a London wide commissioning for the design and upload of a patient care record onto an interoperable digital platform which, when fully operational, will give clinicians and medical personnel in different regions access to a patient’s personalised care and analgesia record, removing ambiguity on effective treatment; and several products to support the above, including a communications campaign to raise awareness of existing NHS England arrangements to support people with SCD to save money on the costs of regular prescriptions, as well as the Can you tell it's Sickle Cell campaign and an e-learning module, both from NHS England. Further information on the Can you tell it's Sickle Cell campaign and the e-learning module is available respectively, at the following links:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/2022/06/nhs-launches-lifesaving-sickle-cell-campaign/

https://www.e-lfh.org.uk/programmes/health-inequalities/


Written Question
Clothing: Cultural Heritage
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she has taken to support traditional English sartorial culture and the related industry.

Answered by Julia Lopez - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)

As part of the Creative Industries Sector Vision, the government announced £2 million funding to support five London Fashion Weeks over the next two years. This will go specifically towards supporting emerging designer talent and increasing access to the sector, delivered through the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN programme.

DCMS also supports the UK Research and Investment (UKRI) £15 million Circular Fashion programme, launched in 2022 to bring the sector, academia and government together to understand and drive the fashion and textiles industry towards sustainable and responsible practices. This programme will be critical in developing this area of research and meeting the goal of transforming the fashion and textiles sector to adopt economically viable and scalable circular models by 2032.

The textiles, fashion and craft industries play an important role in the UK’s social and cultural heritage, and are a major driver of economic growth. The UK is famous for its unrivalled creativity and innovation and it has a track record for producing some of the world’s most influential designers. Recognising this contribution, we are committed to supporting future growth in the sector. DCMS continues to engage with the British Fashion Council, the Crafts Council and the wider industries to understand the challenges the sectors are facing and how the government can best provide support.


Written Question
Hong Kong: Asylum
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether Ministers in his Department have plans to meet with Hong Kong activists (a) Nathan Law, (b) Finn Lau and (c) Christopher Mung.

Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

We will not tolerate any attempt by any foreign power to intimidate, harass or harm individuals or communities in the UK. Officials in Hong Kong, Beijing and London have raised the issuing of arrest warrants and bounties for these individuals with the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities. As the Foreign Secretary said on 14 December, the Hong Kong Police are deliberately targeting individuals for exercising their right to freedom of expression. We have called for the repeal of the National Security Law and continue to make clear our strong objections, including to its extraterritorial reach. That extends to the decisions by the Hong Kong Police to issue arrest warrants and bounties for activists. We call on Beijing to repeal the National Security Law and end its persecution of political activists.


Written Question
Special Educational Needs: Finance
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to work with (a) schools and (b) local authorities to help (i) ensure adequate funding for SEND provision and (ii) promote inclusion in mainstream schools in London.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

Mainstream schools in London are being allocated a total of £7.15 billion in the 2023/24 financial year. Of that, local authorities have identified £869 million as notional budgets, which act as a guide to how much schools might need to spend on their pupils with special educational needs (SEN). Where SEN support costs for an individual pupil are in excess of £6,000, schools can additionally access local authorities' high needs budgets, which are for children and young people with more complex needs. Local authorities in London have been allocated high needs funding amounting to £1.9 billion in 2023/24. This is set to increase to £2 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, meaning a cumulative increase of 29% per head over the three years from the 2021/22 allocations. By 2024/25, high needs funding will have increased by 60% over the five years since 2019/20, to a total of over £10.5 billion nationally.

As of March 2024, the department has published just under £850 million of further investment in places for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision. Spread over the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years, it forms part of the £2.6 billion the department has committed to investing in high needs capital between 2022 and 2025 and represents a significant, transformational investment in new high needs provision. Between 2021/22 and 2024/25, London has been allocated just over £542 million. This is 20% of the total funding provided to local councils to support the provision of new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities or requiring alternative provision.

In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023 following extensive consultation with schools and local authorities, the department set out its mission for more children and young people to have their needs met effectively in mainstream settings. To bring together local authorities, health and education partners across local systems to strategically plan and commission support for children and young people with SEND, the department is working with local authorities to create or strengthen local SEND and AP partnerships. To support authorities, the department is investing £21 million to train 400 more educational psychologists and introducing a National Professional Qualification (NPQ) for special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) at leadership level.

School and multi-academy trust leaders should promote collaborative working and drive inclusive practices across local areas. The department’s expectations for high-quality, inclusive education are set out in the ‘High Quality Trust Framework’ and enforced through the inspections under Ofsted’s 2019 Education Inspection Framework.

The department is also investing in specific programmes designed to help schools develop their inclusive practice. For example, the Universal Services Programme helps the school and FE workforce to identify and meet the needs of children and young people with SEND, earlier and more effectively. As part of the Programme, over 135,000 professionals have undertaken autism awareness training. And to support schools to create calm, safe and supportive environments for all pupils, the department has invested £10 million in the Behaviour Hubs programme.

Supporting children and young people with SEND is embedded in Initial Teacher Training (ITT) and the professional standards that teachers are expected to adhere to throughout their careers. The Teachers' standards define the minimum level of practice expected of all teachers This includes Teachers Standard 5, which requires all teachers to adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils, including those with SEND.

The government does not prescribe the curriculum of ITT courses. However, the mandatory ITT Core Content Framework (CCF) (2019) sets out the minimum entitlement of knowledge, skills and experiences that all trainees need to enter the profession in the best position possible to teach and support their pupils. This core content must be covered in full for all ITT courses leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).

Once they have been awarded QTS at the end of their ITT course, all early career teachers are entitled to a new two-year induction underpinned by the Early Career Framework (ECF).

Following the ITT CCF and Early Career Framework (ECF) review in 2023, the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework (ITTECF), which was published in January 2024, contains significantly more content related to adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND. The adaptive teaching content includes, for example, developing an understanding of different pupil needs, and learning how to provide opportunities for success for all pupils.


Written Question
Papua: Internally Displaced People
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies of the number of internally-displaced people in West Papua since December 2018; and whether his Department is taking diplomatic steps to help support those people.

Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

We continue to monitor the ongoing issue of internal civilian displacement caused by clashes between separatists and Indonesian security forces in Papua. We have raised our concerns with the Indonesian Embassy in London. Officials from the British Embassy in Jakarta have also visited Papua in March 2022 and met with officials, police, local business, human rights defenders, environmentalists and religious leaders. Embassy officials also visited the region again in February and July 2023.

The UK's longstanding position is to respect the territorial integrity of Indonesia, which includes the region of Papua. Within this framework, we strongly support the efforts of the Indonesian authorities and civil society to address the legitimate concerns of the people of Papua, including strengthening human rights protections, providing humanitarian assistance and ensuring that all Papuans benefit from the sustainable and equitable development of their province.


Written Question
NHS North Central London: Databases
Thursday 28th March 2024

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, with reference to the North Central London Integrated Care Board's consultation entitled Start Well which closed on 17 March 2024, whether she has made an assessment of the effectiveness of the patient flow modelling methods used within that consultation.

Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The North Central London Integrated Care Board advise that the patient flow modelling approach was based on the combination of geographical proximity and service user choice.

The patient flow approach was tested with the Clinical Reference Group, Finance and Analytics Group, and Start Well Programme Board. The outputs were also tested with the Strategy Leads from each organisation, and the approach reviewed and assured by the London Clinical Senate and NHS England.


Written Question
Roads: Subsidence
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Earl of Sandwich (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of risk of damage to public highways from subsidence caused by global warming; what is the current budget for repairs following subsidence; and what grants are available to private landowners for such repairs.

Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Chapter 4 of the Third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Technical Report assesses the climate-related risks and opportunities to infrastructure in the UK. Part 4.8 of that document considers the risks to subterranean and surface infrastructure from subsidence.

National Highways is responsible for the operation, maintenance, renewal and enhancement of the Strategic Road Network, funded by the Government in 5-year roads periods with objectives set out in Road Investment Strategies. The second Road Investment Strategy (2020-2025) includes action to enhance all-weather resilience of the strategic road network, to minimise the risk of incidents and their impact for road users. National Highways also reports under the adaptation reporting power of the Climate Change Act 2008 on what it is doing to check climate resilience against the latest Met Office Climate Projections and undertake actions to improve resilience across its network. The next round of adaptation reporting closes at the end of 2024.

In respect of local roads, the Department is providing over £5.5 billion of highways maintenance funding between 2020/21 – 2024/25 for eligible highway authorities outside London and those receiving City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS). This funding is not ring-fenced, and authorities may choose to use it to maintain their network, including repairs to the highway following subsidence and actions to make networks more resilient to changing weather patterns. The Government has also announced that it will provide an additional £8.3 billion of reallocated HS2 funds over this year and the next decade to help authorities to transform their highway networks.

The Department for Transport does not provide grants to private landowners for repairing subsidence damage.


Written Question
Papua: Civil Liberties
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether his Department has taken recent steps to help promote freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in West Papua, in the context of recent reports of political imprisonment in that region.

Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)

The UK Government remains committed to upholding and defending human rights, freedom of speech and equality at home and oversees. We are aware of increased tensions in the Papua region and we continue to monitor developments closely. We have raised the issue of Papua with the Indonesian Embassy in London. Officials from the British Embassy in Jakarta visited Papua in March 2022 and met with officials, police, local business, human rights defenders, environmentalists and religious leaders. They also visited the region in February and July 2023.


Written Question
Roads: Repairs and Maintenance
Thursday 28th March 2024

Asked by: Andrew Rosindell (Conservative - Romford)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he has taken with relevant authorities to improve the condition of roads in (a) England and (b) Romford constituency.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

The Department is providing an unprecedented £8.3 billion of additional funding over this year and the next decade to local highways authorities in England to enable them to transform the condition of their local roads. £150 million of this has already been allocated in 2023/24 with a further £150 million to follow in 2024/25. All of this has been made possible by reallocating funds that would have otherwise been spent on the HS2 programme.

The Romford constituency is in the London Borough of Havering, which will receive a minimum of £10.4 million of additional funding over the 11-year period. £333,000 of that has been allocated in 2023/24 with a further £333,000 to follow in 2024/25. All funding allocations can be found on gov.uk.


Written Question
Childcare: Greater London
Wednesday 27th March 2024

Asked by: Ellie Reeves (Labour - Lewisham West and Penge)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent progress her Department has made on increasing the provision of school-aged childcare facilities for parents with young children in London.

Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)

The government is investing £289 million in a new wraparound childcare programme. This programme is to support local authorities in London and throughout England to work with primary schools and private providers to set up and deliver more wraparound childcare before and after school in the term time. The government’s ambition is for all parents of primary school children who need it to be able to access childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm by September 2026.

In October 2023, the department published guidance for local authorities on their role to support the expansion of wrapround childcare along with local authority funding allocations. In February 2024, the department also published guidance for schools and trust setting out expectations of schools in the delivery of wraparound provision.

From April 2024, Bi-borough, consisting of the local authorities of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea, will be rolling out expanded wraparound provision, five months ahead of the national programme launch in September, meaning that some parents in London will have access to childcare sooner. Along with three other local authority areas, Cambridgeshire, Central Bedfordshire and Norfolk, these early adopters form part of a test and learn phase to strengthen the delivery of the full rollout.

This year, the department has again provided over £200 million for the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, with all local authorities in England delivering in the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays. The HAF programme provides heathy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places to children from low-income families, benefiting their health, wellbeing and learning. Since 2022, the HAF programme has provided 10.7 million HAF days to children and young people in this country. The expansion of the programme year on year has meant a total of 5.4 million HAF days provided between Christmas 2022 and Easter and summer 2023.

The department is working to ensure that the creation of new or expanded wraparound childcare provision can also help to support the delivery of sustainable holiday childcare provision, wherever possible.