Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the UK National Screening Committee’s timelines for reviewing the case for including Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) in the NHS newborn screening programme on patients and families with SMA where symptoms are yet to present.
Answered by Will Quince
The review of whether to screen for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is under active consideration. At the June UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) meeting this was tabled for discussion. Minutes of this meeting are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nsc-meeting-june-2023/uk-nsc-minutes-june-2023
The UK NSC supported the proposal to commission a cost effectiveness modelling study and to start planning a high-quality in-service evaluation to support a UK NSC recommendation. Due to these new decisions made at the June meeting, no timetable has yet been developed.
As per the UK NSC’s published process, the committee will hold a three-month public consultation on SMA inviting stakeholders and members of the public to comment and submit further evidence for consideration. It will keep the public abreast of developments via its blogs and ongoing stakeholder engagement activities.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress the UK National Screening Committee has made on reviewing the case for including Spinal Muscular Atrophy in the NHS newborn screening programme, and what that Committee's timeline is for making a final recommendation.
Answered by Will Quince
The review of whether to screen for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is under active consideration. At the June UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) meeting this was tabled for discussion. Minutes of this meeting are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nsc-meeting-june-2023/uk-nsc-minutes-june-2023
The UK NSC supported the proposal to commission a cost effectiveness modelling study and to start planning a high-quality in-service evaluation to support a UK NSC recommendation. Due to these new decisions made at the June meeting, no timetable has yet been developed.
As per the UK NSC’s published process, the committee will hold a three-month public consultation on SMA inviting stakeholders and members of the public to comment and submit further evidence for consideration. It will keep the public abreast of developments via its blogs and ongoing stakeholder engagement activities.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will ask the UK National Screening Committee to publish indicative timelines for its review of Spinal Muscular Atrophy.
Answered by Will Quince
The review of whether to screen for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is under active consideration. At the June UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) meeting this was tabled for discussion. Minutes of this meeting are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nsc-meeting-june-2023/uk-nsc-minutes-june-2023
The UK NSC supported the proposal to commission a cost effectiveness modelling study and to start planning a high-quality in-service evaluation to support a UK NSC recommendation. Due to these new decisions made at the June meeting, no timetable has yet been developed.
As per the UK NSC’s published process, the committee will hold a three-month public consultation on SMA inviting stakeholders and members of the public to comment and submit further evidence for consideration. It will keep the public abreast of developments via its blogs and ongoing stakeholder engagement activities.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the UK National Screening Committee plans to review the evidence generated by Oxford University from its Thames Valley pilot within the Committee’s own population-based study on Spinal Muscular Atrophy.
Answered by Will Quince
The review of whether to screen for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is under active consideration. At the June UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) meeting this was tabled for discussion. Minutes of this meeting are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nsc-meeting-june-2023/uk-nsc-minutes-june-2023
The UK NSC supported the proposal to commission a cost effectiveness modelling study and to start planning a high-quality in-service evaluation to support a UK NSC recommendation. Due to these new decisions made at the June meeting, no timetable has yet been developed.
As per the UK NSC’s published process, the committee will hold a three-month public consultation on SMA inviting stakeholders and members of the public to comment and submit further evidence for consideration. It will keep the public abreast of developments via its blogs and ongoing stakeholder engagement activities.
Asked by: Peter Dowd (Labour - Bootle)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to expedite the process for publishing minutes from UK National Screening Committee meetings.
Answered by Will Quince
The review of whether to screen for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is under active consideration. At the June UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) meeting this was tabled for discussion. Minutes of this meeting are available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-nsc-meeting-june-2023/uk-nsc-minutes-june-2023
The UK NSC supported the proposal to commission a cost effectiveness modelling study and to start planning a high-quality in-service evaluation to support a UK NSC recommendation. Due to these new decisions made at the June meeting, no timetable has yet been developed.
As per the UK NSC’s published process, the committee will hold a three-month public consultation on SMA inviting stakeholders and members of the public to comment and submit further evidence for consideration. It will keep the public abreast of developments via its blogs and ongoing stakeholder engagement activities.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether the Government plans to support people spending over 40 per cent of their household income on (a) rent or (b) mortgage payments.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
We recognise the current context of higher interest rates and cost of living pressures is concerning for mortgage holders. Decisive action has been taken to support households across the UK through cost of living challenges, and the Government will continue to provide cost of living support in 2023-24, designed to target the most vulnerable households. That is why the new Mortgage Charter of June 2023 sets out commitments by the Government, lenders and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to support existing borrowers who are struggling with their mortgage payments.
We recognise the cost of living pressures that tenants are facing and that paying rent is likely to be the biggest monthly expense.
Affordable Rent was introduced in 2011 to make it possible to deliver a larger number of affordable homes for a given amount of public investment. This has helped to support the delivery of over 659,500 affordable homes since 2010. Of that total, more than 468,700 were homes for rent - and of these, more than 166,300 were Social Rent homes.
The Government is committed to delivering more Social Rent homes, and a large number of the homes to be delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for Social Rent. In addition, we recently consulted on a proposal to amend national planning policy to make clear that local planning authorities should give greater importance in planning for Social Rent homes. We will publish a response to that consultation in due course.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, if he will make it his policy to end the use of Affordable Rent homes set at 80 per cent of market rates.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
We recognise the current context of higher interest rates and cost of living pressures is concerning for mortgage holders. Decisive action has been taken to support households across the UK through cost of living challenges, and the Government will continue to provide cost of living support in 2023-24, designed to target the most vulnerable households. That is why the new Mortgage Charter of June 2023 sets out commitments by the Government, lenders and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to support existing borrowers who are struggling with their mortgage payments.
We recognise the cost of living pressures that tenants are facing and that paying rent is likely to be the biggest monthly expense.
Affordable Rent was introduced in 2011 to make it possible to deliver a larger number of affordable homes for a given amount of public investment. This has helped to support the delivery of over 659,500 affordable homes since 2010. Of that total, more than 468,700 were homes for rent - and of these, more than 166,300 were Social Rent homes.
The Government is committed to delivering more Social Rent homes, and a large number of the homes to be delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for Social Rent. In addition, we recently consulted on a proposal to amend national planning policy to make clear that local planning authorities should give greater importance in planning for Social Rent homes. We will publish a response to that consultation in due course.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the potential impact of increases in housing costs on households that spend more than 40 per cent of their household income on those costs.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
We recognise the current context of higher interest rates and cost of living pressures is concerning for mortgage holders. Decisive action has been taken to support households across the UK through cost of living challenges, and the Government will continue to provide cost of living support in 2023-24, designed to target the most vulnerable households. That is why the new Mortgage Charter of June 2023 sets out commitments by the Government, lenders and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to support existing borrowers who are struggling with their mortgage payments.
We recognise the cost of living pressures that tenants are facing and that paying rent is likely to be the biggest monthly expense.
Affordable Rent was introduced in 2011 to make it possible to deliver a larger number of affordable homes for a given amount of public investment. This has helped to support the delivery of over 659,500 affordable homes since 2010. Of that total, more than 468,700 were homes for rent - and of these, more than 166,300 were Social Rent homes.
The Government is committed to delivering more Social Rent homes, and a large number of the homes to be delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for Social Rent. In addition, we recently consulted on a proposal to amend national planning policy to make clear that local planning authorities should give greater importance in planning for Social Rent homes. We will publish a response to that consultation in due course.
Asked by: Beth Winter (Labour - Cynon Valley)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent assessment he has made of the potential impact of increases in housing costs on tenants in the private rented sector.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
We recognise the current context of higher interest rates and cost of living pressures is concerning for mortgage holders. Decisive action has been taken to support households across the UK through cost of living challenges, and the Government will continue to provide cost of living support in 2023-24, designed to target the most vulnerable households. That is why the new Mortgage Charter of June 2023 sets out commitments by the Government, lenders and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to support existing borrowers who are struggling with their mortgage payments.
We recognise the cost of living pressures that tenants are facing and that paying rent is likely to be the biggest monthly expense.
Affordable Rent was introduced in 2011 to make it possible to deliver a larger number of affordable homes for a given amount of public investment. This has helped to support the delivery of over 659,500 affordable homes since 2010. Of that total, more than 468,700 were homes for rent - and of these, more than 166,300 were Social Rent homes.
The Government is committed to delivering more Social Rent homes, and a large number of the homes to be delivered through our Affordable Homes Programme will be for Social Rent. In addition, we recently consulted on a proposal to amend national planning policy to make clear that local planning authorities should give greater importance in planning for Social Rent homes. We will publish a response to that consultation in due course.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will (a) undertake a local consultation on the future of and (b) make an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a community auction on the Bootham Park Hospital site.
Answered by Will Quince
NHS Property Services (NHSPS), who own the Bootham Park Hospital site, intend to remarket the property shortly after the prospective purchaser withdrew from the sale contract at the end of March 2023. There has been an extensive local consultation process with the public and other stakeholders to secure the planning permission for the site which was approved by City of York Council in February 2023.
Whilst the former Botham Park Hospital has been declared surplus to healthcare requirements, if other public sector bodies wish to purchase the property to facilitate the delivery of alternative public services from the building, they would be able to register their interest and make an offer. This will be assessed by NHSPS through the process for sale of surplus assets in accordance with requirements set out in Annex 4.15 of HM Treasury guidance on Managing Public Money.