Asked by: Lord Bishop of Southwark (Bishops - Bishops)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they have made regarding the 12 targets set out in the Levelling Up the United Kingdom white paper, published on 2 February 2022.
Answered by Baroness Swinburne - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
As set out in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, the Government will publish an annual report on mission progress, this will detail the progress that has been made against the 12 missions set out in the Statement on Missions in January 2024.
Levelling Up is a long-term ambition, but we are already making headway. 64% of England’s population and 90% of the North are now covered by a devolution deal. We have met the 5G element of the digital connectivity mission early, achieving 5G coverage for the majority of the population with 72% of premises having outdoor access to a 5G signal. The disparity in employment rates between regions has reduced and productivity has grown faster across many Northern cities than London.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they will assess (1) wider productivity, and (2) economic benefits, when considering new immunisation programmes for infant respiratory syncytial virus.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The independent Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advises the Department on the approach to vaccination and immunisation. The JCVI evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) programme was based on the health benefits of an infant RSV programme and the potential healthcare cost savings from preventing cases and hospitalisations.
The Department did not ask the JCVI to complete an assessment of wider productivity and economic benefits of an immunisation programme, and the Department did not assess this separately for RSV.
Asked by: Angela Eagle (Labour - Wallasey)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of claims processed within planned processing timescales.
Answered by Paul Maynard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department has seen a sustained increase in applications and demand for DWP services as a result of the pandemic and subsequent cost of living pressures, as well as ongoing publicity campaigns such as Help for Households and Pension Credit take-up.
Whilst we have seen an overall improvement in claims processed within planned timescales, and we expect that overall performance to continue to improve in the 24-25 figures, we acknowledge that across our services more needs to be done to improve the number of claims processed within the planned timescales.
Through recruitment in 23-24 we have started 17,166 people in new roles (and have further candidates due to start in Q1 of 24-25). This level of recruitment has resulted in a net increase in our Service Delivery resource levels to meet customer demand. We also have utilised our existing contracts with external partners to increase our service delivery capacity.
Across our service lines we continue to focus on productivity improvement activities, as well as continuing to modernise our benefit services through our digital transformation and Service Modernisation programmes, which mean an increasing number of claims can now be made online and through self-service. The Department strategy is to continue our modernisation programme, enable our people to focus on supporting more vulnerable customers who are unable to self-serve or need additional support.
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, whether she is taking steps to ensure that family hubs provide advice on smoking and vaping harm reduction.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Smoking is the number one entirely preventable cause of ill-health, disability, and death in this country. It is responsible for 80,000 yearly deaths in the United Kingdom, and one in four of all UK cancer deaths. It costs our country £17 billion a year, £14 billion of which is through lost productivity alone. It puts a huge pressure on the National Health Service and social care, costing over £3 billion a year.
The Government is investing an additional £300 million to improve support for families, though the joint Department of Health and Social Care and Department for Education Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. The Family Hubs and Start for Life programme guide sets out minimum expectations that local authorities receiving programme funding should deliver by March 2025. With regards to smoking support, the programme guide sets out that staff in a family hub are expected to be trained in delivering Very Brief Advice on smoking to parents identified as smokers, and some family hubs may provide smoking cessation support on-site, for example through drop-ins.
Staff in family hubs know what stop smoking services (SSS) are provided locally, and connect families to these services. Smokers are three times as likely to succeed with SSS, when compared to an unsupported quit attempt. As announced in Stopping the start: our new plan to create a smokefree generation, published in October 2023, the Government is investing an additional £70 million per year, for five years, to support local authority led SSS, almost doubling current spend and supporting 360,000 people to set a quit date each year.
In addition, we are establishing a financial incentives scheme to help pregnant smokers and their partners to quit smoking, with smoking cessation support. This evidence-based intervention will encourage pregnant women to give up smoking, and remain smokefree throughout pregnancy and beyond, helping to improve the health and wellbeing of both mother and baby.
Whilst anyone smoking should focus on giving up cigarettes before giving up vaping, giving up vaping is an important step in overcoming nicotine dependence. We are working with the NHS Better Health website to provide advice for people who want to quit vaping. The National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training has produced guidance for local SSS staff, on how best to support vapers to quit. We are also exploring further ways to support people to quit vaping, as part of the national Swap to Stop programme.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of projects that have been written off within his Department in each year since 2010.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Prior to preparing to leave the EU Defra had no major projects, with outcome delivery led through its Arm’s Length bodies and executive agencies. Defra now manages a portfolio of priority projects spanning policy to delivery which are critical to delivering our outcomes to ‘improve the environment, deliver net zero, reduce the likelihood and impact of flooding, increase the sustainability, productivity and resilience of the agriculture, fishing, food and drink sectors, enhance biosecurity at the border and raise animal welfare standards’. All losses are reported in our Annual Reports and Accounts but we are unable to provide a breakdown of losses specifically relating to ‘writing off projects’ since our reporting data for losses is not disaggregated in this manner.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government, following recent remarks from the deputy governor of the Bank of England, Dave Ramsden, that inflation could remain around the two per cent target for the next three years, what steps they are taking to ensure sustainable economic growth in this environment.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is continuing to pursue an ambitious policy agenda to increase sustainable economic growth and productivity across the economy. This includes making full expensing permanent, announcing measures to boost labour supply, backing the UK’s priority growth sectors, and addressing long-term barriers to investment through planning and grid connection reforms.
The IMF forecasts that the UK will have the third fastest cumulative growth in the G7 over the 2024-2029 period and the OBR expects that policies announced in the previous three fiscal events will increase the size of the economy by 0.7% by 2028-29.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to recent data released by S&P Global showing that April had the fastest rise in business activity since last May, what steps they are taking to sustain this momentum and ensure continued economic growth.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government is continuing to pursue an ambitious policy agenda to increase sustainable economic growth and productivity across the economy. This includes making full expensing permanent, announcing measures to boost labour supply, backing the UK’s priority growth sectors, and addressing long-term barriers to investment through planning and grid connection reforms.
The IMF forecasts that the UK will have the third fastest cumulative growth in the G7 over the 2024-2029 period and the OBR expects that policies announced in the previous three fiscal events will increase the size of the economy by 0.7% by 2028-29.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department are taking to encourage businesses to invest in skills training.
Answered by Luke Hall - Minister of State (Education)
This government is committed to delivering a world-leading skills system which is employer-focused, high-quality, and fit for the future. The department’s reforms are backed with an investment of £3.8 billion over the course of this Parliament to strengthen higher and further education to help more people get good jobs, upskill and retrain throughout their lives and to improve national productivity.
Over 5,000 employers have been involved in the development of nearly 700 high-quality apprenticeships to meet their industry skills needs. To support employers of all sizes offer apprenticeships, the government has increased investment in apprenticeships to over £2.7 billion in the 2024/25 financial year. This includes investing a further £60 million to meet overall increased employer demand for apprenticeships and encourage small-medium enterprises (SMEs) to take on young apprentices.
From April, the department pays 100% of training costs when SMEs take on new apprentices aged 16-21. Additionally, larger employers can now transfer more of their levy funds (50% increased from 25%) to support businesses of all sizes, which will help more employers to invest in apprenticeship training.
Skills Bootcamps offer free, flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, giving people the chance to build sector-specific skills with an offer of a job interview on completion. Training providers work with employers to ensure training is designed to teach the skills employers need. To date, over 1000 employers have been involved in Skills Bootcamps. Employers play a range of roles from supporting the design and delivery of the training, to recruiting learners that complete training into a job, or an apprenticeship. Employers can also use Skills Bootcamps to upskill their existing employees, subject to a 10% contribution for SMEs and 30% contribution for large employers.
Institutes of Technology bring education and business closer together, creating unique collaborations between colleges, universities and industry which deliver higher-level technical education with a clear route to high skilled employment. The department has provided £300 million of capital funding for infrastructure and industry standard equipment to increase capacity to deliver level 4/5 technical skills. In addition, employer partners were encouraged to provide additional support (monetary and in kind) which for the wave 2 competition was set at 35% of value of capital expenditure.
In October 2023, the department launched a new website called Skills for Careers that provides a single digital front door to information about skills training options and careers. A link to Skills for Careers can be found here: https://www.skillsforcareers.education.gov.uk/pages/skills-for-life. From Skills for Careers, users are guided through government’s skills offer from apprenticeships to Skills Bootcamps, A levels to Multiply. The website provides an overview of each option along with information about writing job applications and CVs.
Across all areas of England, employer-led Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) have helped engage thousands of local businesses and have brought them together with local providers and stakeholders to collaboratively agree and deliver actions to address local skills needs. By giving employers a more strategic role in the skills system, LSIPs are helping to drive greater employer investment in skills and ensure businesses are more actively involved in the planning, design and delivery of skills provision.
Departmental officials are also working with the Office for Investment and Department for Business and Trade to provide support for investors to navigate the skills system at a national and local level and encourage take-up of government funded skills programmes and employer investment in skills, as well as build strategic partnerships with local education and training providers. Whilst it is not a core part of their role, some of the designated employer representative bodies leading the LSIPs have engaged with inward investors as part of developing and implementing their LSIPs.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of infant respiratory syncytial virus on (1) paediatric intensive care bed capacity, (2) NHS elective care capacity, (3) GP visits, and (4) economic productivity.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England has not made specific assessments of the impact of infant respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) on paediatric intensive care bed capacity, National Health Service elective care capacity, and general practice visits, as RSV is often accompanied by other respiratory viruses and bacterial infections, and it is therefore difficult to measure the exact contribution of RSV. Neither has the Department assessed the wider productivity and economic benefits of RSV specifically.
The NHS plans for a wide range of scenarios ahead of each winter, and will continue to adapt plans based on respiratory infections surveillance, including RSV, and NHS activity data. This includes specialised commissioning led winter surge planning for paediatric critical care, as well as wider winter planning. For RSV specifically, this includes the annual immunisation programme, which continues to be managed and reviewed in accordance with advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). For 2024 to 2025, preparedness may include rolling out a new RSV vaccination programme following the JCVI’s recommendations issued in September 2023, subject to approval from the Department.
The health impact of infant RSV was assessed in a scientific paper published in Lancet Regional Health Europe in January 2024, and has been assessed previously in scientific papers published by Public Health England and others. This work contributed to the JCVI’s assessment of RSV’s impact, and advice to implement an immunisation programme to prevent infant RSV.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she plans to publish the results of the review by McKinsey and Co into NHS productivity.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 2024 Spring Budget committed £3.4 billion of capital funding to support NHS England in driving technologically and digitally enabled productivity improvement. To prepare for this work, NHS England commissioned McKinsey and Company as part of an internal exercise. The Department will provide a public update on progress and plans for delivering the Spring Budget’s announcements.