Tag: Sarah Wollaston

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2015-12-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding his Department plans to allocate to (a) increasing the number of journeys undertaken by bicycle and (b) reducing the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured on roads over the next five years.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Government remains committed to its manifesto targets to double cycling and make cycling safer.

The Government recently reaffirmed its commitment to cycling and walking, with SR2015 announcing funding support of over £300m. This includes delivering the Cycle City Ambition programme in full, and funding the Bikeability cycle training programme, which increases cycle proficiency amongst school children.

The Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, to be published in summer 2016, will explain the Government’s investment strategy for cycling and walking.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to encourage its bilateral partners to adopt a co-ordinated early childhood development approach to provide nutritional, medical and educational support for children.

Mr Nick Hurd

There is strong evidence that supporting children in their early years with health, education, nutrition and stimulation interventions maximises their learning potential and yields long term benefits. In January DFID held a high level meeting in London, bringing together Ministers and policy makers from developing countries, academic experts and development agencies to explore how to provide cross-sectoral support to young children at scale. Drawing on the evidence base, DFID is exploring with country governments how to co-ordinate early childhood support and how to adapt our existing programmes to encompass early childhood development principles.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what mechanisms he plans to put in place to ensure ministers receive impartial nursing advice after the proposed closure of the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions policy unit in his Department.

Ben Gummer

The Department leads the health and care system in England, working closely with a range of organisations on whose expertise it draws, including the nursing and midwifery expertise in NHS England and Public Health England. The Department’s approach to ensuring that nurses are consulted about future policies is to flexibly access professional advice from a wide range of sources, including arms-length bodies, regulators, stakeholders and professional bodies.

The Department’s policy teams will establish new networks and relationships with stakeholders and partners and collaborate with the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) to ensure systems are in place to secure advice when developing evidence based policy. These changes do not affect the role of the CNO, who as CNO of the Department already advises, and will continue to advise all Ministers and the Department on the range of nursing and midwifery issues.

The Department is changing the way it works to deliver its essential work for the Government while achieving efficiency savings. All of the changes we are making through the resulting DH2020 programme are being done transparently and communicated to staff.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times in the last two years Falmouth Coastguard Operations Centre has had staffing levels below what is considered safe.

Mr John Hayes

The operational concepts and procedures that underpin Her Majesty’s Coastguard’s national network mean that the Coastguard Centres within it no longer have fixed geographic boundaries. This enables Coastguards at either the National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC) or any of the 9 Coastguard Operations Centres (CGOC) to coordinate any incident anywhere around the UK coast irrespective of their location. As a result workload is now managed on a national basis rather than Centre by Centre as was previously the case. National capability and Coastguard staff from any Centre are now available to provide additional support to any individual Centre within the network when it is considered necessary by senior operational managers.

Due to this inherent flexibility Her Majesty’s Coastguard sets ‘Optimum Suggested’ staffing for the network as a whole rather than for each centre. Over the last two years since the national network became operational out of a total of 1,427 watches (both day and night) the network has been staffed below ‘Optimal Suggested’ levels on 137 watches.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that mental health services receive parity of esteem with physical health services in terms of funding.

Alistair Burt

NHS England required clinical commissioning groups in the annual planning guidance for 2015/16, to increase their spending on mental health in line with the increase in their overall funding allocation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether, when considering whether to acquire a bulk personal dataset from another government department under the Investigatory Powers Bill, she plans to consult the Secretary of State for that department.

Mike Penning

The Investigatory Powers Bill provides for robust and transparent safeguards relating to the security and intelligence agencies’ use of bulk personal datasets (BPDs). This includes a new requirement for warrants to authorise the retention and examination of BPDs. The Bill provides for both class BPD warrants, covering datasets of a particular class, and specific BPD warrants, covering an individual dataset. The draft statutory Code of Practice provides further guidance on the factors that the security and intelligence agencies should consider in determining which type of warrant to apply for. These include whether the nature or the provenance of the dataset raises particularly novel or contentious issues; whether it contains a significant component of intrusive data; and whether it contains a significant component of confidential information relating to members of sensitive professions. All warrants will be subject to the ‘double-lock’ safeguard meaning that they will be subject to approval by both a Secretary of State and a Judicial Commissioner.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-06-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to address the decline in cervical screening uptake in the 25 to 29 age group.

Jane Ellison

There is a range of work going on to understand the reasons for the decline in cervical screening uptake amongst women aged 25 to 29 and to try to address them. They include:

a) Data and information – access to data, cleansing, benchmarking for providers, timely and useful information for commissioners;

b) Behavioural insight – communication with commissioners, providers, patients and public;

c) Commissioning levers – commissioning contracts in public health (S7a) and primary care;

d) Partnership work – relationships with commissioners and providers; and

e) Sharing best practice – what works well, evaluation and how to embed quality improvement

Public Health England (PHE) is working with colleagues in NHS England and Health and Social Care Information Centre to implement the Accessible Information Standard which is intended to improve access to services for vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. Through the re-development of cervical Information Technology systems opportunities will arise to review how to help improve uptake.

PHE supports providers to help meet the Accessible Information Standard through the provision of high quality information for people with learning disabilities or sensory loss. A national group of experts and service users has been set up to oversee this work and will be updating the existing easy read leaflets and developing new materials over the next 18 months.

PHE is aware that there are a range of factors which may act as barriers in hindering women from attending cervical screening. It is hoped that through the STRATEGIC (Strategies to Increase Cervical screening uptake at first invitation) interventions will be identified to help minimise barriers and assist women to attend screening whilst increasing uptake across all quintiles. The STRATEGIC trial was completed in 2015 and researchers are expected to publish findings later this year.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average length of time is from joining for an employee to qualify as a (a) senior watch manager, (b) watch manager, (c) watch officer and (d) watch assistant.

Mr John Hayes

The length of time taken to train Coastguard Officers is entirely dependent on their level of experience and competence when they join Her Majesty’s Coastguard and the level of experience of competence they gain prior to any internal promotion. Therefore an average for these would be misleading.

On entry to HM Coastguard as a Maritime Operations Officer it will take between six and 12 months to become trained, depending on previous maritime experience and competence.

HM Coastguard do not recruit direct entry Senior Maritime Operations Officers, they are internally recruited from the cadre of fully trained Maritime Operations Officers who will then undertake a further six months of training for this post.

As roles that can be directly recruited from outside HM Coastguard the training for both Maritime Operations Controllers and Maritime Operations Commanders is entirely dependent on their prevailing maritime experience and is in effect bespoke for the individual concerned.

It should be noted that the roles senior watch manager, watch manager, watch officer and watch assistant no longer exist within HM Coastguard.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2015-12-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of statutory PSHE education for the health of school pupils; and if she will make a statement.

Edward Timpson

We want all children to lead healthy and active lives. Schools have a key role to play in supporting this; the new national curriculum sets the expectation that pupils are taught, across a variety of subjects, about the importance of leading healthy and active lives.

Schools and teachers already recognise the importance of good PSHE education and know that healthy, resilient, confident pupils are better placed to achieve academically and to be stretched further. In the introduction to the national curriculum, we have made clear that all schools should make provision for PSHE, drawing on examples of good practice.

The Secretary of State for Education has regular discussions with the Secretary of State for Health about children’s health and the role schools can play in tackling childhood obesity.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-04-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, in the event that the actual cost of a Section 106 highway infrastructure scheme exceeds the previously estimated and agreed contribution, (a) what options exist for making good that shortfall, (b) whether the local authority or the developer is liable for any additional costs and (c) whether Section 106 contributions originally allocated for other schemes may be reallocated to cover such costs.

Brandon Lewis

It is for the local planning authority to determine what is required and seek planning obligations through a Section 106 agreement in order to make a development acceptable in planning terms. There are three statutory tests that need to be applied when considering a planning obligation, that it is: necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms; directly related to the development; and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development.

Developers may be asked to provide contributions for infrastructure in several ways. This may be by way of planning obligations in the form of Section 106 agreements but can also include contributions through payment of the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 278 highway agreements.

It is for local planning authorities to decide what provisions they make in Section 106 agreements, and agree these with the interested parties, and therefore any liabilities would depend on the individual agreement. Local authorities and developers can renegotiate planning obligations by mutual agreement at any time or under Section 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. However, Local planning authorities are expected to use all of the funding they receive through planning obligations in accordance with the terms of the individual planning obligation agreement. This is to ensure that new developments are acceptable in planning terms; benefit local communities and support the provision of local infrastructure.