Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2022-04-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: We have all seen the disturbing scenes in Shanghai recently. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this shows how dangerous a zero covid strategy is and that we were right to open up this country and to rely on our vaccines as the safest way out of the covid situation?; My constituents have been forced on to private and unaffordable dental plans or they have to wait up to five years to see an NHS dentist. The situation is getting worse and worse, so I met with the groundbreaking Hull York Medical School to see if it can assist in training a future generation of dentists and it is keen to help; what is the Minister doing to work with medical schools?; In 2019 Kettering General Hospital, which serves my constituency, was promised £46 million for a major upgrade. Three years later the hospital still has not got the money. Secretary of State, will you go out and buy a very big pair of scissors, cut through the red tape and get it sorted?; The gap in life expectancy between people living in the richest and poorest areas is once again growing. That affects my constituents directly. I have heard nothing to date that tells me what the Secretary of State is going to do to narrow the gap; Secretary of State, what will you do to protect my constituents?; The Cass review interim report found that to date there is a profound lack of evidence on the best approach to treat gender dysphoria in children. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that in spite of this the NHS insists on making a child’s expressed gender identity the start-point for treatment, and my surprise that the NHS has chosen so far not to track patient outcomes, particularly for under-18s?; Since February 2020 my local borough of Lambeth has seen a 14% drop in dementia diagnosis. That means people are not getting the support that comes from diagnosis. We also know that so far none of the announced £8 billion backlog funding has been dedicated to addressing the stagnation of diagnosis rates. Can the Secretary of State explain what exactly he is going to do to make sure that people get diagnosed on time?; The Secretary of State is right that we all want to get to the bottom of many important health matters, and we do not want what he described as personal affairs to get in the way of that. In order to ensure that the House concentrates entirely on those matters, will he welcome HMRC investigating whether he was claiming non-dom status on a solely—; The 10-year cancer plan that the Secretary of State has announced is a key opportunity to ensure that future services are designed with the patient at their core, especially for those living with cancer. What steps is his Department taking to engage with under-represented groups in the development of the 10-year cancer plan, and will he agree to meet with Macmillan Cancer Support to discuss how it can provide support in this key area?; A survey by the charity stem4 has found that 95% of GPs believe that children and adolescent mental health services are in crisis, with children and young people waiting up to two years for treatment after referral. Will the Secretary of State stop treating children as an afterthought and act to provide open access mental health hubs for young people in every community, to put an end to these agonising waits?
Gillian Keegan (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for her question and of course we have a great deal of gratitude for every unpaid carer. Around 360,000 carer households on universal credit can receive an additional £2,000 a year through the carer element. The weekly rate of carer’s allowance increased to £69.70 in April 2022. Also, real-terms expenditure on carer’s allowance is forecast to increase by around £1.3 billion. In addition, there is a big focus, in our reforms and in the White Paper, on what more we need to do to support unpaid carers.