Shivani Raja MP: written questions 2025
131 published records · newest first.
Written questions
BBC Asian NetworkDepartment for Culture, Media and SportTabled 26 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 63182More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what information her Department holds on whether the BBC conducted a race equality impact assessment prior to the decision to close Asian Network News.
Answer: The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) meets regularly with representatives of the BBC on a range of matters, including how it engages and reflects listeners in the UK. However, the BBC is operationally and editorially independent from the Gov...
Answered 18 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordBBC Asian NetworkDepartment for Culture, Media and SportTabled 26 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 63180More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether Ofcom approval was sought before the BBC announced the closure of Asian Network News; and if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of seeking retrospective approval.
Answer: The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) meets regularly with representatives of the BBC on a range of matters, including how it engages and reflects listeners in the UK. However, the BBC is operationally and editorially independent from the Gov...
Answered 18 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordBBC Asian NetworkDepartment for Culture, Media and SportTabled 26 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 63179More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she plans to discuss the closure of Asian Network News with the BBC Director-General.
Answer: The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) meets regularly with representatives of the BBC on a range of matters, including how it engages and reflects listeners in the UK. However, the BBC is operationally and editorially independent from the Gov...
Answered 18 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordAsylum: HousingHome OfficeTabled 26 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 63118More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department considers (a) occupancy levels and (b) property capacity when assessing the cost-effectiveness of asylum accommodation contracts.
Answer: The Asylum Accommodation and Support Services Contracts (AASC contracts) were procured by the previous government through a competitive tender exercise that adhered to the Public Contracts Regulation 2015. The bid evaluation process identified the most ec...
Answered 8 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordAsylum: HousingHome OfficeTabled 26 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 63117More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what metrics are used by her Department to assess whether asylum accommodation contracts represent value for money.
Answer: The Home Office monitors the AASC suppliers’ performance against a range of Key Performance Indicators ensuring performance is driven to deliver maximum value for money for the taxpayer.
Answered 3 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordHonour Based AbuseHome OfficeTabled 25 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 62717More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to create a statutory definition of honour-based abuse.
Answer: The Government is tackling ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) through its landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. Key to this is ensuring that HBA is well understood by frontline professionals, Government agencies, and impacted com...
Answered 4 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordKinship CareDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 9 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 58316More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure that family carers are meaningfully involved in the (a) planning and (b) decision-making processes of local integrated care systems.
Answer: Under the National Health Service Act 2006, integrated care boards (ICBs) must make arrangements to ensure patients, and their carers and representatives are involved in the planning and commissioning of health and care, whether through consultation or th...
Answered 17 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordKinship CareDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 9 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 58315More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) identify and (b) support (i) hidden and (ii) unpaid family carers who (A) are and (B) are not engaged with formal care systems.
Answer: Local authorities have duties to support people caring for their family and friends. The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services, including support for carers. Local authoriti...
Answered 16 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordCarersDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 9 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 58314More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve NHS (a) engagement with and (b) leadership responsiveness to small community-led carer networks.
Answer: We recognise the importance of listening to and partnering with people who use the National Health Service, their unpaid carers and the organisations and networks that represent them. The Health and Care Act 2022 introduced new duties for NHS England and ...
Answered 4 Jul 2025
Original Parliament recordCarers: Ethnic GroupsDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 9 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 58313More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support (a) hidden and (b) unpaid carers from ethnic minority communities; and whether he has made an assessment of support needs in Leicester East constituen
Answer: Local authorities have duties to support people caring for their family and friends. The Care Act 2014 requires local authorities to deliver a wide range of sustainable, high-quality care and support services, including support for carers. Local authoriti...
Answered 16 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordPackaging: RecyclingDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsTabled 9 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 58312More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the financial impact of being required to apply Extended Producer Responsibility charges retrospectively in the absence of published official rates for r
Answer: The Regulations do not impose a retrospective charge and were subject to the required legal and parliamentary scrutiny before coming into force To prepare businesses for the implementation of the packaging pEPR scheme we have now published illustrative ba...
Answered 12 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordPackaging: RecyclingDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsTabled 9 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 58311More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when his Department plans to publish the final pricing and billing rates for the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme.
Answer: Producers were required to submit their final 2024 data by 1 April 2025. Following this deadline, regulators are conducting regulatory checks. Once checks are conducted to an appropriate level, we will use 2024 data and insight from regulator checks to pu...
Answered 17 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordPackaging: RecyclingDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsTabled 9 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 58310More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle potential abuse of the Extended Producer Responsibility exemption threshold; and whether he has made an assessment of the impact of t
Answer: As the environmental regulator for England, the Environment Agency (EA) conducts compliance checks to ensure businesses accurately assess themselves against regulatory thresholds. These checks include, but are not limited to, open-source reviews of compan...
Answered 16 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordNHS: Postage StampsDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 9 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 58309More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, How much (a) NHS England and (b) NHS Trusts spent on postage in the 2024–25 financial year; and what steps he is taking to help reduce these costs.
Answer: Data on National Health Service total spend on postage for the 2024/25 financial year in England is not held centrally, and will be held locally by individual trusts.
Answered 16 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordHousing: ContractsHome OfficeTabled 5 Jun 2025AnsweredUIN 57755More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 4 June 2025 to Question 54068 on Housing: Contracts, what her definition her Department uses for the terms (a) Bed Space and (b) Bed Space Size in the context of the Accommod
Answer: There is no definition of those within current accommodation contracts.
Answered 12 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordHousing: ContractsCabinet OfficeTabled 21 May 2025AnsweredUIN 54068More
Question: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the terms (a) Bed Space Size and (b) Bed space in public sector accommodation contracts refer to the number of individuals a room or property is intended to accommodate.
Answer: Each department is responsible for specifying its own contract requirements, so the meaning of “Bed Space Size” and “Bed space" may vary based on the criteria established by each department.
Answered 4 Jun 2025
Original Parliament recordCoronavirus: VaccinationDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 19 May 2025AnsweredUIN 53273More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to reverse the decision to raise the minimum age for eligibility for a COVID-19 booster as part of the spring vaccination programme.
Answer: The independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advises the Department on the approach to vaccination and immunisation programmes. The aim of the COVID-19 vaccination programme is to prevent serious disease, leading to hospitalisati...
Answered 28 May 2025
Original Parliament recordCoronavirus: VaccinationDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 19 May 2025AnsweredUIN 53272More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of raising the minimum age for eligibility for the COVID-19 booster during the spring vaccination programme on healthcare servi
Answer: The independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advises the Department on the approach to vaccination and immunisation programmes. The aim of the COVID-19 vaccination programme is to prevent serious disease, leading to hospitalisati...
Answered 28 May 2025
Original Parliament recordHunting: Animal ProductsDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsTabled 12 May 2025AnsweredUIN 51534More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help tackle the import of hunting trophies of (a) endangered, (b) vulnerable and (c) other species; and whether he plans to include a ban on such imports.
Answer: The import of hunting trophies is regulated through the UK Wildlife Trade Regulations, which implements the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The government committed to banning the import of hunting ...
Answered 20 May 2025
Original Parliament recordFood: LabellingDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsTabled 12 May 2025AnsweredUIN 51533More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when his Department plans to publish the findings of his Department's consultation entitled Consultation on fairer food labelling, which closed on 7 May 2024; and what his planned time
Answer: I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, Gareth Snell on 23 December 2024, PQ UIN 20692.
Answered 21 May 2025
Original Parliament recordNHS: PayDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 12 May 2025AnsweredUIN 51532More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has make of the adequacy of the NHS Job Evaluation Scheme (a) matrices and (b) formulae used to determine Agenda for Change pay bandings; and whether he has pl
Answer: The Job Evaluation Scheme (JES) underpins pay for National Health Service staff under the Agenda for Change Terms and Conditions. The JES model of weighting and scoring job documentation has been legally tested and proven to be robust, therefore we have n...
Answered 21 May 2025
Original Parliament recordPhlebotomy: PayDepartment of Health and Social CareTabled 12 May 2025AnsweredUIN 51531More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the adequacy of placing phlebotomists in band two of the NHS Agenda for Change pay scale, in the context of their clinical responsibilities; and whether
Answer: Phlebotomists are paid under the Agenda for Change pay scale, which is underpinned by the Job Evaluation Scheme (JES). The JES is a structured method of comparing job demands as set out in the job documentation, for example the job description, to determi...
Answered 21 May 2025
Original Parliament recordSolar Power: ResearchDepartment for Science, Innovation and TechnologyTabled 12 May 2025AnsweredUIN 51530More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency programme entitled Exploring Climate Cooling on levels of solar power generation.
Answer: The Advanced Research and Invention Agency’s (ARIA) ‘Exploring Climate Cooling’ programme, backed by £56.8 million, has been designed to build an evidence base which will enable scientists to better understand and properly assess whether or not Earth cool...
Answered 21 May 2025
Original Parliament recordPassports: ReligionHome OfficeTabled 9 May 2025AnsweredUIN 51175More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the photograph software used for passport applications; and what steps she is taking to ensure that the software does not discriminate agains
Answer: The initial check to guide if a photo meets the internationally agreed standards for passports utilises an algorithm provided by a leading technology provider.The testing of the photo checker was extensive and included wearers of religious headwear to opt...
Answered 19 May 2025
Original Parliament recordPassports: ReligionHome OfficeTabled 9 May 2025AnsweredUIN 51174More
Question: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many complaints her Department has received relating to the passport photograph software cropping or rejecting images of individuals wearing (a) turbans and (b) other religious head coverings in t
Answer: The information requested is not centrally held and could only be collected and verified for the purpose of answering this question at disproportionate cost.
Answered 19 May 2025
Original Parliament record
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