Question
Madam Deputy Speaker, you and I spent many hours in meetings managing the disastrous fallout from South East Water’s outages in Tunbridge Wells and its surroundings. I would like to put on record my thanks to you for your role—and to those around the House for their role—as a trusted message bearer to the people caught up in those outages. One of the lessons I took from that was the need for people at the start of their life or at the end of their life to be properly looked after. What can my right hon. and gallant Friend do to make sure that local authorities, water companies and energy companies are working with local nurseries and, critically, acute NHS services so that they know who has just left hospital, who is at the end of life and who is under five in order to put them proactively on the priority services register?
Answer
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who speaks with great authority on these matters, not least from her own time in government, and she is right to make the point in the way that she does. I know that she will understand that a lot of work takes place in local authority areas and with local resilience forums on the issues she has raised to ensure that there is visibility of where there are more vulnerable households. That is precisely why we are taking this opportunity to encourage members of the public to check—and to encourage Members of this House to get their constituents to check—their eligibility for the priority services register. That is a really useful document in this regard, but I know that local resilience forums will be working on the issues she has raised, and we in the Government will of course keep a close eye on them.17% vibes
Verdict: AMBER (27/100)
The reply mainly describes existing local authority and local resilience forum work on identifying vulnerable households, and a public campaign encouraging people to check their registration on the priority services register. It does not address the specific mechanisms asked about, such as proactively identifying people through nurseries, NHS acute services, and water and energy companies, or the named groups. Its concrete content is limited to self-registration encouragement, with the rest being general assurances that are hedged throughout, so the person who asked would likely need to submit a follow-up for specifics.
How we got there
| Question item | Coverage | Specificity | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| What action can the Government take to ensure local authorities, water companies and energy companies work with local nurseries and acute NHS services, so that they can identify people who have recently left hospital, people at the end of life and children under five, and proactively add them to the priority services register. | Partially Addressed | Hedged | The reply points to existing local authority and local resilience forum work on visibility of vulnerable households and to a public campaign encouraging self-checking for the priority services register, but it never addresses the requested mechanism of proactively identifying people via nurseries, acute NHS services, water and energy companies, or the specific groups named. Its only concrete action is self-registration encouragement, and the rest is general assurance that LRFs will work on the issues and the government will 'keep a close eye' on them. |