Author: admin

  • Lord Tunnicliffe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Tunnicliffe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Tunnicliffe on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for a mandatory fee model whereby Financial Conduct Authority authorised debt management firms charge a set fee for debt management plans; and what assessment they have made of how to prevent debt management companies from making additional charges.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    The Government has fundamentally reformed the regulation of the debt management market, transferring responsibility to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) more robust regime to better protect consumers.

    Any consideration of the state of the debt management market should properly await the outcome of the FCA’s authorisation assessment of commercial debt management firms, which is expected in the coming months.

    FCA rules make it clear that fees charged for debt management plans should not undermine the customer’s ability to make significant repayments to the customer’s lenders throughout the duration of the debt management plan.

  • Lord Tunnicliffe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Tunnicliffe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Tunnicliffe on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the use of (1) monthly fee debt management plans; (2) percentage fee debt management plans; and (3) a combination of set fee and percentage debt management plans.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    The Government has fundamentally reformed the regulation of the debt management market, transferring responsibility to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) more robust regime to better protect consumers.

    Any consideration of the state of the debt management market should properly await the outcome of the FCA’s authorisation assessment of commercial debt management firms, which is expected in the coming months.

    FCA rules make it clear that fees charged for debt management plans should not undermine the customer’s ability to make significant repayments to the customer’s lenders throughout the duration of the debt management plan.

  • Lord Bradley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Bradley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradley on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many (1) children, and (2) adults, had an appointment with an NHS dentist in each of the 10 districts of Greater Manchester in each of the last five years.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    Information is not available in the format requested.

    The attached tables show the unique number of patients who received National Health Service dental care in the previous 24 months. An equivalent measure covering the 12 month period is not available.

  • Lord Bradley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Bradley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradley on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to introduce fluoride into the water of the North West of England.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    There are currently water fluoridation schemes in the North West of England serving parts of Cumbria and Cheshire.

    It has been the policy of successive governments that decisions on water fluoridation are best taken locally. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 gave powers to upper tier and unitary local authorities to make proposals in relation to fluoridation.

  • Lord Condon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Condon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Condon on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many police forces in the UK are operating drones for intelligence purposes, or for the prevention or detection of crime; and whether such use is being monitored by the Inspectorate of Constabulary, or any other independent body.

    Lord Bates

    The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is an operational matter for individual police forces, and the Home Office does not hold information on which forces use them. A number of forces are conducting trials to assess whether the use of drones can bring benefits to the provision of the police service. Any use would need to comply with existing Civil Aviation Authority Regulations. Monitoring the police use of drones is not within Her Majesty’s Inspectorate Constabulary’s (HMIC) general remit. HMIC have confirmed that they have no plans to consider police use of drones at this stage.

  • Lord Howell of Guildford – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Howell of Guildford – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Howell of Guildford on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to expanding the new Chinese two-year visit visa to include Commonwealth nations which require (1) a tourist visa, and (2) a business visa.

    Lord Bates

    The UK is piloting in China, from 11 January, two-year multiple entry visitor visas at the same price as the current standard six month visitor visa. China has made the same offer for British citizens. There are no plans to introduce this in other countries.

    The citizens of a majority of Commonwealth countries do not require a visa to visit the UK and the UK offers customers an efficient and prompt visa processing service.

  • Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the effectiveness of EU aid to developing countries.

    Baroness Verma

    The UK continues to work hard to ensure EU development aid focuses on the poorest and most fragile countries and that the EU becomes more open and transparent about the challenges it faces in implementing aid projects. The EU has taken important steps to improve gender equality; to communicate better what its aid programmes are achieving; and for its aid to be more closely linked to countries’ own development priorities and more in line with other EU policies including trade, investment and the environment.

  • Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any proposals for diverting a proportion of the EU’s external aid to assist member states in receiving and caring for the current increased numbers of refugees, and to job-creating investment in the Middle East and North Africa.

    Baroness Verma

    With pressure from the United Kingdom and other Member States, the European Union (EU) has mobilised considerable funding to support the international response to the refugee crisis – including within Europe, and to tackle the root causes of migration and displacement in the Middle East and North Africa.

    Within Europe, the UK is working to ensure that all tools are being used to support the humanitarian response to the refugee crisis, and that the donor effort is well coordinated through the Civil Protection Mechanism. Alongside this, the UK’s support for refugees and migrants during the Mediterranean migration crisis has reached nearly £55million. This money is focused on providing life-saving assistance and protection to vulnerable people rescued at sea or in transit.

    In the Middle East and the North Africa, the EU is a leading donor in the response to the Syria crisis with over €5 billion of total budget mobilised by the European Commission and Member States collectively in humanitarian, development, economic and stabilisation assistance. The UK has been at the forefront of this, pledging over £1.1 billion, our largest ever humanitarian response to a single crisis. In addition, the EU Trust Fund for Africa – a €1.8billion fund – will allocate money to projects in the Sahel, Horn and North Africa to tackle the root causes of migration.

  • Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lester of Herne Hill on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 11 January (HL4752 and HL4753) and 18 January (HL4957), whether they regard as matters of concern in countering extremist ideologies the preaching and teaching of Wahhabism in mosques and Muslim education bodies in Britain, and funding from overseas for that teaching.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    We consider any vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values as extremist, whatever guise these are expressed under. This includes when religions are hijacked by those wishing to promote extremism. As my rt. hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in July last year “extremist ideology is not true Islam”.

    Because of these concerns our Government has taken significant steps to counter extremism. We published our Counter Extremism Strategy in October 2015 which sets out a range of measures to deal with the broad challenge of extremism. We have placed a duty on specified authorities to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being radicalised. This includes schools, colleges and universities. It is also why the Prime Minister recently commissioned a review into the funding of extremism in the UK, including funding from overseas.

  • Lord Rogan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Rogan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rogan on 2016-01-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Democratic Progressive Party’s chairwoman, Tsai Ing-Wen, being elected President of Taiwan.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), set out in his Statement of 16 January that the Government congratulates the people of Taiwan on the conduct of their elections, and Dr Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party for having won their support. Our policy on Taiwan has not changed.