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  • Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the amount spent by the NHS on locum doctors in each of the last five years.

    Alistair Burt

    Information on the amount spent by the National Health Service on locum doctors in each of the last five years is not held centrally.

    The Department only collects data on overall spending on agency staff at a national level and this is incorporated into the Department’s annual accounts.

  • Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will estimate the number of qualified doctors required in the NHS who are (a) GPs and (b) working in hospitals.

    Ben Gummer

    The Department has set up Health Education England to plan the future healthcare workforce for England. It is responsible for ensuring a secure workforce supply that reflects the needs of local service users, providers and commissioners of healthcare.

    The number of doctors required is a matter for service commissioners and their provider partners to establish in providing a high quality service to patients and in taking into account the mechanisms through which those services will be provided. Delivery plans to meet the NHS Five Year Forward View are currently being established in collaboration via the Sustainability and Transformation Plan process. These plans will include early views on the shape of the future workforce.

  • Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance his Department has given to Southampton City Council on the level of funding that will be available for discretionary housing payment in future years.

    Justin Tomlinson

    Local authorities, including Southampton City Council, were informed of their Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) funding allocation for this financial year on 4 February 2016.

    Southampton City Council have been allocated DHP funding of £624,817 for 2016/17, a 35% increase from their 2015/16 allocation and local authorities are able to top up Central Government funding by a maximum of two and a half times this figure using their own funds

    This package of Discretionary Housing Payment funding (£870 million over 5 years) will enable Local Authorities to provide support to the most vulnerable claimants.

  • Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the discretionary housing payments scheme in preventing households in exceptional circumstances having to pay the under-occupancy penalty.

    Justin Tomlinson

    For 2015/16 we have provided £60 million in Discretionary Housing Payment funding to help protect individuals affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy and we have protected this support at £60 million for 2016/17

    Since 2013, £25 million of the Discretionary Housing Payment funding for the removal of the spare room subsidy has been allocated to support disabled people living in significantly adapted accommodation, including any adaptations made for disabled children. This funding support remains unchanged for 2016/17.

    In the last financial year, the majority of local authorities spent less than or 100 per cent of their funding which indicates that they had sufficient funds to meet demand.

    In the first six months of this financial year (2015/16) the majority of local authorities had spent less than 50 per cent of their Discretionary Housing Payment allocation.

  • Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he plans to take to ensure that people in local authority areas with a larger ageing population do not have to pay disproportionately higher council tax as a result of the social care precept.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    We have set the social care precept at a maximum of 2% for authorities with adult social care responsibilities. The council tax referendum principles remain in place, and are approved on an annual basis by the House of Commons. Any council tax rise above the overall threshold levels approved by the House must go to a binding referendum of the local electorate.

  • Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department plans to take after the new terms and conditions for doctors come into effect to encourage people to take up a career in medicine.

    Ben Gummer

    Medicine is an extremely popular career choice and we expect that to continue. In 2015, there were over 48,000 applications for pre-clinical medicine course of which over 5,000 people were accepted onto a place on this course.

    The new contract for doctors in training will have a positive impact on the working life of doctors and on the training they receive. It will introduce stronger safeguards to ensure doctors are not required to work long, unsafe hours, enforced through contractual obligations on employers and external scrutiny of those hours by the Care Quality Commission and the independent Guardian of safe working hours.

  • Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what proportion of overseas development assistance was spent by departments other than her Department in each of the last six years; and what estimate her Department has made of that proportion for each year until 2019-20.

    Mr Nick Hurd

    The information requested for the years 2009-2014 is published in ‘Statistics on International Development 2015’, which is available from our website www.dfid.gov.uk. Table 3 gives the breakdown of the percentage of Official Development Assistance (ODA) provided by DFID and departments other than DFID. My Department will publish provisional UK ODA figures for 2015 on the 1st April.

    Between 2016/17 and 2019/20: DFID will spend an estimated 72% of UK ODA; other departments and funds will spend an estimated 22% of UK ODA; and the remaining 6% will be non-departmental spend such as debt relief and gift aid. This information is based on ODA budget allocations by the government in order to meet its commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income (GNI) on ODA in each calendar year. Adjustments will be made to the ODA budget to reflect the latest economic forecasts throughout the spending review period.

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  • Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what (a) training, (b) financial and (c) materiel support his Department is providing to the Somali National Army.

    Penny Mordaunt

    UK support to the Somalia National Army (SNA) totalled £17million in 2015-16, funded through the Conflict Stability and Security Fund (CSSF). This is intended to increase to £20million in 2016-17. This includes Defence mentoring support to the development of the SNA in Mogadishu, delivered both bilaterally and through UK personnel embedded in the EU training mission, and Defence oversight of a non-lethal equipment programme (including tents, computers, generators, vehicles). It also includes the provision of stipends; infrastructure support; and a £3million HMG donation to the SNA Trust Fund operated by the UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS). HMG is looking to deliver an enhanced programme in 2016-17.

  • Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what (a) training and (b) materiel support is being provided by his Department to Yazidi militia forces.

    Penny Mordaunt

    The UK is working with the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government to ensure they are better able to protect their own diverse population, including the Yazidi and other minority communities. We have not provided any support directly to Yazidi militia forces.

  • Cat Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Cat Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to reduce the disability employment gap.

    Justin Tomlinson

    We are committed to halving the disability employment gap. In the last year, the number of disabled people in work has increased by 152,000. At the Spending Review, we announced a real terms increase in funding to help disabled people and people with health conditions to get into work and remain in work. This includes:

    • Increasing the reach of Access to Work, providing support to an additional 25,000 people by 2020/21
    • The Work and Health Unit which has secured £115million of funding, including at least £40million for a work and health innovation fund. The Work and Health Innovation Fund will pilot new ways to help working age disabled people and people with health conditions get in, stay in, and return to work as well as benefit from improved health outcomes.
    • A new Work and Health Programme, restructuring our current provision to focus on providing the best possible support for claimants with health conditions or disabilities, as well as those who are long-term unemployed.
    • Engaging employers through our Disability Confident programme to see the business opportunities for employing disabled people.
    • Making the best use of the new funding of up to £100million per year that we announced in the Budget 2015 for additional practical support to provide the right incentives and support to enable those who have limited capability, but who have some potential to prepare, for work to move closer to the labour market, and when they are ready, back into work.