Category: Speeches

John Healey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Healey on 2016-01-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many new affordable homes to (a) rent and (b) buy will be built via section 106 Planning Obligations on the direct commissioning sites at (i) Old Oak Common, (ii) Northstowe, (iii) Lower Grayling Well, (iv) Connaught Barracks and (v) Daedelus Waterfront.

Brandon Lewis

The holding costs for the site relate to the entirety of the site and are consistent with the legal and health and safety obligations of the Homes and Communities Agency as land owner.

01/01/2023
Martyn Day – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Martyn Day on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the risk to the UK and Europe of the spread of the Zika virus.

Jane Ellison

Public Health England (PHE) continue to monitor the situation closely and have provided revised travel advice and updated guidance to healthcare professionals on the management of patients returning from affected countries who present with symptoms. There is no evidence to suggest that the mosquitos that are known to carry Zika are established in the United Kingdom or could survive in our climate and therefore the risk to the UK population from Zika is very low. PHE is in regular contact with specialists in other European countries, as well as internationally, to make sure all necessary steps are being taken to protect the UK travelling public.

01/01/2023
Andrew Murrison – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Murrison on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of changes in the number of registrations of care home residents at GP surgeries since the end of retainer fees in 2015.

Alistair Burt

Information is not collected centrally on whether a patient, registered with a general practitioner (GP) practice, is resident in a care home or their own home.

GP practices provide National Health Service primary medical services under contracts with NHS England. These contracts do not distinguish between residents of care homes and other patients. Residents will be registered with a GP practice for core primary medical services whether or not a retainer is paid to a practice and are entitled to receive the same treatment from their GP as those living in their own homes.

Retainer fees may be charged by a practice for providing services not covered by their contract with NHS England. However, the refusal of a care home to pay practices a retainer should not affect access to NHS primary medical services for residents of care homes.

01/01/2023
Charles Walker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charles Walker on 2016-03-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what estimate her Department has made of the number of its senior civil servants who will potentially fall under the provisions of the Fourth EU Money Laundering Directive, 2015/849; and what assessment she has made of which of her Department’s agencies or other public bodies will potentially be classed as holding a prominent public function for the purposes of that directive.

Mr Desmond Swayne

Under the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which will be transposed into national law by June 2017, a politically exposed person is one who has been entrusted with a prominent public function domestically or by a foreign country. This would include some senior civil servants, such as ambassadors and chargés d’affaires. The Government’s view is that the Directive permits a risk-based approach to the identification of whether an individual is a politically exposed person and, when identified, the Directive enables the application of different degrees of enhanced measures to reflect the risks posed. The Government will be setting out this view in a consultation which will be published shortly.

The changes proposed under the Directive should not prevent any individual in this category from gaining or maintaining access to financial services. The Treasury regularly raises these issues with financial institutions and the regulator, and we encourage financial institutions to take a proportionate, risk-based approach when applying these measures.

01/01/2023
Melanie Onn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Melanie Onn on 2016-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, which branch of the NHS has responsibility for funding the diagnosing of (a) autism and (b) Asperger’s syndrome.

Alistair Burt

Clinical diagnosis of autism and Asperger syndrome would usually be made by National Health Service paediatric, psychiatric or mental health services, commissioned by clinical commissioning groups. The exception would be where a diagnosis was made by a specialised service, which would be commissioned by NHS England. Professionals funded by local authorities (such as educational psychologists) may also make a diagnosis.

01/01/2023
Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his letter to the Chair of the Justice Committee, dated 19 May 2016, how much of the additional £10 million to deal with prison safety has been allocated to each prison.

Andrew Selous

To achieve the greatest improvement in prison safety we are targeting prisons with the greatest need – those with the highest levels of violence, self-inflicted deaths and self-harm. Analysis is currently underway to determine allocations.

01/01/2023

Conor McGinn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Conor McGinn on 2016-07-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many deaths of cyclists on roads there were in (a) St Helens North constituency, (b) Merseyside, (c) the North West and (d) the UK in each of the last five years.

Andrew Jones

The table below provides the number of cyclists killed in road traffic accidents on public roads in a) St Helens North, b) Merseyside, c) the North West of England and d) Great Britain.

St Helens North	Merseyside	North West	Great Britain
2011	0	0	13	107
2012	0	4	10	118
2013	0	1	9	109
2014	0	2	13	113
2015	0	3	7	100

The Department does not hold data for Northern Ireland, therefore the table includes statistics for Great Britain rather than the United Kingdom.

These statistics come from police reported data on personal injury accidents on the public highway. The Department does not collect information about accidents that were on private roads, car parks or off-road.

01/01/2023

Baroness Blood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Blood on 2016-10-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact that the UK withdrawing from the EU will have on Port Health Authorities.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Government is considering the impacts of the decision to leave the European Union, including the impact on Port Health Authorities (PHAs). The Government recognises the significant contribution PHAs make to public and animal health protection and the United Kingdom is committed to ensuring any potential impacts to PHAs are well managed.

01/01/2023
Bill Esterson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bill Esterson on 2015-11-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent estimate he has made of the predicted default rate of university maintenance loans.

Joseph Johnson

Student loans are not like a bank loan or credit card. Repayments do not have to made if the borrower’s income is below £21k. There is, therefore, no default rate as such, but a borrower who moves overseas and fails to repay even though they are earning over the threshold would be in default.

Maintenance loans are either repaid during the loan term, or written off after 30 years, or if the borrower dies or becomes permanently unable to work as a result of disability. Provision for the cost of future write offs is made in BIS accounts each year. This is known as the RAB charge.

01/01/2023
Baroness Gould of Potternewton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Gould of Potternewton on 2015-11-24.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reform the legislation regarding health professional regulation, and whether they will publish a timetable for the implementation of any reform bill.

Lord Prior of Brampton

This Government is grateful for the work of the Law Commissions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in reviewing the regulation of health and (in England) social care professionals.

The Law Commissions made 125 recommendations to reform the existing complex and burdensome regulatory system. The joint four United Kingdom country response to the Law Commissions was published on 29 January 2015 which accepted wholly or in part the vast majority of its recommendations.

The Department is currently reviewing how best to take forward the work of the Law Commissions. We hope to be able to provide an update on this work soon.

01/01/2023