The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Bryant on 2016-03-10.
To ask the Prime Minister, how many special advisers have (a) requested and (b) been granted the Prime Minister’s approval for working part or full-time for a Leave campaign in the EU referendum.
Mr David Cameron
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Leicester South (Mr Ashworth) on 29 February 2016, UIN 28380.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hywel Williams on 2016-04-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what meetings (a) he and (b) his predecessor had with cabinet colleagues (i) wholly and (ii) primarily about Tata Steel’s intentions for the Welsh steel industry.
Alun Cairns
My predecessor, the Rt hon Stephen Crabb MP, and I have, and continue to conduct regular meetings to discuss Tata Steel, and the Welsh Steel Industry with Cabinet colleagues, UK Government Ministers and Welsh Government Ministers.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2016-05-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if his Department will conduct a review of the effect of civil court fee increases on people’s ability to enforce their legal rights.
Dominic Raab
We keep court fees under regular review.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-07-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many full-time equivalent staff of his Department are working on the Digital Single Market.
Mr Edward Vaizey
There a number of departments across Whitehall who work on aspects of the Digital Single Market (DSM) including the Department for Culture Media and Sport, the Home Office and HM Treasury. And, within the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) there are a number of policy areas that are involved directly or indirectly in aspects of the Digital Single Market including the Intellectual Property Office, Competition and Consumer Policy and Advanced Manufacturing and Services.
BIS leads on behalf of Government and coordinates activity across those departments with an interest. There is a core team of five FTEs who act as the hub for all of this work.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Amanda Solloway on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to locate missing refugee children in the UK.
Mr Robert Goodwill
The government takes the issue of missing children extremely seriously and has published a cross government strategy on missing children and vulnerable adults.
Migrant children over the age of 5, including asylum seeking children have their biometrics captured by the Home Office. If a child goes missing, the local police and UK Missing Persons Bureau will be notified and the child’s details will be circulated on the Police National Computer.
Home Office guidance requires staff to maintain contact with the local authority and the police until the child is found.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Holly Lynch on 2015-11-23.
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what discussions she has had with her ministerial colleagues on the effect of the increase in the state pension age on women.
Mr Shailesh Vara
Ministers regularly discuss matters of policy that span their responsibilities.
Reasonable mitigation for those worst affected by changes in State Pension age was introduced in 2011. A concession was made prior to the passing of the 2011 Act which reduced the delay that anyone would experience in claiming their State Pension, relative to the previous timetable, to 18 months. This concession was worth £1.1 billion in total.
This Government is committed to better outcomes for pensioners. However, the several billions of pounds that it would cost to make further policy changes in this area, that prolong the gender inequality in State Pension provision, cannot be justified.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-12-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 8 December 2015 to Question 18747, whether people are made aware of advance Universal Credit payments being made available to them at the initial work search interview.
Priti Patel
To be eligible for a Universal Credit (UC) Advance payment, the claimant has to have an underlying entitlement to UC, be in financial need, and be able to afford to repay the Advance. These criteria are contained within the Social Security (Payments on Account of Benefit) Regulations 2013.
If during the initial work search interview, a work coach identifies a claimant is in financial need, or cannot manage until they receive their first UC payment, they will advise them about advance payments.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-01-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to incentivise the use of hedges, field margins and ditches in farmed uplands in order to facilitate flood water retention.
George Eustice
The management of hedges, field margins and ditches is already incentivised in England (including the farmed uplands) by payments under agri-environment schemes, such as Environmental Stewardship. The new Countryside Stewardship scheme, launched last year, is targeted to include those areas that can provide joint benefits for biodiversity, water quality and natural flood management.
The retention of hedgerows and field margins is also incentivised through Pillar 1 of the Common Agricultural Policy where they will be eligible as Environmental Focus Areas within the Greening requirements.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Freyberg on 2016-02-22.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the first results from the prostate patient reported outcomes, and in particular for incontinence rates, will be available from the National Prostate Cancer Audit.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The proportion of men diagnosed with locally advanced prostate cancer between 2010 and 2013 (the Audit period) who had radical treatment, and the proportion who had a hospital length of stay over three days and who required an emergency readmission within 90 days following an operation, are presented by health region in the attached headed Table 1.
It should be noted that the results presented are based on an analysis of data from the English Cancer Registry linked to the Hospital Episode Statistics. These data were collected before the start of the National Prostate Cancer Audit (NPCA) in April 2013.
The number of radical prostatectomies undertaken in men diagnosed between 2010 and 2013, and the proportion of men who had a hospital length of stay over three days and who had an emergency readmission within 90 days following an operation, are presented in the attached headed Table 2. The results of 56 men included in the data set used to generate Figure 8 in the NPCA Annual Report 2015 could not be included in Table 2. Of these men, 37 were treated in National Health Service trusts that treated fewer than five patients during the Audit period; and for 19 patients it was not possible to identify the NHS trust where they had undergone treatment without incurring disproportionate cost.
The first results for the patient-reported outcomes of men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1 April 2014 and 30 September 2014, and who underwent radical treatment (prostatectomy, external beam radiation, brachytherapy, cryotherapy, and high-intensity focused ultrasound), will be included in the NPCA’s Annual Report 2016, which is due to be published in the last quarter of 2016. These results will include incontinence rates.
Men who had radical prostate cancer treatment were invited to complete a questionnaire about their experiences of care as well as about treatment outcomes, 18 months after the date of diagnosis. It was decided that questionnaires should be sent out at this time after diagnosis because it can take more than one year for men who have radiotherapy, in combination with androgen deprivation therapy, to complete their treatment. Subsequently, it will take at least three months for men to fully recover from the transient side effects of the radiotherapy. In order to include all men and to measure the final treatment outcome – rather than outcomes still affected by the transient side effects – an 18-month period was chosen.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Jenrick on 2016-03-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to ensure disabled access on all platforms at Bingham railway station.
Claire Perry
I would like to assure the hon. Member that we are committed to improving accessibility at railway stations. However, many stations date from a time when the needs of disabled customers were simply not considered and at present only around 460 of our 2,500 stations have step free access to every platform. We have therefore continued with the Access for All programme, launched in 2006, which by 2019 will have provided step free access at more than 200 stations and has already delivered smaller scale access improvements at over 1200 stations.
In 2013 we asked the industry to nominate stations for the latest tranche of Access for All funding. 278 were put forward and we selected 68 of these to add to the programme. To ensure the best possible value for money, these were chosen based on their annual footfall, weighted by the incidence of disability in the area. We also took into account the priorities of the industry and other factors such as the availability of third party funding. Around a third were also chosen to ensure a fair geographical spread across the country.
Bingham was not among the 278 stations nominated.