The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-05-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether Highways England had agreed with Dartford Borough Council an up-to-date contingency plan for emergencies.
Andrew Jones
Highways England has a Dartford – Thurrock Crossing Emergency Response Plan which covers 11 major stakeholders. Version 9.0 was issued in September 2015, and the document is reviewed annually.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2016-07-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many works of art from public collections were loaned to institutions in Redcar and Cleveland in each year since 2010.
Matt Hancock
The Department does not hold information about loans made from public collections. The national museums and galleries have responsibility for their specific loan arrangements and information about their loans is not held centrally.
All Government funded museums and galleries are encouraged to loan works from their collections to institutions across the UK.Sponsored National Museums actively support and partner regional museums, which includes touring and large scale loans. In 2014/15 the national museums and galleries loaned items to 1,629 venues, including regional museums and historic houses.
A new tax relief for museums and galleries will be introduced from 1 April 2017 to encourage them to develop creative new exhibitions and display their collections across the country. The relief will be available on qualifying costs for temporary and touring exhibitions.
An independent report by Lord Heseltine, published in June, makes recommendations to further develop the Tees Valley area. The report called Tees Valley: Opportunity Unlimited has strong arts and cultural content and says the area hosts public art of national significance. The report also highlights the strengths of museums and galleries in the region, which include the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MiMA), the MOD funded Museum of the Royal Navy’s HMS Trincomalee in Hartlepool, the "Head of Steam" Railway Museum in Darlington and the Science Museum Group’s Locomotion branch at Shildon near Darlington.
MiMa is a Tate Plus partner and has strong links with Tate Modern. It receives funding from Arts Council England as a Visual Arts Gallery. The Government is also funding £500k towards the development of a new Captain Cook exhibition resource at the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Middlesbrough.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Austin on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department has spent on providing heroin to heroin addicts in line with his Department’s policy set out on page 31 of the Modern Crime Prevention Strategy, published by his predecessor in March 2016.
Nicola Blackwood
As outlined in the Government’s Modern Crime Prevention Strategy, the use of injectable diamorphine as part of treatment for a small cohort of entrenched, long-term opiate users can be effective.
On behalf of the Department, Public Health England managed a pilot programme of supervised injectable diamorphine prescribing at a cost of £2 million per annum. The pilot ran from 2012 to 2015 at: South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust in Southwark, London; Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in Brighton; and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust in Easington, County Durham.
Information about expenditure on diamorphine prescribing for the treatment of dependence, sites where it is available outside this pilot, and how much diamorphine has been prescribed to heroin addicts is not collected centrally. The decision to commission and fund the local provision of diamorphine prescribing is for local authorities.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Elliott on 2015-11-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, with reference to page eight of the Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan, published on 17 November 2015, what the further financial support of around £500 million from the Government will consist of and for what purposes it can be used.
Mr Ben Wallace
The financial support of around £500m consists of:
– £160m in Additional Security Funding;
– £25m to tackle Continuing Paramilitary Activity;
– £3m to establish and fund a Monitoring and Implementation body; and
– £60m for Shared Future measures.
Additionally, welfare deductions stopped when the Assembly passed a consent motion for UK legislation to implement reforms. The UK Government will refund the deduction due for the remainder of the year, which is estimated to be around £40m.
The Executive is also to develop effective Spend to Save proposals. The Treasury will work with them to finalise proposals, help fund them (up to £125m), and let the Executive keep half the savings that can be verified by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR). The parties project that this will generate significant savings in the next five years, taking the total package over £500m.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord West of Spithead on 2015-12-14.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend, before the Scottish general election, to table a debate in the House of Commons on the decision to build the Vanguard-class replacement.
Earl Howe
Her Majesty’s Government has confirmed it will hold a debate in Parliament on the principle of Continuous at Sea Deterrence and our plans for the Successor submarine. A decision on when it will be held will be taken in due course.
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 Baroness Hodgson of Abinger on 2016-02-22.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to increase public awareness and understanding of autism.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The number of children, young people and adults diagnosed with autism by the National Health Service is not collected centrally. Latest figures from the School Census (2015) state that there were 90,775 pupils with an autistic spectrum disorder at state funded schools and non-maintained special schools in England. This has increased from a total of 56,250 in 2010 who were recorded as having a primary need of autism, but it is not directly comparable to the 2015 figures because of a change in collection methodology. Local authority areas provide information for Public Health England’s annual self-assessment exercise on implementing the Autism Strategy. This includes the number of adults receiving an autism diagnosis but because information is submitted on a voluntary basis a complete total for England is not available.
The Department has discussed with NHS England the difficulties that people on the autistic spectrum can have in getting an appropriate diagnosis and support in a timely manner. NHS England has commenced a programme to visit clinical commissioning groups to identify and share good practice in accessing autism diagnosis, and look at possible barriers. The Department is funding the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services to support this work. NHS England will complete a report on this by the end of April 2016.
The Department is also encouraging the autism third sector to work together and the four charity representatives on the Cross Government Autism Programme Board, which oversees the implementation of the Autism Strategy, gave presentations at the meeting on 18 February on work they are doing to increase public awareness. The charities are the National Autistic Society, the Autism Alliance UK, Autism Plus and Ambitious about Autism. The Autism Alliance UK is also being funded by the Department to undertake work with national and local organisations, to make reasonable adjustments to services and to train staff to be aware of what autism can mean to individuals who have the condition and their families.
The Health and Social Care Information Centre’s publication Estimating the Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Conditions in Adults – Extending the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) gave the overall prevalence of autism in England as 1.1% (95% confidence interval 0.3% to 1.9%). Among adults with learning disabilities living in private households whose learning disability was sufficiently severe that they could not have taken part in the 2007 APMS, the prevalence of autism was 35.4% (95% confidence interval 24.7% to 46.2%). Among adults with mild or severe learning disabilities living in communal care establishments, the prevalence of autism was 31% (95% confidence interval 23.9% to 38%). Detailed supporting information regarding the underlying data and how figures have been derived is found within the detail of the report, a copy of which is attached.
The APMS was repeated in 2014 and findings are scheduled to be published in September 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-03-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish the risk register for the universal credit programme.
Priti Patel
In accordance with government policy in this area, the Department does not publish risk registers for major programmes.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws on 2016-04-14.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Bangladesh Law Commission’s proposed new law, now entitled Bangladesh Liberation War (Denial, Distortion, Opposition) Crime Law, and its implications for freedom of expression in that country.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The proposed new Bangladesh Liberation War (Denial, Distortion, Opposition) Crime Law is in the initial consultation phase. We will continue to watch the development of its provisions closely, raising as appropriate any concerns that might arise.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nick Thomas-Symonds on 2016-05-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions he has had with the Health and Safety Executive on pro-active inspection of the management of work-related psychosocial risk.
Justin Tomlinson
I have regular meetings with senior HSE officials where key priorities are discussed, including tackling work related ill-health.