The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2016-04-27.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when (a) he and (b) Ministers of his Department last met representatives of former members of the Allied Steel and Wire pension scheme.
Justin Tomlinson
All Ministerial meetings with external parties are recorded on the Cabinet Office website.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-06-06.
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what criteria the Government uses in deciding which women’s organisations to fund; how much funding the Government gave to women’s organisations in each of the last three years; and which such organisations received funding from government in each of those years.
Caroline Dinenage
The Government remains committed to gender equality. When appropriate we fund women’s organisations to carry out activities that further this aim. The criteria we use to determine which organisations to fund vary according to the policy aims that we are seeking to achieve.
Some of the most significant funding streams for UK women’s organisations in the last three years have come from HM Treasury, the Home Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government. HM Treasury has used £15 million collected from VAT on sanitary products to fund women’s charities – the grantees were announced in March 2016. The Department for Communities and Local Government also made available £250,000 to community and voluntary sector organisations as part of its Women’s Empowerment Fund in 2015-16 and continues to provide funding for refuges. Furthermore, the Home Office is providing funding to organisations and refuges supporting female victims of domestic and other forms of violence, as announced in the refreshed cross-Government strategy to tackle Violence Against Women and Girls on 8 March 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Eilidh Whiteford on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if his Department will prepare an impact assessment of any future server outage on the universal credit portal.
Damian Hinds
Whenever a service problem is identified the Department always prioritises claimants first ensuring their payments are not interrupted. In this instance the outage impacted only 24 of the 712 Jobcentres across Great Britain and none of the claimants impacted experienced a delay in their payments.
The performance of all systems is continuously monitored on many resilient servers and in the event of an outage an immediate impact assessment is made and appropriate action taken to ensure normal service is resumed at the earliest possible opportunity and the impact on claimants is minimised.
We continually assess the performance of our suppliers, and underlying engineering, to ensure systems are available to meet the needs of claimants and the Department. With the exception of this isolated supplier outage the performance of the UC portal has been higher than expected, however, further improvements to resilience were already under active consideration as part of preparing for UC Full Service national expansion.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-10-17.
To ask the Attorney General, how many complaints the Crown Prosecution Service has received in each of the last three years.
Robert Buckland
The following table shows the number of complaints received by the CPS in the past three years:
|
Year |
Total Complaints |
|
2013/14 |
Not available* |
|
2014/15 |
1950 |
|
2015/16 |
1878 |
*Due to a technical issue which the CPS is currently resolving, the figure for the total complaints received in 2013/14 is not available at this time. The CPS will write to the Honourable Member to provide this figure once the issue has been corrected.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-11-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what (a) Grade I listed buildings, (b) Grade II* listed buildings, (c) Grade II listed buildings and (d) scheduled monuments his Department owns; under which top level budget those buildings and monuments fall; and what plans he has for their disposal.
Mark Lancaster
Details of all Grade I listed buildings, Grade II* listed buildings, Grade II listed buildings and scheduled monuments the Department owns, including those which are located on sites that are currently in disposal are shown in the attached tables.
Details of the top level budget for these Monuments and Buildings could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2016-10-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reason employees at Sellafield Ltd are treated as being in the private sector for pension purposes and are regarded as being in the public sector for the purposes of a cap on exit payments.
Jesse Norman
The Government has legislated for a cap on public sector exit payments via the Enterprise Act 2016, as promised in the manifesto. The cap will apply to public sector organisations in line with the Office of National Statistics (ONS) classifications; Sellafield Limited is classified as part of the public sector by the ONS. Sellafield Limited receives the majority of its funding from the Exchequer; it is therefore important to ensure that any exit payments are fair, proportionate and represent value for money for the taxpayer.
The specific pension arrangements for Sellafield Limited employees are a matter for Sellafield Limited and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Government policy on public service pension schemes, as set out in Public Service Pensions: Good Pensions that Last (2011), is to move away from final-salary based schemes. The Government is therefore considering how best to apply public service pension reform policy to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority estate whilst being mindful of the particular circumstances of the workforce, in particular at Sellafield Limited.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-01-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which colleges he plans are to be included in (a) the third wave Area Reviews for Lancashire (Pennines) further education colleges and (b) in the fourth wave Area Reviews for Lancashire (Coastal) further education colleges.
Nick Boles
We have published indicative information in relation to the future waves, 3 to 5, of the area reviews. This includes the proposed reviews for the Lancashire area. I met with the Lancashire College Group yesterday and discussed with them the timing of the two Lancashire reviews and the colleges to be included in each. We will review the future waves in light of further discussions and ongoing assessment of risk and we will publish updated information on this in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Green of Deddington on 2016-01-28.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many asylum seekers have been transferred from the UK to other EU member states under the Dublin Regulations owing to (1) family reasons (Articles 8, 9 and 10), and (2) irregular entry (Article 13.1), in each of the years for which data are available.
Lord Bates
Data is available from 2007. In those years there have been no transfers to other EU member states under the Dublin Regulations owing to family reasons (Articles 8, 9 and 10). The table below indicates those years and numbers where we have transferred cases for reasons of Irregular Entry (Article 13.1)
|
Year of Return |
Returns |
|
2014 |
20 |
|
2015 |
75 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Stephenson on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many dogs were destroyed following violent behaviour in each of the last three years.
George Eustice
The numbers of dogs destroyed as a result of being dangerously out of control (section 3 of the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991) are not held centrally. Such records would be held by each police force.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people who have not (a) attended a work capability assessment or (b) reported to a jobcentre when requested have been exempt from benefit sanctions because of extenuating circumstances relating to their mental health in each year since 2010.
Priti Patel
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.