The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the mortality rate for claimants of incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance aged between 40 and 50 was in (a) England and Wales, (b) Newcastle, (c) Sheffield and (d) Newham in each of the last five years.
Priti Patel
The information requested is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Lord Bishop of Leeds on 2016-04-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anelay of St Johns on 5 April (HL7332), what financial assistance they have given to human rights defenders in Iraq to improve victim support and case documentation of sexual violence committed by Daesh.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The UK has provided over £800,000 of financial support for gender equality and tackling sexual violence in conflict – £750,000 to help implement Iraq’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security and over £65,000 to the Iraqi Al-Amal Association to support their work with young people.
Furthermore, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is funding a project (£199,000) through our Human Rights and Democracy Programme which aims to improve the documentation of Sexual Violence in Erbil, Kirkuk, Sulaymaniyah, Dohuk and Zakho and to assist in the development of cases. The project is training a team of human rights defenders to document Sexual Violence and establishes a database of cases across a two year period to inform policy development in the Government of Iraq.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charles Walker on 2016-05-25.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what information his Department holds on how many money service businesses had their bank accounts closed in (a) 2013-14, (b) 2014-15 and (c) 2015-16.
Harriett Baldwin
The FCA have recently published a report on the nature and scale of de-risking in the UK. The report reinforces the view that de-risking is driven by a variety of factors, not just anti money-laundering compliance or a fear of regulatory action. From a data set of 23 banks the report noted that “tracking the proportionately tiny number of closures linked to financial crime concerns within this immense dataset is thus inherently challenging, especially if the reason for closure is primarily commercial, with a small component of the equation relating to ‘increased compliance costs’.”
However the report does indicate that the rate of customer exits has accelerated over the last 2-3 years.
Data from HM Revenue and Customs (the supervisor of Money Service Businesses outside the banking sector) shows that there are about 2000 MSB’s principals registered to trade with approximately 45,000 agents around the UK. It is a large and diverse sector. HMRC does hold data on the number of de-registered MSB’s, however given that MSB’s are not required to provide HMRC with information on when they have had their bank accounts closed, data on MSB’s effected by de-risking is not available.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paula Sherriff on 2016-07-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to encourage reporting of hate crime incidents; and whether she plans to introduce new ways of reporting.
Sarah Newton
The Government condemns all hate crimes and is committed to tackling these crimes in partnership with the communities affected.
We have in place some of the strongest legislation to tackle hate crime in the world – this includes specific offences for racially and religiously aggravated activity and offences of the stirring up of hatred on the grounds of race, religion and sexual orientation.
We also have stronger sentences for hate crime. We continue to carefully consider the recommendations from the Law Commission review into hate crime legislation. The Government has committed to taking action to improve our response to hate crime.
This includes joint training between the police and Crown Prosecution staff to improve the way the police identify and investigate hate crime; building on the improvements to police recording of hate crime by working with the police to break down religious-based hate crime by religion; and working with victims and advocacy groups to improve victims confidence to come forward and report such crimes.
The police are also improving their operational practices and recording. Last year, the College of Policing published Operational Guidance for officers responding to hate crime which comprehensively covers how to address all forms of hate crime.
Hate crime statistics show number of crimes recorded by the police by force area. The decision as to how hate crime is resourced in individual forces is an operational matter for the Police and Crime Commissioner for that area. The latest police funding settlement represents a fair deal for the police and reinforces this Government’s commitment to protect the public. No Police and Crime Commissioner who maximised precept income is facing a reduction in cash funding this year.
Police and Crime Commissioners are also responsible for commissioning local support services for victims of crime. The Ministry of Justice provides the Commissioner with a grant to enable services which best meet the needs of local victims of crime to be funded.
The Home Office published a new hate crime action plan on 26 July 2016, which sets out Government action over the next four years to tackle hate crime. It includes:
● new steps to boost reporting of hate crime and support victims;
● new CPS guidance to prosecutors on racially aggravated crime;
● a new £2.4 million fund for protective security measures at potentially vulnerable places of worship;
● and additional funding to community organisations tackling hate crime.
Nobody in this country should live in fear because of who they are and anyone who experiences hate crime should report it to the police, either in person at a police station, online through the True Vision website, or by phoning 101.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alasdair McDonnell on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the report by the British Red Cross, entitled Are pre-hospital deaths from trauma and accidental injury preventable?, published in September 2016, what steps she is taking to ensure that young people have the opportunity to learn basic first aid at school.
Edward Timpson
Schools are free to teach first aid, and may choose to do this as part of personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education, which is a non-statutory curriculum subject. This is reflected in the PSHE Association’s non-statutory programme of study, which includes first aid.
When teaching first aid, many schools draw on the expertise of reputable organisations, such as the British Red Cross, the British Heart Foundation and St John Ambulance.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dawn Butler on 2015-10-27.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the average annual amount by which working families affected by changes to tax credits will be compensated by the increase in the level of the minimum wage.
Damian Hinds
This Government is committed to moving from a high welfare, high tax, low wage economy to a lower welfare, lower tax, higher wage society. As the Chancellor made clear on [Monday / 26 October], the Government will set out at Autumn Statement how we plan to achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits, saving the money we need to save to secure our economy, while at the same time helping in the transition.
The Summer Budget offered a new deal for working people. A new National Living Wage for workers aged 25 and above, initially set at £7.20 per hour from April 2016, will directly benefit 2.7 million low wage workers, and up to 6 million could see a pay rise as a result of a ripple effect up the earnings distribution. The new National Living Wage will boost pay for those currently earning the National Minimum Wage by £4,800 a year by 2020 when the National Living Wage is expected to rise to over £9 per hour.
To help working families keep more of what they earn, the personal allowance will increase to £11,000 in 2016-17 and £11,200 in 2017-18. The government has committed to increase the personal allowance to £12,500 by 2020 which will mean that a typical basic rate taxpayer will see their income tax cut by £1,205 a year compared to 2010.
The government set out its assessment of the impacts of the Summer Budget policies in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill on 20th July 2015.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2015-11-24.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the current level of HM Treasury’s outstanding statutory debt in relation to the Dunfermline Building Society; how much has been paid by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme towards that debt; and whether any assets have been retrieved or sold since the Society went into administration.
Lord O’Neill of Gatley
In March 2009, Dunfermline Building Society (DBS) was entered into special administration under the Banking Act 2009. As part of the resolution, HM Treasury provided just under £1.6 billion to enable the transfer of the core DBS business to Nationwide Building Society. The remainder of DBS is currently being wound-down by KPMG affiliated administrators.
Most of the estate has been wound-down and the remaining commercial book is expected to run-off over the next 1-2 years, at which point the administration will be complete. In 2014, the remaining residential mortgage portfolio was sold by the administrators to Arbuthnot Latham and Co. As of 31 March 2015, HM Treasury has received just over £1 billion from the DBS estate.
The Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 ‘Contribution Regulations’ allow the Treasury to recover any shortfall from the estate from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), subject to a cap, via an interim levy on industry. In October 2014, the FSCS made the first payment to HM Treasury with respect to DBS, of £100 million.
HMT expects to recover the amount in full.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-01-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for how long people under the age of 18 who were transferred to a place of safety under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 were detained on average in (a) a police cell and (b) a police vehicle in England and Wales in each of the last 10 years.
Mike Penning
The information requested is not held centrally.
However, the use of police cells as a place of safety for all persons detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 has more than halved since 2011/12 (when figures were first collated) as shown in the following table. A joint inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC); Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP); the Care Quality Commission (CQC); and Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) (published in 2013) found that the average time that each such person spent in police custody was 10 hours 32 minutes.
The Government intends to make provision in the Policing and Crime Bill, to be introduced in Parliament soon, to prohibit the use of police cells as places of safety for people under the age of 18, and to further limit their use in the case of adults. The maximum period for which a person may be detained pending a mental health assessment will also be reduced.
Table 1: number of times a police station was used as a place of safety for people detained under Section 136 Mental Health Act 1983 (England only)
|
Year |
Section 136 detentions in police stations |
Percentage reduction year on year (to nearest whole number) |
|
2011-12 |
8,667 |
N/A[1] |
|
2012-13 |
7,881 |
-9% |
|
2013-14 |
6,028 |
-24% |
|
2014-15 |
3,996 |
-34% |
Source: Health and Social Care Information Centre
[1] No data on use of police stations is available for 2010-11.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Tim on 2016-01-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many (a) kilometres of new duct and (b) poles installed by BT with funding from BDUK have been made available for use by other communications providers.
Mr Edward Vaizey
All ducts and poles in BT’s network beyond the telephone exchange are open to other providers, under the Passive Infrastructure Access obligation imposed by Ofcom, to provide primarily residential broadband services.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Grahame Morris on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the proportion of starter homes that will be wheelchair accessible.
Brandon Lewis
Starter Homes like all new homes, will ahve to meet Building Regulations’ access requirements which ensure reasonable provision for people to gain access to and use, the dwelling and its facilities.