The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Loughton on 2016-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to raise the issue of harassment and persecution of Tibetan Buddhists in Tibet with the Chinese government.
Alok Sharma
I refer my Hon. Friend to my answer of 18 October 2016 (PQ 48663).
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ahmed on 2015-11-11.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have made any assessment of whether there are tensions between the British Pakistani/Kashmiri community and the British Indian/Hindu community in (1) London, and (2) Leicester.
Lord Bates
The operational policing of protests and demonstrations are principally a matter for Chief Officers of each force in England and Wales. As is the case with visits of this nature, careful plans have been put in place to ensure the safety and security of the visit by the Prime Minister of India, in discussion with the Indian High Commission. The right to peaceful protest is guaranteed under UK law and we respect protesters’ rights to express their views peacefully. As part of the planning for the visit the police will have assessed any issues which could give rise to public disorder and will have factored this into their planning accordingly.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2015-12-07.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to promote gender, orientation and ethnic diversity in the workplace, in particular in the architecture profession.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
This government is committed to promoting equality in all professions, including architecture. The Equality Act 2010 provides a strong legislative framework to prevent and tackle discrimination, harassment, and victimisation in the workplace. The government also funds the Equality and Advisory Support Service, which provides an accessible and inclusive source of advice for people who may have been discriminated against.
We have committed to closing the gender pay gap in a generation. We will soon require larger employers to publish the difference between the average pay and bonuses of their male and female employees. We are also tackling the root causes of gender pay gap with the introduction of Shared Parental Leave, the extension of flexible working and the offer of 30 hours free childcare.
The government is proud of its record to support LGB&T people and the UK continues to be recognised as a leader in this area. However, we know there is more to do which is why we have recently published guidance for employers on the recruitment and retention of trans employees in the workplace.
Finally, the Prime Minister has underlined the government’s commitment to increasing racial diversity in the workplace in his 2020 Vision, in which he made a commitment to increase BME employment by 20% by 2020.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2016-01-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the government of Israel concerning the whereabouts and medical condition of the two Birzeit students who were arrested on 7 October and are being detained in an undisclosed location.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
We have not had any discussions with the Israeli authorities on this issue. Officials in our Embassy in Tel Aviv have, however, raised our concerns over the treatment of Palestinian detainees on many occasions, including with the Israeli Ministry of Justice, Attorney General’s Office and National Security Council.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Allen on 2016-02-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many three year olds received a free NHS dental check in (a) Nottingham North constituency, (b) Nottingham and (c) the UK; and if he will make a statement.
Alistair Burt
Information is not collected centrally on the number of three year olds who received a free NHS dental examination. Information is available for the number of courses of treatment for 0-17 year olds that contained a dental examination.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Moonie on 2016-03-01.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many EU nationals work in the NHS in England.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Health and Social Care Information Centre collects data on the number of staff working in National Health Service hospital and community health services in England.
Nationality is a self-reported field within the NHS electronic staff record system. Of those individuals who declared their nationality, 1,050,034 (93.5%) are European Union nationals (this includes 994,693 British nationals and 55,341 other EU nationals). There are a further 73,681 (6.5%) non United Kingdom and non EU nationals.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2016-04-08.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to paragraph A.23 of the Economic and fiscal outlook of the Office for Budget Responsibility, Cm 9212, published in March 2016, what steps he has taken to increase HM Revenue and Custom’s yields from tax repatriation from British overseas territories.
Mr David Gauke
The Government is absolutely committed to exposing and acting on financial wrongdoing and we relentlessly pursue tax evaders.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has brought in more than £2 billion from offshore tax evaders since 2010 and the government has repeatedly strengthened our powers so we can take even tougher action against those who try to cheat the honest majority by hiding their money in offshore tax havens.
The Government has led a transformation in global tax transparency which, from this year, will see HMRC start to automatically receive offshore account and trust data from more than 90 countries, including British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. This will further increase HMRC’s ability to crack down on those still hiding their money offshore.
The Government is further pushing for full and effective transparency for UK law enforcement to have access to beneficial ownership information of companies from all its Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories.
The Government has also introduced tough new powers and game-changing measures to tackle offshore and onshore tax evasion, and as recently as the summer Budget 2015 gave HMRC an additional £800 million to invest in compliance and tax evasion work.
This is expected to recover £7.2 billion in tax over the next five years and includes tripling the number of criminal investigations that HMRC can undertake into serious and complex tax crime, focusing particularly on wealthy individuals and corporates, with the aim of achieving 100 prosecutions a year by the end of the Parliament.
The new powers and measures include:
Higher financial penalties for those hiding money and other assets offshore, such as, for the first time, linking the penalty to the value of the asset kept offshore. These are in addition to existing measures which already allow for fines of up to 300% of any tax found to have been evaded offshore.
New civil penalties for those who deliberately enable offshore evasion so they will face the same penalty as the tax evader.
Public naming of both evaders and those who enable evasion.
A new criminal offence for corporations that fail to prevent their representatives from facilitating tax evasion. The new offence, which will be legislated for this year, will ensure that corporations exercise due diligence over the services they provide, and ensure that those who don’t can be held to account.
A new strict liability criminal offence for offshore evasion, which we are currently legislating for – so in the worst cases it’s no longer possible to plead ignorance in an attempt to avoid criminal prosecution.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paula Sherriff on 2016-05-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average rota gap is for junior doctors in NHS foundation trusts in the most recent period for which figures are available; and what assessment he has made of the effect on services of the size of that gap.
Ben Gummer
The Department does not collect this information. Rota arrangements for junior doctors are a matter for individual National Health Service foundation trusts.
Contact details for NHS foundation trusts and all other NHS authorities can be found on the NHS Choices website:
http://www.nhs.uk/nhsengland/thenhs/about/pages/authoritiesandtrusts.aspx
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joan Ryan on 2016-06-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the emergency department at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust is able to guarantee patient safety; and if he will make a statement.
Ben Gummer
NHS England is the responsible organisation for emergency planning and resilience in London. As such, it has well-established contingency plans in place which take effect in the event of emergency departments (EDs) having to temporarily reduce their scope of operations in order to ensure the best standards of patient care, our central concern.
As the Rt. hon. Member is aware, following an unannounced inspection by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust, the CQC issued a Warning Notice. The Warning Notice, published on 6 June 2016, requires the trust to significantly improve the treatment of patients attending its emergency department.
The CQC is responsible for assessing whether the Trust is providing the right standard of care and ensuring that improvement plans meet the level of improvement required.
NHS Improvement is working alongside NHS England and the local health and care system to ensure that the Trust has the resources it needs to ensure that patients receive safe, high quality care.
We are informed by NHS Improvement that, in order to address the poor performance at the Trust’s ED, it has devised a plan titled Safer, Faster, Better. This is a whole system programme with the primary objective of improving performance, patient experience and outcomes for patients.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jon Trickett on 2016-09-12.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Care Quality Commission report of December 2015, on Pinderfields Hospital; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Philip Dunne
These are matters for the local National Health Service. It is the responsibility of the Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust Board, its commissioners and regulators, and of the clinicians who work at the Trust, to ensure that the expected standards of care quality are being met.
Patients at Mid Yorkshire NHS Trust deserve the highest quality care and there is no excuse for services to fall short of the standards. The Trust must take the necessary steps to improve its safety and leadership with the support of NHS Improvement.