Category: Speeches

Kate Hoey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2016-04-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of Disclosure and Barring Service checks took (a) longer than eight weeks, (b) 12 weeks or more and (c) six months or more in each of the last three years; and if she will make a statement.

Karen Bradley

The Disclosure and Barring Service is a non-departmental public body which provides access to appropriate criminal record information for employers through its disclosure service for England and Wales. It also makes independent barring decisions about people who have harmed, or where there is considered to be a risk of harm to, a child or vulnerable person within the workplace. Given the sensitive nature of this work and the reliance on police forces to provide locally held intelligence, it would not be appropriate to introduce competition.

Whilst no assessment has been made of the affect of timeliness on the number of job opportunities which may have been lost, the impact which delays may have on applicants is recognised. The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner and is working closely with those forces whose performance does not meet turnaround time targets. In very exceptional cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant, the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the relevant police force.

The average end to end time taken to complete a DBS check, including the time taken by police forces, is listed in following table.

Financial Year	Average calendar days for a disclosure to be processed
13/14	11.5
14/15	14.4
15/16	14.5

The proportion of checks which took longer than (a) eight weeks (b) 12 weeks and (c) six months is listed in the following table.

Financial Year	Disclosures which took longer than 8 weeks	Disclosures which took longer than 12 weeks	Disclosures which took longer than 6 Months
% of Disclosures	% of Disclosures	% of Disclosures
13/14	2.6%	0.8%	0.0%
14/15	4.9%	2.1%	0.1%
15/16	5.2%	3.5%	0.3%

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01/01/2023

Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when his Department plans to publish the draft BBC Charter.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The government is in the process of drafting the Royal Charter and we expect to publish a draft version in the coming months.

01/01/2023
Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Danny Kinahan on 2016-07-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with the Consumer Council on UK ferry operators and their pricing structures.

Mr John Hayes

I have held no such recent discussions. The level of charges on ferries across the Irish Sea is a commercial matter for the companies concerned, subject to normal competition law.

01/01/2023
Andrew Stephenson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Stephenson on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to (a) educate bus passengers about over-staging and (b) help them to report cases of over-staging.

Andrew Jones

The destination printed on a bus ticket should not have any effect on the amount of reimbursement that the bus operator receives for carrying concessionary passengers.

This is because reimbursement paid to operators is not based on the full commercial adult fare for a typical journey, but on the average equivalent full fare – taken from a “basket of fares” – that each concessionary traveller would have paid in the absence of the scheme.

Reimbursement payments are also subject to audits of ticket sales data and, if required, ‘on-bus’ surveys of patronage.

01/01/2023
Owen Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2015-11-19.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, for what reasons expenditure on personal tax credits has increased since 2009.

Damian Hinds

The OBR’s Welfare Trends Report 2014 sets out how historical spending changes have been driven by, for example, changes to caseloads and average awards.

As it sets out, policy decisions between 2003 and 2009 increased the caseload of tax credit claimants and increased discretionary uprating of the child element, contributing to expenditure as a percentage of GDP increasing from 1.1% in 2003/04 to 1.9% in 2009/10.

By 2010, 9 out of 10 families with children were eligible for tax credits. Reforms under the Coalition government decreased this to 6 out of 10.

http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/wordpress/docs/Welfare_trends_report_2014_dn2B.pdf

01/01/2023
Baroness Wolf of Dulwich – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Wolf of Dulwich on 2015-12-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 14 December (HL4061), what checks are in place to ensure that Regulation 6 of the Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996 is complied with; who is entitled to complain if that Regulation is not complied with, and to whom; and what penalties are incurred by local authorities or London boroughs for failing to comply with that regulation.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

There are no checks in place to ensure that local authorities comply with the Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996, including the duty concerning consultation. Anyone can complain if they consider that the authority has failed to comply with their duty. Complaints should initially be raised with the authority concerned, and if they are not satisfactorily addressed, they can be raised with the Local Government Ombudsman. Alternatively, failure to comply with the consultation requirements in regulation 6 would be grounds for bringing a legal challenge against an order under paragraph 35 of Schedule 9 to the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

01/01/2023
Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 14 January 2016 to Question 21778, on genito-urinary medicine, what questions it is planned will be asked of local commissioners as part of Public Health England’s survey of local commissioning arrangements for sexual health; when that survey is planned to be completed; and when he plans to make publicly available the results of that survey.

Jane Ellison

Public Health England, supported by the Association of Directors of Public Health, is undertaking a review of Sexual Health, Reproductive Health and HIV Commissioning services; the survey was first published on the 19 January 2016. The closing date for the survey is 8 February 2016. Results of the survey, including responses and analysis of the questions, will be published this summer.

A range of tailored commissioning questions have been selected for local authorities, NHS England and clinical commissioning groups. Each survey is slightly adapted for its audience. The survey questions focus on 11 key areas; commissioning support structures, services commissioned, needs assessments, service specifications, access to services, tendering, changes to investment, tariffs and payments, outcomes and performance, resources and top challenges.

01/01/2023
Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-02-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much (a) the Government and (b) each government department spent on (i) arrangements and (ii) hospitality for the Chinese state visit in October 2015.

James Duddridge

The full cost of inward State Visits is borne by a number of different Government Departments. We do not yet have the costs borne by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the 2015 State Visit by the President of China. These will be published on the gov.uk website once available.

01/01/2023
Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to page 33 of the Budget, how much of the £520 million estimated to be raised by the new sugar levy she expects to be allocated to sporting initiatives through her Department’s budget in each of the next four years.

Edward Timpson

As announced in Budget 2016, a new soft drinks industry levy is expected to raise £520 million in the first year.

In England, revenue from the soft drinks industry levy will be used to double the Physical Education (PE) and sport premium for primary schools from £160 million a year to £320 million from September 2017. Primary schools will be able to make further improvements to the quality and breadth of PE and sport they offer, including introducing new activities, after school clubs and hiring specialist coaches to work alongside teachers.

Revenue generated from the levy will also be used to provide up to £285 million a year to give 25% of secondary schools increased opportunity to extend their school day to offer a wider range of activities for pupils. This can include sports clubs.

01/01/2023
Alex Chalk – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Chalk on 2016-04-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will take steps to support National Stalking Awareness Week.

Karen Bradley

The Government has committed £80 million to support victims of violence against women and girls, including, stalking, between 2016 and 2020. This includes funding for the National Stalking Helpline run by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.

We have strengthened the law by introducing new offences of stalking in 2012. In 2014-15, there were 1,103 prosecutions commenced under the new stalking offences, an increase of 50% over the previous year (2013-14).

To mark National Stalking Awareness Week, we are raising awareness of the increases in prosecutions and convictions for these crimes to help improve victim confidence in the criminal justice system.

Additionally, we have consulted on the introduction of a new civil Stalking Protection Order to tackle perpetrators at an early stage to help prevent victims becoming targets of a prolonged campaign of abuse. Our response to this consultation will be published in due course. Through the Police Innovation Fund, we are supporting the police to identify ways to manage the significant volume of online material in abuse, harassment and stalking cases, so that evidence can be collected more easily and a strong case built to bring a prosecution.

01/01/2023