Category: Speeches

  • Valerie Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Valerie Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2016-05-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to continue payment of benefits through the Post Office Card Account for the next five years.

    Priti Patel

    Post Office Card Accounts provide a useful service to many people and there are no plans to change provision.

    The Department recognises, however, that working age claimants may also be receiving wages. As the account does not receive wages or allow for direct debit or standing order facilities, Post Office Card Accounts are not suitable for all of their needs. Those claimants are therefore being encouraged to open main stream bank accounts including credit union accounts.

    The Post Office Card Account contract was awarded from 01 December 2014 and expires on 30 November 2021 and there are no plans to amend that term.

  • Baroness Byford – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Baroness Byford – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Byford on 2016-06-27.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether companies employed to remove crashed vehicles have a legal obligation to collect detached parts of the vehicles from hedgerows, ditches and property around crash sites.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    The company employed by Highways England in respect of vehicle recoveries does not have a legal obligation to remove debris from, or around, the strategic road network.

  • Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-09-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the benefits derived for people with dementia from recent increased expenditure on dementia research.

    Nicola Blackwood

    Government funding for dementia research doubled over the last Parliament to around £60 million each year, and will be maintained at this level to total over £300 million in the period from 2015/16 to 2019/20. Much of this investment is in research aiming to achieve a better understanding of dementia to inform development of future treatments and ways to prevent the onset of the condition. Significant research is looking at how to improve symptom management, care and services for people with dementia, ways of maintaining independent living in early-stage dementia, and improving quality of life for people with dementia and their carers.

  • Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 9 November 2015 to Question 14770, when she plans to publish the contribution the UK will make to the World Food Programme for 2016.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    The UK is currently the second largest donor to the WFP, after the United States. For 2015, the UK has so far provided a total of £270.6million in funding to WFP. UK contributions are made up of unearmarked core funding (£40m in total for the financial year 2015/16) and bilateral funding allocated by DFID country offices (which represents the biggest proportion of UK funding).

    DFID will be in a position to announce the UK core contribution to WFP for the financial year 2016 / 2017 once the Multilateral Aid Review 2015 (MAR 2015) is published in March 2016. UK core contribution will be informed by the results of the MAR assessment of WFP and the review of WFP performance and effectiveness in using the core funding provided by UK.

    Bilateral funding is decided by DFID at country level and is based on needs.

  • Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to his Written Statement of 10 December 2015, HCWS377, on universal credit and local authorities, how he will define reasonable efforts to redeploy staff.

    Priti Patel

    We will work with Local Authorities to manage the impact of these changes in a way which minimises the need for any redundancies. Where this does not prove possible, after the exercise of all reasonable efforts to redeploy people, the Department has given Local Authorities a commitment that we will meet their costs of any residual redundancies. Reasonable efforts will vary according to the circumstance of the Local Authority.

  • Rehman Chishti – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Rehman Chishti – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rehman Chishti on 2016-01-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Answer of 9 February 2015 to Question 222936, when he plans to announce which of the 5,000 ships under consideration will be designated under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

    Mark Lancaster

    The consultation process as to which ships under consideration will be designated under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 is at its later stages, and an announcement will be made in due course.

  • Lord Mancroft – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Mancroft – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mancroft on 2016-02-09.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress Operational Delivery Networks have made in establishing services for prisoners diagnosed with hepatitis C.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    NHS England, Public Heath England, the National Offender Management Service and other organisations including the Royal College of General Practitioners have developed resources to support prison healthcare teams in delivering a blood-borne virus (BBV) opt-out testing programme. This covers all aspects of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis C (HCV) and other BBVs including testing, managing positive and negative test results, providing advice on harm minimisation and supporting prisoners into treatment.

    Specialised HCV Operational Delivery Networks (ODNs) ensure specialist oversight of HCV services in order maximise uptake and completion of HCV treatment. NHS England has linked every prison to the relevant ODN and a service specification for ODNs directs specialist service providers to accept patients from prisons.

  • Gloria De Piero – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Gloria De Piero – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gloria De Piero on 2016-03-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department offers e-cigarettes on prescription or at a reduced price to people living in deprived areas.

    Jane Ellison

    Prescriptions for e-cigarettes will be charged like any other medication and normal exemption arrangements will apply including for those on low incomes.

    In August 2015 Public Health England published a report that outlined evidence that e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking. Data from local stop smoking services shows that 2/3 of smokers are successful in their quit attempts when combining e-cigarettes with behavioural support. Data from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) suggests in 2015 there were 2.6 million e-cigarette users of which nearly 2 out of 5 no longer smoked tobacco products. This data is available at ASH ‘Use of electronic cigarettes (vapourisers) among adults in Great Britain’, 2015.

    http://www.ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_891.pdf

    “

  • Grahame Morris – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Grahame Morris – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Grahame Morris on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding has been allocated to improve local transport infrastructure in Easington constituency in each of the next five years.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    Easington constituency in County Durham is in the area covered by the North East Combined Authority and North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). The Combined Authority receives annual capital allocations for Highways Maintenance and Integrated Transport and it is for the Combined Authority and Durham County Council to decide how much of this funding is spent in Easington Constituency.

    The North East LEP has been awarded Local Growth Funding for two schemes in the Easington constituency. The proposal to construct a new station at Horden has been allocated £3.3 million and the package of five junction improvements on the A1 and A19, which includes a scheme at the A19/A182 Seaham Murton Interchange, has been allocated £19.0 million.

  • Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-05-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 3 May 2016 to Question 35753, how many and which companies have not confirmed to Companies House that they no longer have bearer shares; and what action he plans to take against such companies.

    Anna Soubry

    As of 6 May 2016, 63 companies had not informed Companies House that they no longer have bearer shares.

    No action will be taken against these companies at the present time. There is no statutory obligation for any company that has converted bearer shares to registered shares to inform Companies House until it delivers its annual return or confirmation statement.

    I have requested the Registrar of Companies to write to the Hon Member with the list of the company names.