The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2016-01-29.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Dunlop on 27 November 2015 (HL3723), what difference, if any, there is between people in Northern Ireland and people of Northern Ireland in the application of their policies.
Lord Dunlop
In this context there is no difference between people ‘in’ Northern Ireland and people ‘of’ Northern Ireland.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) policy and (b) other responsibilities are of each special adviser in his Department.
Justin Tomlinson
I refer the hon.Member to the answer given by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, my Rt.Hon. Friend Matthew Hancock, Question UIN 27946.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine West on 2016-03-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his Israeli counterparts on the demolition of the village of Umm el-Hiran.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
Our Embassy in Tel Aviv has raised UK concerns with the Israeli Government on this issue. We continue to encourage the Israeli authorities and Bedouin communities to work together to identify a satisfactory solution. Any solution must respect the equality of all Israel’s citizens, and be consistent with Israel’s commitments under international law.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bassam of Brighton on 2016-04-25.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many (1) GPs, and (2) GP practices, there were in Brighton and Hove in each year since 2010.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The information is shown in the following table.
Total general practitioners (GPs) and GP Practices in Brighton and Hove City Primary Care Trust (PCT) and NHS Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG):
|
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
|
Brighton and Hove City PCT |
||||||
|
Total GP Practices |
48 |
48 |
47 |
|||
|
Total GPs excluding locums |
177 |
184 |
182 |
|||
|
Total GPs excluding retainers, registrars and locums |
161 |
169 |
170 |
|||
|
NHS Brighton and Hove CCG |
||||||
|
Total GP Practices |
46 |
45 |
44 |
|||
|
Total GPs excluding locums |
177 |
180 |
191 |
|||
|
Total GPs excluding retainers, registrars and locums |
172 |
176 |
185 |
Source: The Health and Social Care Information Centre
Notes:
– Data as at 30 September each year.
– NHS Workforce figures are not available by constituency. Brighton and Hove constituency was contained within and serviced by Brighton and Hove City PCT from 2009-2012 and NHS Brighton and Hove CCG from 2013 onwards. These trusts are not geographically co-terminus and thus the figures are not comparable over a time series.
– Prior to 2015 figures are sourced from NHAIS GP Payments (Exeter) System. From 2015 figures are sourced from the workforce Minimum Dataset (wMDS) and include estimates for missing data.
– GP Locums were collected for the first time in 2015. These have been omitted here for comparability purposes
– Brighton and Hove was serviced by Brighton and Hove PCT 2010-2012 and NHS Brighton and Hove CCG 2013-2015
– The Health and Social Care Information Centre no longer provides individual data for ‘GP Provider, GP Other, GP Registrar and GP Retainer’ from April 2015 onwards as the 2015 GP figures are not published with these four job roles any more.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2016-06-07.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the conclusion by the Office of Road and Rail that it will be possible, by 2021, to run 7.5 long distance trains per hour on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) in an operationally robust timetable, in the light of the eight interventions to improve the ECML identified in the 2011 Initial Industry Plan by Network Rail at a cost of £500 million, and the later announcement of funding of £240 million.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The Government understands from work carried out by Network Rail that under the current plans for enhancement works on the route, 7.5 high speed paths would be available from 2021, although the detailed implications for the timetable and train performance have yet to be examined.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2016-07-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether she plans to amend the definition of overseas development assistance used by her Department.
Rory Stewart
The Government adheres to the definition of Official Development Assistance (ODA) set by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC). After several years of complex negotiations, the DAC updated the ODA rules in February 2016 so that they better recognise the challenges to development posed by conflict, insecurity and terrorism, as well as the growing importance of private sector investment. The Government’s priority is to ensure these reforms are implemented effectively.
As a donor that pursues its national interests by contributing 0.7% of its Gross National Income to ODA, the UK welcomes the DAC’s commitment to keeping ODA relevant and credible.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2016-10-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria they set in respect of the requirement for transparency and openness in the decision-making processes of all public and publicly-funded bodies.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
As a matter of principle, members of the public should be able to routinely access information that is in the public interest and is safe to disclose. Access to information helps ensure accountability for public authorities and facilitates better informed and more productive public debate.
All public bodies have a publication scheme, which outlines what they will publish. The Information Commissioner’s Office provides guidance on the publication scheme for each body. This covers evidence of decision making, board meeting minutes, agendas, consultations and datasets, including those pertaining to public spending and to public service function, in an accessible format. Datasets are published on the data.gov.uk website, while other evidence is available on individual body websites.
All central government departments are required to publish information about key aspects of their management and operations, including details of senior staff salaries and departmental expenditure.
The Cabinet Office also publishes guidance for departments on transparency for their arm’s length bodies. This guidance states that they should:
Statements by Accounting Officers are published in arm’s length body annual reports. The publication of these statements demonstrates how Accounting Officers have fulfilled his or her personal responsibility to manage and control the resources in the organisation.
In its annual Public Bodies Reports the Cabinet Office sets out high-level information on arm’s length body transparency in areas including publication of annual reports and open board meetings.
The transparency data published by government does not disclose personal data. Where necessary, minutes and papers which detail decision-making are edited to remove data which could be used to identify individuals.
Transparency information published by the local government is governed by the transparency code. The principles that underpin the code are the same, and similarly, data pertaining to function and spend data must be disclosed. The code has just undergone consultation. Proposed changes include altering the way transparency data is published and presented to increase accessibility.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bradshaw on 2015-11-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether the train service in the Lincoln area, to both London and Birmingham, is adequate to meet present needs, and what firm plans they have for developing the service along those rail corridors.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The Government believes that Train Operators are better placed to respond to the changing demands of their customers in the creation of train services and it is the Government’s view that timetable development is an activity that should be managed by Train Operators with minimum interference from Central Government.
In 2016 we will open the competition for the East Midlands franchise, and will engage with stakeholders and run a public consultation to help specify services.
From May 2019, Stagecoach Virgin have been contracted by the Department for Transport to operate 5 additional services each day between London and Lincoln.This will provide a regular service of approximately 1 train every 2 hours in each direction. Delivery of this is subject to the rail industry’s normal timetable development process and to the Office of Road and Rail granting the necessary access rights to the operator.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rebecca Long Bailey on 2015-11-23.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will bring forward plans to monitor the effectiveness of how the Homelessness Protection Grant is spent.
Greg Hands
Since 2010, local councils have had more flexibility over how they spend the money they receive from central government. It is up to individual authorities to decide how grant funding should be spent in order to deliver local services. To ensure that councils have the necessary skills to do this, the Government supported the establishment of the National Practitioner Support Service’s ‘Gold Standard’ programme to help improve the effectiveness of local authority homelessness prevention services.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Calum Kerr on 2016-01-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her policy is on the Save the Children proposal to relocate 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children who have arrived in Europe to the UK.
James Brokenshire
As the Prime Minister said to Parliament in December, we are looking again at the issue of bringing Syrian children to the UK. In any consideration we must ensure that our proposals are in the best interests of those children affected and do not inadvertently put children at additional risk.
Our Syrian resettlement programme has already resettled vulnerable children as part of family groups, with over 1000 refugees resettled by Christmas.