Category: Speeches

  • Jamie Reed – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Jamie Reed – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2015-10-28.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if her Department will publish its strategic plan for housing Syrian refugees.

    Richard Harrington

    This is a voluntary scheme whereby local authorities sign up to accept refugees on a voluntary basis. Housing is one element they would take into consideration before participating. We are working closely with those local authorities that have indicated they wish to be involved as well as with the Local Government Associations.

  • Baroness Byford – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Baroness Byford – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Byford on 2015-11-25.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the safety of chemicals in domestic refrigerators, in the light of recent reports by Which?.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    Officials are in regular contact with industry and a range of other stakeholders about the safety of electrical products, including refrigerators. Officials are also regularly in contact with their opposite numbers in other Member States to discuss safety issues. However, no recent specific assessment has been made of the safety of chemicals used in these products.

  • Lord Black of Brentwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Lord Black of Brentwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Black of Brentwood on 2015-12-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what funding they are making available under the UK Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund to combat the illegal tiger trade and tiger farming.

    Lord Gardiner of Kimble

    In December 2013, Defra and the Department for International Development announced a £10 million fund over the period from 2014/15 to 2017/18 to help developing countries tackle the illegal wildlife trade, to be administered by Defra. In March 2015, the Secretary of State for International Development announced that an additional £3 million would be made available for this purpose. Most of this funding is distributed through the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund.

    Nineteen successful projects from the first round of the UK Government’s Challenge Fund were announced in December 2014. These included a number of projects that aimed to reduce the demand for illegal wildlife products in Asia, build capacity and strengthen law enforcement to combat wildlife trafficking. Challenge Funding directly benefitting tigers includes a £210,000 contribution towards a project strengthening institutional frameworks to combat wildlife trafficking in Indonesia, which is also supporting local communities mitigate human-tiger conflict. The Fund has also contributed over £59,000 to a project producing educational children’s videos in Vietnam, one of which is on tigers, to help reduce the demand for illegal wildlife products.

    A second round of the Challenge Fund opened in August 2015. We expect to announce the successful projects from the second round early this year.

  • Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2016-01-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if she will list by title the documents requested and not released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 relating to (a) nuclear power and (b) Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant since May 2010.

    Andrea Leadsom

    The information requested is not held centrally and can only be provided at disproportionate cost.

  • Norman Lamb – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Norman Lamb – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to paragraph 2 of Delivering the Forward View: NHS Planning Guidance, published in December 2015, how much of the £8.4 billion real terms increase in NHS funding by 2020-21 is allocated to mental health; whether that figure includes funding for children and young people’s mental health announced before the 2015 General Election; and under which of his Department’s budget headings that funding has been allocated.

    Alistair Burt

    Regarding the £8.4 billion real terms increase in funding, NHS England (NHSE) does not stipulate a specific spend level for commissioning bodies, this is to be determined by national policy directives like parity of esteem and specific local needs based assessment. At a commissioning stream level, NHSE has set a principal commitment to achieving mental health parity of esteem. Through its assurance process NHSE will hold individual commissioners to account for increasing spend on mental health in line with their increase in allocations, taking account of the additional mental health funding that has been received.

    The difference between the 2015/16 funding for children’s and young people’s mental health in NHSE baseline and subsequent increase in funding over the five-year period from 2016-17 to 2020-21 is included in the £8.4 billion growth in the Mandate.

    The Department allocates funding to NHS England as set out in the government’s mandate to NHSE and accompanying financial directions. The mandate to NHSE for 2016-17 and accompanying directions are both available at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-mandate-2016-to-2017

    “

  • Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-03-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 9 March 2016 to Question 29390, what definition of principle of distinction his Department uses to assess whether an incident counts as a violation of international humanitarian law.

    Penny Mordaunt

    International Humanitarian Law is founded in customary international law but now extensively codified in international agreements, most notably the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols. The UK’s interpretation of the principles of proportionality, military necessity, humanity and distinction is set out in the Ministry of Defence’s Joint Service Publication (JSP) 383, the Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, which is available online (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jsp-383).

  • Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2016-04-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people who applied for UK citizenship in the year ending June 2015 (a) applied for exemption from the language requirements and (b) were granted such an exemption.

    James Brokenshire

    The Secretary of State may waive the Knowledge of Language and Life in the UK requirement for British citizenship on the basis of a person’s age, physical or mental condition.

    A person will normally be exempted from this requirement if they provide evidence from an appropriate medical practitioner that their condition is so severe that it prevents them from being able to learn English or prepare for or sit an English test or the Life in the UK test. Each application is considered on its own merits.

    Information cannot be obtained from UKVI data systems to show how many exemption requests were made and granted. This information could only be obtained from looking at individual records at disproportionate cost.

  • Alex Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alex Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2016-05-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reports of criminal offences against residents of properties used to house asylum seekers have been recorded in each of the last 12 months.

    James Brokenshire

    The Home Office and its accommodation providers encourage accommodated asylum seekers to inform us of any criminal or anti-social activity against them so that appropriate action can be taken to ensure their safety. Information concerning the reports of criminal offences is not recorded on centrally collated statistical databases and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost by examination of case records.

  • Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-07-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Answer of 23 November 2015 to Question 16254, if he will estimate the number of GP appointments for minor ailments which could have been treated at home or with advice from a pharmacist in (a) England, (b) each former strategic health authority area and (c) each clinical commissioning group in each year since 2006.

    David Mowat

    NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review Phase 1 report (November 2013) estimated that 20% of general practitioner consultations relate to minor ailments which could largely be dealt with by self-care and support from community pharmacies.

    The General Practice Forward View, published on 21 April 2016, states that current investment of £31 million to pilot 470 clinical pharmacists in over 700 practices is to be supplemented by new central investment of £112 million to extend the programme by a pharmacist per 30,000 population for all practices not in the initial pilot – leading to a further 1,500 pharmacists in general practice by 2020.

    Figures for each former strategic health authority and each clinical commissioning group in each year since 2006 are not held centrally.

  • Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Trade

    Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Trade

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

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps his Department is taking to promote trade between the UK and (a) Australia and (b) New Zealand.

    Greg Hands

    The department has identified opportunities and resourced campaigns to access high value sectors including defence, consumer & retail and financial services across the region.