The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Woodcock on 2016-01-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when his Department conducted its most recent review of the procurement process for the Successor submarines.
Mr Philip Dunne
All Ministry of Defence programmes are routinely subject to regular review as part of the standard approvals and scrutiny process. The most recent review of the Successor programme was produced in December 2015.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Carol Monaghan on 2016-02-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people with spouses or partners with UK citizenship have applied to enter the UK in each of the last five years.
James Brokenshire
The available information is shown in the attached table.
Information on spouses or partners of UK citizens is not available as it is not held on centrally collated statistical databases and could only be produced at disproportionate cost by examination of individual case files.
The latest quarterly Home Office immigration statistics on entry clearance visas are published in ‘Immigration Statistics, July – September 2015’, available from the Library of the House and from the Home Office website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-statistics
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Murrison on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people were imprisoned for non-violent drug offences in each year since 2005.
Andrew Selous
This information is not held centrally.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-17.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make it his policy to develop a standardised methodology for measuring SME spending by government departments which can be used as a baseline over the next five years.
Matthew Hancock
We have developed our methodology over time, starting in 2010 when there was no reliable estimate for spend with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We now have much better data than before 2010 and we are continuing to improve our understanding of spend. The Government exceeded its target of 25% of central government procurement spend going to small and medium businesses by 2015, achieving over £12 billion (27.1%) of spend with SMEs by the end of the last Parliament.
The Government standardised its methodology for collecting data on direct spend with SMEs in 2011-12; data on direct spend published since that point is comparable. Data on indirect spend for 2013-14 and 2014-15 is also comparable. This is an area of continuous improvement and we intend to standardise our methodology again during 2016-17.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many e-courts there are in Lancashire.
Mr Shailesh Vara
Excluding one closing court, in Lancashire all criminal courts (4 Crown courts and 6 magistrates’ courts) are equipped to work digitally through services such as in-court evidence presentation, video links, a shared file store, Wi-Fi and a new digital case management system in the Crown courts.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Judd on 2016-05-24.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the potential value in career development of service by police on international deployments.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The National Police Chiefs’ Council has established the new Joint International Policing Hub to triage requests for international police assistance through a single point. The Hub joins up the police at a national level and with Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office and is intended to promote the UK model of policing by consent. Decisions on who to recommend to deploy, and where, lies with Chief Constables, in conjunction with their Police and Crime Commissioners.
As the first professional body for all of policing in England and Wales, the College of Policing develops standards and guidance for policing. The College is considering flexibility and the structure of entry, exit and re-entry of officers. It is also considering routes for officers to gain external experience, such as secondments, as part of the Leadership Review.
The Government has no plans to publish the details of police, law enforcement specialists and other relevant civilian experts in service in UN operations and at the UN Headquarters. Any personnel deployed as part of a national contingent are listed on the UN website: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2016/apr16_4.pdf
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alan Brown on 2016-07-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to reduce approval process timescales for woodland planting.
Dr Thérèse Coffey
Forestry is a devolved matter and the answer refers to England only.
We have improved the process for Countryside Stewardship applications for woodland creation in the 2016-17 planting season. Any amendments that may be required for existing Environmental Stewardship Schemes can be made earlier in this year than in previous years. The Rural Payments Agency has new systems for digitisation of land registration and parcel amendments to support smoother application processing. Scoring has been simplified and we have introduced a self-calculating and self-populating application form to ease the application process.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2016-10-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his policy is on requiring areas which are bidding for devolved powers to introduce directly elected mayors.
Andrew Percy
The Government is clear that devolution deals are locally-led and bespoke – not one-size-fits-all. The Government has, however, been consistent in stating that the most ambitious deals in terms of the powers and funding devolved will be those that are the most ambitious in their governance proposals, for example those willing to offer a directly elected, single point of accountability by establishing mayoral combined authorities.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Peter Bone on 2015-11-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent estimate she has made of the amount the EU will pay farmers in the UK in 2015.
George Eustice
In 2015, the UK has been allocated a total of €4 billion in CAP funds.
In pounds sterling, based on the average European Central Bank exchange rate for September used for calculating direct payments, this equates to a total of £2.9 billion. Of this amount, £2.3 billion is allocated to Pillar 1 direct payments and £620 million to Pillar 2 rural development.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anne Marie Morris on 2015-11-27.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to reclaim the costs to the NHS of treatment of people from other countries who use NHS services while visiting the UK.
Alistair Burt
The Department of Health’s Visitor and Migrant National Health Service Cost Recovery Programme aims to ensure that the National Health Service receives a fair contribution for the cost of healthcare it provides to non-United Kingdom residents and improve the amount of costs recovered from them or their home countries, to ensure the NHS is sustainable.
Since the launch of its implementation plan in July 2014 the Cost Recovery Programme has achieved much progress including:
– The launch of the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) reporting incentive scheme in October 2014 to improve the reporting of EHIC details of visitors and students from the European Economic Area (EEA) who access NHS care, for which the UK is entitled to reimbursement.
– Updated Charging Regulations from April 2015, reducing the number of exemption from charge categories for non-residents and realigning the Regulations to the principle that the NHS is a residency-based healthcare system.
– Requiring chargeable patients from outside the EEA to be charged at 150% of national tariff, in tandem with the launch of a risk sharing arrangement with commissioners, thereby encouraging providers to both identify and recover costs from these patients to access the extra funding available.
– The introduction of the health surcharge in April 2015 which now means nearly all individuals who require a visa to remain in the UK for more than six month’s pay an annual surcharge as a contribution towards their healthcare costs.
Furthermore, those with outstanding debts to the NHS of £1,000 or more and who are subject to immigration control can, since 2011, have applications for new visas or extensions of stay refused because of that debt, to encourage them to pay it.