Category: Speeches

  • Mark Hendrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Mark Hendrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2015-11-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, which Diwali celebrations he, his predecessor or Ministers in his Department attended in 2014 and 2015.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    Government ministers were in attendance at the Prime Minister’s Diwali reception at No 10 Downing Street to celebrate the biggest festival in the Hindu calendar. Due to prior diary commitments, DCMS ministers were unable to attend Diwali celebrations this year in their official capacity.

  • 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 2015-12-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department has taken to monitor the application of the easement of conditionality rules under the Jobseeker’s Allowance (Homeless Claimants) Amendment Regulations 2014 since those Regulations were brought into force.

    Priti Patel

    It is the responsibility of Jobcentre Plus managers to monitor the appropriate application of easements to Jobseeker’s Allowance conditionality. In doing so, they use an assurance framework to assess the quality of work coach interviews and Claimant Commitments to make sure they appropriately reflect individual circumstances.

  • Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lester of Herne Hill on 2016-01-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 13 January (HL4703 and HL4704), what were the other administrative reasons for retaining documents to which she refers.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The administrative grounds for retaining public records referred to in my answer to HL4703 are: records or series of records which have not been selected for transfer to The National Archives or a place of deposit, but which the department has retained after they are defined as historical records because they are required for its own administrative purposes; records or series of records that have been selected for transfer to The National Archives or place of deposit but are still required for administrative purposes; records or series of records which are awaiting appraisal or preparation for transfer.

  • Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2016-02-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the proportion of small and medium-sized enterprises in (a) West Sussex and (b) Mid Sussex that will have access to superfast broadband by completion of phase two of the superfast broadband programme.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    By the end of phase two of the Superfast Broadband Programme approximately 95% of homes and businesses in West Sussex will have access to superfast broadband. For the Mid Sussex constituency over 96% of premises will have access to superfast broadband by the end of the project.

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

    Lord Harrison – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-01.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what work NHS England and Monitor are undertaking to develop new payment and incentives mechanisms that drive integrated care for diabetes across primary and secondary care settings; and what is the time frame for any new proposals to be published.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    NHS England and Monitor are working closely together to ensure that the payment system supports service developments in the vanguard sites (including those where integrated diabetes care is a focus) as well as monitoring local innovative approaches to supporting integrated care taken by some clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). This is to ensure that the payment system keeps abreast with the development of future service models and is not a barrier to the development of new models of care.

    During 2016/17, NHS England will look at the current incentives and funding arrangements for diabetes to see how greater alignment could be achieved between the financial incentives for primary and secondary care.

    Information on how much money the National Health Service invested in structured education for diabetes patients is not collected centrally.

    Under the Health and Social Care Act (2012), NHS England has a statutory duty to conduct an annual assessment of every CCG. Since April 2013, CCGs have been assessed twice, for the period 2013/14 and for 2014/15.

    For 2016/17, NHS England will introduce a new CCG Improvement and Assessment Framework (CCG IAF). This new framework will align with NHS England’s mandate and planning process, with the aim of driving improvements in a number of key areas including the management and care of people with diabetes.

    NHS England has been working with Diabetes UK on including diabetes indicators in the CCG IAF. The proposed diabetes indicators are:

    – the percentage of diabetes patients that have achieved all three of the National Institute for Heath and Care Excellence recommended treatment targets; and

    – newly diagnosed diabetes patients referred to, or attending, a structured education course.

    Under the proposals, diabetes will also be one of the six clinical priority areas in the CCG IAF that will be overseen by an independent group.

    The CCG IAF proposals are subject to the outcome of an engagement process which closed for comments on February 26 2016. More information can be found at:

    https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/ccg-improvmnt/

    “

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of deaths in England caused by malnutrition in each of the last 10 years.

    Mr Rob Wilson

    The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

  • Alan Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Alan Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alan Campbell on 2016-05-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many households are in receipt of (a) feed-in tariff payments from solar PV installations, (b) domestic renewal heat incentive payments and (c) both such payments.

    Andrea Leadsom

    By the end of March 2016, there were

    • 722,559 households with solar PV benefitting from feed-in-tariff (FIT) payments.

    • 45,789 households with installations benefitting from renewable heat incentive (RHI) payments

    The number of households in receipt of both FIT and RHI payments is not available.

    Source data:

    FIT: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/sub-regional-feed-in-tariffs-confirmed-on-the-cfr-statistics

    RHI: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rhi-deployment-data-march-2016-q1-2016 (table 2.10)

    “

  • Joan Ryan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Joan Ryan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joan Ryan on 2016-06-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the human rights situation of the Alevi community in Turkey; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr David Lidington

    We have noted the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling and regularly discuss issues concerning freedom of religion and belief, including those of the Alevi community, with our Turkish interlocutors. We will continue to do so. The Turkish government continues to improve protections for all religious minorities in Turkey. We welcome the continuing implementation of the Law on Foundations which has seen a number of properties returned to minority community foundations or the payment of compensation. As we highlighted to Turkey through the 2015 UN Universal Periodic Review of human rights, we would like to see Turkey implement legislation that increases protection of the rights of persons belonging to all minority religious groups, including the status of their places of worship.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Iraqi government on devolution of powers to the Kurdistan regional government.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    The autonomy of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq remains enshrined in the 2003 Iraqi Constitution. The Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), our Ambassador to Baghdad, our Consul General in Erbil and I emphasise regularly with both the Government of Iraq and Kurdistan Regional Government the UK’s aim to see a stable, democratic, prosperous and unified Iraq. We also work actively to ensure that both the Kurdistan Regional Government and Government of Iraq cooperate to resolve their differences. In that context we welcome the recent revenue sharing agreement over Kirkuk oil.

  • Tim Loughton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Tim Loughton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Loughton on 2016-10-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that archaeology continues to be offered as an A-level subject.

    Nick Gibb

    The AQA exam board has taken the decision no longer to develop specifications for A and AS level archaeology. Whilst we are disappointed with this outcome, AQA is an independent organisation and is therefore free to make its own decisions on which qualifications to offer. In 2015/16, there were 340 entries for A level archaeology, including 332 in state-funded schools and Further Education colleges.

    We published content for archaeology AS/A level in January 2016. The option for AQA or another exam board to develop a specification in future will remain open.