Category: Speeches

William Wragg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2016-05-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will place in the Library copies of all letters, leaflets and other material from his Department circulated to (a) stakeholders and (b) members of the public on the EU referendum; what the costs of the production and distribution of that material has been since 1 January 2016; and what he estimates the cost of any further production and distribution of such material will be between 6 May 2016 and 23 June 2016.

Mr Shailesh Vara

I refer the Hon. Member to the answer given by my Hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose) UIN 38811.

01/01/2023
Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-07-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what progress has been made on giving housing association tenants whose tenancies are defined as market rental the right to buy.

Gavin Barwell

The voluntary Right to Buy will give 1.3 million housing association tenants the opportunity to purchase a home. We are currently working with the National Housing Federation and the housing association sector on the implementation of the main scheme and will announce more details in due course.

As is set out in the voluntary agreement, the scheme will apply to those housing association tenants who live in a social or affordable rented home.

01/01/2023
Steve McCabe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans he has to exempt sheltered housing tenants from the housing benefit cap.

Caroline Nokes

The Secretary of State announced in a Written Ministerial Statement on 15 September 2016 that we would be deferring the application of Local Housing Allowance Rates in the social sector for supported housing which includes sheltered housing until 2019/20.

At this point we will bring in a new funding model which will ensure that the sector continues to be funded at current levels, taking into account the effect of Government policy on social sector rents.

The Secretary of State also announced that a formal consultation would be published shortly.

01/01/2023
Lord Stone of Blackheath – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stone of Blackheath on 2015-10-28.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many statutory instruments were made in the first five months of (1) the 2010–15 Parliament, and (2) this Parliament.

Lord Bridges of Headley

For the period 18 May 2010 to 18 October 2010, 290 statutory instruments were made or laid in draft. For the period 18 May 2015 to 18 October 2015, 268 statutory instruments were made or laid in draft.

01/01/2023
Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-11-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of academic health science networks on uptake of medical technology.

George Freeman

Speeding up the adoption of innovation into practice to improve clinical outcomes and patient experience has been one of the four core contractual objectives for Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) since their establishment in 2013.

AHSNs have taken a range of approaches in delivering their objectives which have been selected in response to the priorities of their local populations and health economies. AHSNs are supporting over 150 active programmes and projects across a range of clinical and cross-cutting themes, many of which support the spread and adoption of innovations in their localities. In addition, AHSNs also host the Small Business Research Initiative and are facilitating the creation of Test Beds – both of which involve supporting the development and spread of healthcare technologies.

As part of NHS England’s assurance process, AHSNs are expected to publish annual reports to update their stakeholders on their achievements against their business plans. Annual reports can be found on individual AHSN websites.

Case studies and exemplars of how AHSNs are supporting the speed up adoption of innovation into practice can be found in the resources section of the AHSNs Network website: www.ahsnnetwork.com

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01/01/2023

Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many households in (a) Birmingham, Northfield constituency, (b) the West Midlands and (c) the UK have prepayment meters; and what the change in the number of such meters has been in each of those areas over the last five years.

Andrea Leadsom

Data on methods of payment for domestic energy consumers are published in Quarterly Energy Prices, tables 2.4.2 and 2.5.2.

This is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/quarterly-domestic-energy-price-stastics .

The tables below show the proportion of customers within the region using pre-payment meters for each year since 2010. Data is only available at the Public Electricity Supply (PES) region level.

	*2010*	*2011*	*2012*	*2013*	*2014*
Electricity
Electricity
West Midlands	15.3%	15.8%	16.3%	16.6%	17.0%
UK	15.0%	15.4%	15.8%	16.3%	16.7%
Gas
West Midlands	13.4%	14.0%	14.8%	15.3%	15.7%
GB	12.6%	13.2%	14.0%	14.5%	15.1%

Data above are produced from a sample survey (DECC’s domestic fuel inquiry).

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01/01/2023

Angela Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2016-01-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to paragraph 12 of Advice Note: 05/2015 on the Harm-Benefit Analysis Process, how many project licence applications were withdrawn at the (a) concept and (b) draft stage as a result of advice from the Animals in Science Regulation Unit that the application would clearly fail the harm-benefit analysis in each year since 2012.

Mr John Hayes

The Harm-Benefit Analysis (HBA) is undertaken, on behalf of the Secretary of State, by the Animals in Science Regulation Unit inspectors, all of whom are veterinary or medically qualified and trained in assessing research proposals. The HBA is the process of considering a research proposal to make a judgement whether the likely harms that the animals will experience are justified by the likely benefits. Under section 18 of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, inspectors advise the Secretary of State who decides whether and on what terms a project licence should be granted.

The number of project licences which were recommended for grant by the Animals in Science Regulation Unit inspectors between 2012 and 2015 are shown in table 1, column (c).

The Secretary of State has not rejected any of the recommendations for granting project licences made by the Animals in Science Regulation Unit inspectors between 2012 and 2015.

The Home Office does not keep records of applications that have been rejected or withdrawn at the concept or drafting stage [24507]. The Home Office does not keep records of which applications were withdrawn as a result of advice from the Animals in Science Regulation Unit inspectors.

The Home Office refers project licence applications to both the Animals in Science Committee and external independent assessors for critical review. The number of project licences referred to both is given in Table 1 columns (a) and (b) respectively for the years 2012-15.

Year	(a) Project licence applications referred to the Animals in Science Committee[1]	(b) Project licence applications referred to independent assessors	(c) Project licences granted
2012	9	4	626
2013	3	0	604
2014	4	1	474
2015	3	0	577

[1] Prior to 2013 the independent advisory body was entitled the ‘Animals Procedures Committee’

01/01/2023

Mark Durkan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Durkan on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that approved personalised medicines are available to patients with colorectal cancer.

George Freeman

On 24 September, the NHS England Board agreed the development of a Personalised Medicine Strategy for the National Health Service. Personalised medicine is a move away from a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the treatment and care of patients with a particular condition. It uses emergent approaches in areas such as diagnostic tests, functional genomic technologies, molecular pathways, data analytics and real time monitoring of conditions to better manage patients’ health and to target therapies to achieve the best outcomes in the management of a patient’s disease or predisposition to disease. The high-level vision and strategy is to create a Personalised Medicine service in the NHS embracing four overarching principles: the prediction and prevention of disease; more precise diagnoses; targeted and personalised interventions; and a more participatory role for patients.

The independent Cancer Taskforce’s five-year strategy for cancer, Achieving World-Class Outcomes (July 2015), recommends improvements across the cancer pathway, with the aim of improving survival rates.

NHS England is currently working with partners across the health system to determine how best to take forward the recommendations of the Cancer Taskforce. NHS England has appointed Cally Palmer as National Cancer Director to lead on implementation, as well as new cancer vanguards to redesign care and patient experience. She has set up a new Cancer Transformation Board to implement the strategy, and this met for the first time on Monday 25 January. There will also be a Cancer Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Harpal Kumar, to oversee and scrutinise the work of the Transformation Board.

The Accelerated Access Review, chaired by Sir Hugh Taylor, will make recommendations to government on reforms to accelerate access for NHS patients to transformative new medicines and technologies making our country the best place in the world to design, develop and deploy these products. The terms of the reference for the review focus on faster access to innovations, which may include personalised medicines for the treatment of colorectal cancer.

01/01/2023
Diane Abbott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diane Abbott on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will make an assessment of the extent to which recent changes to the OECD’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) definition will divert ODA away from welfare programmes into military programmes.

Justine Greening

The recent DAC High Level Meeting was able to agree the first update in the ODA rules in over 40 years and reflect the changing nature of aid delivery. All of this is in line with the primary purpose of ODA – to support the economic development and welfare of development countries – and this has not changed.

01/01/2023
Derek Twigg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Derek Twigg on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to merge clinical commissioning groups during the course of the current Parliament.

George Freeman

There are no plans to merge clinical commissioning groups.

01/01/2023