Category: Speeches

  • Tristram Hunt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Tristram Hunt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-04-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many jobs in (a) his Department and (b) each of his Department’s non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The number of people employed in DWP offices in East Cheshire Local Authority area at March 2011, which is the earliest information available, was 198. The current number of people employed as at March 2016, which is the latest information available, is 135. The reduction is in line with increased efficiencies and reducing workloads as more people have moved into work.

    Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has only had an office presence in East Cheshire Local Authority area, in Crewe, since 25 January 2016. This follows the relocation of 31 staff from Stoke-on-Trent on that date with no staff losses at that time. As of March 2016 HSE has 30 staff based in Crewe.

    DWP and HSE have not yet developed detailed workforce plans up to 2020. There are currently no further plans for relocation or specific reductions of posts in East Cheshire.

  • Philip Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Philip Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2016-05-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people of each ethnicity were sent to prison in each of the last five years.

    Andrew Selous

    The number of offenders sentenced to immediate custody in England and Wales at Crown Courts, by ethnicity, from 2011 to 2015, can be found in the sentencing data tool contained in the annual Criminal Justice Statistics publication, linked below.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2015

    It is not possible to present a representative picture of ethnicity at magistrates’ courts because data on ethnicity at magistrates’ courts is not recorded for all offences.

    “

  • Gerald Howarth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Gerald Howarth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gerald Howarth on 2016-07-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether there has been any evidence of fraud relating to the Right to Buy scheme; and what steps the Government has taken to prevent such fraud.

    Brandon Lewis

    This Government takes fraud extremely seriously. The Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013 increased the deterrent to tenants considering cheating the system, ensuring those who do cheat are detected more easily and punished more severely, and encourages social landlords to take a more proactive approach to tackling tenancy fraud.

    We also provided £19 million funding to help councils tackle tenancy fraud as part of over £35 million government funding to tackle fraud across local government.

    We have recently set up a Right to Buy Working Group with representative of housing associations, local authorities and lenders to identify additional safeguards to curb fraud when the Voluntary Right to Buy scheme is rolled out to 1.3 million housing association tenants. Work is underway developing the detailed design of the scheme in collaboration with the housing association sector, specifically looking at how fraud and opportunistic practice prevention measures can, as far as possible, be designed into the sales process.

  • Fiona Mactaggart – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Fiona Mactaggart – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona Mactaggart on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people were returned to Vietnam under the assisted voluntary return scheme in each year from 2013 to 2016 to date; and how many such people had been subject to positive grounds National Referral Mechanism decisions in each such year.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The number of people returned from the UK to Vietnam in each year by Enforced Removals and Voluntary Returns is published on a quarterly basis in Immigration Statistics on the GOV.UK website: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release

    The information you requested can be found in tables rt_05 and rt_05_q of the returns tables: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/572383/returns5-q3-2016-tables.ods

    This link will help you to find the most updated returns data by country of destination. The data within this table can be filtered, enabling you to obtain information specifically relating to removals to Vietnam. Instruction on how to use the filters can be found on the ‘contents’ tab.

    We do not hold the requested data of how many such people had been subject to positive grounds decisions on the National Referral Mechanism in the requested format.

  • Ian Austin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Ian Austin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Austin on 2015-11-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what organisations her Department is working with to deliver humanitarian aid in Nepal.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    DFID is working with a range of partners to deliver humanitarian aid in Nepal. These include: a set of Prequalified NGO partners working with local partners that helped facilitate a rapid response in the aftermath of Earthquake; International Organizations such as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC); and the multilateral system which includes the United Nations.

  • Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2015-12-14.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the likely impact of the apprenticeship levy on wage growth over the next five years.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The OBR forecasts that wages will grow over the next few years, though at a slightly lower rate than would have been the case had the apprenticeship levy not been introduced.

    However, we know that apprenticeships have long-run productivity and wage benefits for apprentices and the wider economy, which are not included in the OBR’s modelling. On average, an apprenticeship increases an individual’s earnings by 11-16% within three to five years.[1]

    The medium-term benefits of apprenticeships can therefore outweigh short-term wage pressures. We thus consider the net impact of the apprenticeships levy on the economy to be positive.

    [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-education-measuring-the-net-present-value-in-england

    “

  • Ian Austin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Ian Austin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Austin on 2016-01-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria her Department used to identify the 312 schools that had been classified as having fallen beneath the floor target in the school performance tables in England for 2014 to 2015, published in January 2016.

    Nick Gibb

    In 2014/15, 312 schools were below the 5+ A*-C including English and mathematics and expected progress floor standard. Schools were deemed to be below the floor standard if:

    • Fewer than 40% of pupils achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A*-C or equivalent, including both English and mathematics; and
    • The school had a below median score for the percentage of pupils making expected progress between key stage 2 and key stage 4 in English; and
    • The school had a below median score for the percentage of pupils making expected progress between key stage 2 and key stage 4 in mathematics.

    From 2016 Progress 8 will replace the existing 5 A*-C headline measure. Progress 8 will show pupils’ progress to a suite of 8 qualifications compared to other pupils with the same starting point at the end of key stage 2. The new measure will reward better teaching of all pupils and make the system of measuring performance fairer for schools.

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

    Lord Freyberg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Freyberg on 2016-02-22.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government for those trusts carrying out radical prostate cancer treatments, what were the results for the following responses to the most recent National Prostate Cancer Audit: (1) the number of operations undertaken in the audit period, (2) the proportion of those operations with a hospital length of stay of over three days, and (3) the proportion of those operations requiring emergency readmission within 90 days.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    The proportion of men diagnosed with locally advanced prostate cancer between 2010 and 2013 (the Audit period) who had radical treatment, and the proportion who had a hospital length of stay over three days and who required an emergency readmission within 90 days following an operation, are presented by health region in the attached headed Table 1.

    It should be noted that the results presented are based on an analysis of data from the English Cancer Registry linked to the Hospital Episode Statistics. These data were collected before the start of the National Prostate Cancer Audit (NPCA) in April 2013.

    The number of radical prostatectomies undertaken in men diagnosed between 2010 and 2013, and the proportion of men who had a hospital length of stay over three days and who had an emergency readmission within 90 days following an operation, are presented in the attached headed Table 2. The results of 56 men included in the data set used to generate Figure 8 in the NPCA Annual Report 2015 could not be included in Table 2. Of these men, 37 were treated in National Health Service trusts that treated fewer than five patients during the Audit period; and for 19 patients it was not possible to identify the NHS trust where they had undergone treatment without incurring disproportionate cost.

    The first results for the patient-reported outcomes of men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1 April 2014 and 30 September 2014, and who underwent radical treatment (prostatectomy, external beam radiation, brachytherapy, cryotherapy, and high-intensity focused ultrasound), will be included in the NPCA’s Annual Report 2016, which is due to be published in the last quarter of 2016. These results will include incontinence rates.

    Men who had radical prostate cancer treatment were invited to complete a questionnaire about their experiences of care as well as about treatment outcomes, 18 months after the date of diagnosis. It was decided that questionnaires should be sent out at this time after diagnosis because it can take more than one year for men who have radiotherapy, in combination with androgen deprivation therapy, to complete their treatment. Subsequently, it will take at least three months for men to fully recover from the transient side effects of the radiotherapy. In order to include all men and to measure the final treatment outcome – rather than outcomes still affected by the transient side effects – an 18-month period was chosen.

  • Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine West on 2016-03-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding the Government has allocated to cycling schemes in each year since 2010.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    In the five financial years from 2010/11 to 2014/15, the Department for Transport has provided: £63m to Cycling England, £94m to the Cycle Ambition Cities and National Parks fund, £30m to the Linking Communities/Cycle Rail fund, £12m to Links to Schools, £44m to Bikeability cycle training and £35m to the Cycle Safety fund. Between 2011 and 2015, the Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) also provided 28% of its budget, or £151m, to cycling projects. Overall between 2011 and 2015 funding was more than doubled compared to the previous administration.

    For 2015/16, a further £15m will be invested in Cycle Rail, £11m in Bikeability and £64.5m in LSTF projects; £15m was also invested in the second phase of the Cycle Ambition City programme. Looking forward, a further £99m will be invested in the Cycle Ambition Cities, £50m in Bikeability and £100m via the Road Investment Strategy.

    Long-term funding is also available for cycling from the Integrated Transport Block, Highways Maintenance Block, and the Local Growth Fund, where around £270m is already planned by Local Enterprise Partnerships for cycling infrastructure.

  • Lord Scriven – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Lord Scriven – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Scriven on 2016-04-14.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the cost and headcount implications of moving the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills office from Sheffield to London by 2018, as indicated in BIS2020 Finance and Headcount.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The Government does not comment on leaked documents.