Category: Speeches

  • Baroness Barker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Baroness Barker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Barker on 2016-02-22.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, prior to the change of terms and conditions attached to all grant agreement letters issued by public-sector grant providers to recipients of grant funding being announced by the Cabinet Office on 6 February, due diligence was undertaken to ensure that that policy complies with Article 5.3 of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

    Lord Bridges of Headley

    Article 5.3 of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control requires governments to protect public health policy from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry. The grant funding clause announced on 6 February 2016 helps protect the taxpayer by ensuring that grants are only used for the purposes for which they are intended. It is therefore entirely consistent with the aforementioned Article.

  • Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-03-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the UK is taking to support the provision of climate risk insurance to people who are most vulnerable to the impact of climate change; and how much funding she plans to allocate to such support.

    Mr Nick Hurd

    The UK is a leader in climate risk insurance and is committed to contributing to meeting the G7 “InsuResilience” collective target set out in the Elmau declaration of helping up to an additional 400 million people in the most vulnerable developing countries to gain access to climate risk insurance by 2020.

    Recent UK support for the provision of climate risk insurance includes contributions of up to £100m to African Risk Capacity (ARC), up to £15m for the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative, £5m to help developing countries with disaster contingency planning backed by risk finance, £3m of technical support to the Government of the Philippines to help them implement their financial protection and insurance strategy, and £1.4m to support livestock insurance for pastoralists in Kenya.

  • Angela Rayner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Angela Rayner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Rayner on 2016-04-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the proportion of members of master trust pension schemes who are enrolled in schemes subject to the master trust assurance framework.

    Justin Tomlinson

    Over 90% of the total memberships within master trust schemes are in master trusts that are signed up to the master trust assurance framework.

    This is a performance indicator for the Pensions Regulator and the result will be published in their next annual report and accounts.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-05-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what the average hourly earnings were of her Department’s (a) BME and (b) non-BME employees in (i) 2015 and (ii) 2016.

    Mrs Theresa Villiers

    My Department does not hold the information requested in this format. To create this information would incur a disproportionate cost.

  • 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, what resources the Government has allocated to anti-fraud measures relating to the Right to Buy scheme; and how that allocation compares to measures aimed at preventing or detecting benefit 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.

  • Christian Matheson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Christian Matheson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Christian Matheson on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 30 September 2016 to Question 46253, what steps her Department has taken via (a) broadcast media, (b) UK Visas and Immigration, and (c) agencies of her Department to advise employers of their responsibilities under a points-based immigration system on employing non-EU nationals in the UK; and what the cost of that advice was to the public purse in the latest period for which figures are available.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    Comprehensive guidance for employers is published on the gov.uk website, and we regularly engage with employers and trade bodies, at no additional cost to routine business.

  • Nicholas Brown – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Nicholas Brown – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2015-11-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what aid her Department is providing to Indonesia to assist with tackling forest fires.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    The UK is providing technical support through a number of channels. For example, the UK Climate Change Unit in Indonesia has funded the World Resource Institute’s Global Forest and Fire Watch which provides free real-time information on fire spots, linking these data to land licensing and land type. In addition, the UK’s Forest Land-Use and Governance (FLAG) programme in Indonesia is funding longer-term fire prevention work through civil society, private sector and government, focusing on transparency, accountability and spatial planning to resolve the land governance issues that lead to fires.

  • Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    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 case for financial services executives being paid according to the number of women in senior roles.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    The Government has asked Jayne-Anne Gadhia, CEO of Virgin Money, to lead a review into the representation of women in senior managerial roles in the financial services industry. One of Jayne-Anne Gadhia’s potential recommendations is to link variable pay for the Executive Team to reaching internal targets set by the organisation on the representation of women at a senior level.

    The government welcomes Jayne-Anne Gadhia’s work to date and will consider the final recommendations when the review reports next year.

  • Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-01-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teachers have been recruited through the Troops to Teachers scheme.

    Nick Gibb

    One cohort has completed their training to date with a further two cohorts currently in training. In total, 144 teachers have been recruited through the scheme.

  • 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 when the first results from the prostate patient reported outcomes, and in particular for incontinence rates, will be available from the National Prostate Cancer Audit.

    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.