Category: Speeches

Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if the Government will (a) carry out its own assessment and (b) support an independent international inquiry into whether the airstrike on a community hall in Sana’a, where a funeral was taking place, on 8 October 2016, breached international humanitarian law.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The Coalition has announced it will immediately investigate this case along with Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT). The UK Government does not reach a conclusion as to whether or not an International Humanitarian Law violation has taken place in relation to each and every incident of potential concern that comes to its attention. This would simply not be possible in conflicts to which the UK is not a party, as is the case in Yemen. However, as I said in my statement of 9 October, we will press the coalition to release their report into this incident as a matter of urgency.

01/01/2023
Christopher Chope – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Christopher Chope on 2015-10-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many employees of Border Force are seconded to Frontex; and in what locations such staff are deployed.

James Brokenshire

UK Border Force currently has twelve staff deployed to support Frontex joint operations in the Mediterranean, and one staff member seconded to Frontex Headquarters, Returns Sector, in Warsaw. Eight of the twelve staff support joint operation ‘Poseidon Sea’ in Greece: two in Kos, three in Lesbos, one in Leros, one in Samos and one in Chios; and four support Frontex joint operation ‘Triton’ in Italy: two in Trapani, one in Lampedusa and one in Syracuse.

UK staff cannot exercise any powers on Frontex operations. Border Force staff debrief migrants to gather intelligence on their routing, modus operandi and any facilitators involved; Border Force staff also screen migrants to establish their identity, to aid the host member state with documentation and return of those migrants with no right of stay in Europe.

01/01/2023
Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2015-11-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Lenox Project in south-east London.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Lenox Project is an independent private enterprise project.

01/01/2023
Lord Warner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2015-12-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment the Department of Health or NHS England has made of the risk of the wide-scale withdrawal of adult social care providers from publicly-funded social care markets and the implications of such a withdrawal for the NHS; and whether such a possible withdrawal features on the Department of Health risk register.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The Department monitors a number of risks to the health and social care system through its high level risk register, including the availability of good quality adult social care that is affordable for local authority and National Health Service commissioners.

The Department is working with local authorities, NHS England, the Care Quality Commission and the provider sector to understand the extent of this risk and its potential drivers, which will include consideration of the extent to which some providers are possibly withdrawing from the publically funded adult social care market.

The Care Act (2014) places duties on local authorities to step in and ensure people’s needs continue to be met if a provider fails financially and services cease. The Department has worked with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Information Unit to publish guidance to support local authorities develop effective contingency plans for provider failure – Care and Continuity: Contingency planning for provider failure. The guidance is attached. The guidance recommends that contingency plans are co-produced with relevant partners, including NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups to ensure these plans are aligned.

Local authorities routinely manage market exits in their area and discharge their Care Act duties. If a situation arose that local authorities found challenging, for example because of its scale and the lack of spare capacity in the area, the Department would work with partners to support them.

01/01/2023
Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-01-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Anelay of St Johns on 22 January (HL4827), what are the contents of those statements by the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, and where those statements are published.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Statements made by the Office of the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect are published on the UN website.

The statements cover a range of issues including incitement to violence in Syria on religious grounds; urging against rhetoric that escalates the risk of violence against religious communities; expressing concern about the on-going threat to the safety of minority groups in Syria; expressing outrage at speeches and media articles that dehumanise Alawites and Christians; expressing alarm at reports of the abduction of 1,500 Yazidi, Christian and Shabak women and girls; expressing concern at the situation of religious and other minorities, noting that members of the Christian community were fleeing the northern city of Mosul following the Daesh-led invasion; urging leaders in the wider region to refrain from using or condoning any language that may escalate sectarian tension; calling on all actors to condemn hate speech that could constitute incitement to violence against communities based on their religious affiliation.

The complete statements are attached to this response, and the link to the website is provided below for your ease of reference: http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/statements.shtml

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01/01/2023

Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many first admission episodes there were with a primary diagnosis of an eating disorder in (a) England and (b) the UK in (i) 2014-15 and (ii) each month in 2015-16 for which figures are available.

Alistair Burt

The Department is responsible for health and care in England only. Responsibility and therefore data relating to the rest of the United Kingdom are a matter for the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The following table shows the number of finished admission episodes (FAEs) for England with a primary diagnosis of an eating disorder for the whole year April 2014 to March 2015 and provisional data by month from April to October 2015.

Month of Admission	FAE^*
2014-15 total	2,876
April 2015	238
May 2015	230
June 2015	220
July 2015	204
August 2015	166
September 2015	176
October 2015	179

* FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.

01/01/2023

Ben Bradshaw – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Bradshaw on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 26 February 2016 to Question 28059, whether representatives of ex-intraveneous drug users and former sex-workers will be invited to sit on the working group being formed by the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs as part of its review of blood donor selection criteria.

Jane Ellison

Stakeholder representation on the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood Tissue and Organs’ Donor Selection Criteria Working Group consists of the Terence Higgins Trust, National Aids Trust, Patients Association, Sickle Cell Society, Thalassemia Society and the LGBT Consortium. A Stakeholder meeting is planned alongside the first meeting of the Working Group and a wider range of stakeholders is to be invited. Relevant stakeholder representatives such as former sex workers and ex-intravenous drug users will be invited to attend the Working Group when it is considering particular aspects of donor selection criteria.

01/01/2023
Naz Shah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Naz Shah on 2016-04-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of children attending a breakfast club in primary schools in (a) England, (b) Yorkshire and the Humber and (c) Bradford in the last 12 months for which records are available.

Mr Sam Gyimah

The most recent results of the Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey suggest that in England in 2013, around 591,200 school-aged children under eight attended before school care in a typical term-time week. However, it is not possible to identify within this total the number of children who attended provision in primary and secondary schools separately. In addition, the survey sample sizes do not allow for an estimate for Yorkshire and the Humber, or LA level estimates, nor does it collect information about secondary age children.

The findings of the Survey can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2013

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01/01/2023
Kerry McCarthy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what her plans are for assessing the effect of badger culling on the spread of bovine TB among cattle; and who she plans to undertake that assessment.

George Eustice

The Animal and Plant Health Agency continues to assess the incidence of bovine tuberculosis in cattle in areas where badger control is licensed.

01/01/2023
Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-07-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to make an assessment of the report by the Refugee Support Network After Return, in particular with a view to preventing hardship and persecution of 18-year-old refugees sent back to their country of origin and to gaining benefits for the UK from the education of those individuals by not insisting on return in all cases.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

We do not send refugees back to their country of origin. Those who no longer need protection are not refugees and are expected to apply under other provisions of the Immigration Rules if they want to stay in the UK.

We have noted the content of the report but believe that the current policy framework meets the needs of this group and strikes the correct balance. Decision makers take into account the specific vulnerabilities of individuals when considering applications for further leave in addition to considering whether there are other exceptional or compassionate reasons to justify granting leave.

01/01/2023