The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of lone parents in receipt of (a) jobseeker’s allowance and (b) income support moved into work after successfully applying for a vacancy advertised on Universal Jobmatch in the most recent month for which figures are available.
Priti Patel
The information requested is not available.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Amess on 2016-01-06.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much HM Revenue and Customs spent on IT contractors in 2015.
Mr David Gauke
HM Revenue and Customs’ financial management systems do not hold the information requested because all costs relating to IT Contractors are classed within the generic value for IT Services and Project Development, so individual contractor costs are not identified separately.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Meacher on 2016-02-01.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they define vexatious” in relation to the objections submitted to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator by secularist campaigning groups over the last two years.”
Lord Nash
On 25 January 2016, the Secretary of State announced changes to the school admissions code, in order to give parents more of a say in the school admissions process so they can be confident the system works for them.
The Government proposes that only local parents and local authorities should be able to refer objections about a school’s admissions arrangements to the Schools Adjudicator. The Government wants to ensure that the Adjudicator is able to focus on any concerns which parents may have about the fairness of the admission arrangements of their local school, and that adjudications are not held up by the need to consider large numbers of objections referred by interest groups from outside the area.
The Department will conduct a full public consultation in due course and will give careful consideration to all the views expressed in that consultation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2016-02-25.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how he plans to reduce the cost per participant of the National Citizen Service.
Mr Rob Wilson
Consecutive, independent evaluations have demonstrated that National Citizen Service (NCS) delivers value for money and that the cost per participant has fallen since NCS began. In 2013, the NCS Trust, an independent social enterprise, was established to manage NCS and deliver the programme. Cabinet Office is working closely with the NCS Trust to develop their plans to extend NCS to 360,000 young people per year by 2020, whilst ensuring value for money for the taxpayer.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-03-21.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to include non-prescription incontinence pads, maternity pads and breast pads used by breastfeeding mothers in the definition of sanitary products for the purposes of zero rating under VAT.
Mr David Gauke
The zero rate of VAT will apply to any sanitary protection product that is designed and marketed solely for the absorption of collection of menstrual flow or lochia, including:
Eligible incontinence products, for sale to disabled people, are already zero rated.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2016-04-26.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of anti-semitism within bodies representing students in English universities.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
The Government is clear that there is absolutely no place in higher education or anywhere else in society for bigotry, hatred or any form of racism such as anti-Semitism.
Recent reports of anti-Semitism are extremely concerning and must be met with a decisive response. We expect all bodies with a role in English higher education to be absolutely clear in their opposition to racism in all its forms, and to have robust policies in place to tackle such hatred and support victims.
At the Government’s request, Universities UK has set up a taskforce to examine what more can be done to tackle harassment and hate crime on campus, including anti-Semitism.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-06-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what guidance he has issued to supported housing providers about funding following the absorption of housing benefit into universal credit.
Justin Tomlinson
The Department provides guidance for any changes made to Housing Benefit.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-09-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much funding has been provided to prevent and tackle Group B Strep infection among pregnant women in the last five years.
Mr Philip Dunne
Information on how much funding has been provided to prevent and tackle Group B Strep infection among pregnant women over the last five years is not collected centrally.
The Government has made clear that maternity care is a priority and on 13 November 2015 announced an ambition to reduce by 50% stillbirths, neonatal deaths, maternal deaths and neonatal brain injuries by 2030. This includes harm and death caused by Group B Streptococcus (GBS).
A range of work addressing GBS is being taken forward by the Department of Health and Public Health England with a range of partner organisations. This includes:
― Monitoring developments on GBS vaccines and undertaking a grant-funded study to assess the potential impact of a maternal immunisation programme.
― An audit in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and supported by the Royal College of Midwives, recently carried out by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). This examined current practice in preventing early onset neonatal GBS disease by investigating the implementation of the RCOG Green-top guideline on preventing the disease. The last of two reports was published on 29 January 2016 and has made recommendations for improvements in care in the prevention of early-onset GBS disease.
― The National Institute of Health Research has approved funding for a study on accuracy of a rapid intrapartum test for maternal group B streptococcal colonisation and its potential to reduce antibiotic usage in mothers with risk factors (GBS2). The study commenced in May 2016.
The Department is also convening two half day workshops with leading experts from a wide range of organisations, including the RCPG and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the charity Group B Strep Support to discuss research evidence gaps in relation to GBS.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-10-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of children living in relative poverty in the UK (a) on the latest date for which figures are available and (b) a year before that date.
Damian Hinds
Estimates of the number of children in relative low income in the UK are published in the National Statistics Households Below Average Income (HBAI) series.
In 2014/15 on a Before Housing Cost basis (BHC); there were 2.5 million children in relative poverty in the UK. In the previous year (2013/14) there were 2.3 million children in relative poverty in the UK. This increase however is not statistically significant.
The Prime Minister is clear that tackling poverty and disadvantage, and delivering real social reform, is a priority for this Government and we will be coming back to the House with a number of announcements over the coming months.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2015-11-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to page 8 of the consultation document Tackling Exploitation in the Labour Market, published in October 2015, if she will publish research conducted by her Department that shows that there has been a shift from abuses of employment regulation towards increasingly organised criminal activity engaged in labour market exploitation over the last 10 years.
Karen Bradley
Operational information, which is not publically discloseable, received from the Gangmasters’ Licensing Authority indicates that, since the Authority began operations in 2006, it has seen an increase in the number of vulnerable people being exploited by organised criminals and criminal networks for profit in the sectors it regulates.
Further information about the role of organised criminal activity would come from the proposed new role of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement who will have a role to gather information on worker exploitation and publish a strategic approach to tackling it.