Category: Speeches

Lord Naseby – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Naseby on 2015-10-28.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will publish annually a list of Alternative Investment Market companies that qualify for Inheritance Tax relief.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not have a list of Alternative Investment Market companies that qualify for Business Property Relief.

The claim to the relief will depend on the circumstances of each case. Shares in a company might no longer qualify for Business Property Relief if the company went into liquidation or moved to a full listing on the UK Stock Exchange after publication. Any information provided by HMRC about a company may become out of date quickly raising the risk that relief is claimed incorrectly.

January 1, 2023
Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2015-12-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what expenditure his Department was on (a) temporary agency staff, (b) consultants, (c) non-payroll staff, (d) administration and (e) marketing and advertising on making the Defence Infrastructure Organisation government-owned in (i) 2011-12, (ii) 2012-13, (iii) 2013-14 and (iv) 2014-15.

Mark Lancaster

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) has been led by a Strategic Business Partner (SBP) since September 2014. The SBP contract allowed for the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to instruct the incorporation of DIO as a Government-owned company (GovCo), subject to a value for money review.

I announced the conclusions of the review in my written statement of 10 December 2015 (Official Report, columns 55-56WS). The GovCo model would have been led by the SBP but 100% owned by the Secretary of State for Defence. A GovCo is distinct from a Government-owned contractor-operated organisation (GOCO) which has a different legal construct. The MOD has never proposed for the DIO to become a GOCO.

January 1, 2023
Margaret Ferrier – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Scotland Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ferrier on 2016-01-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what recent discussions he has had with the Scottish Government on the screening of asylum seekers in Scotland.

David Mundell

UK and Scottish Government officials have regular discussions regarding immigration matters, including screening of asylum seekers in Scotland.

January 1, 2023
Neil Coyle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Neil Coyle on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of how many disabled people will move into work as a result of changes to the employment and allowance work-related activity group; and what research he has conducted into the effects of those changes.

Priti Patel

The Government set out its assessment of the impacts of the welfare policies in the Bill on 20th July last year.

Whilst the policy is intended to provide the right incentives to help individuals back into work, it is not possible to quantify based on behavioral changes which are difficult to assess.

January 1, 2023
Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps Public Health England has taken in conjunction with the National Public Health Workforce Advisory Group to implement the public mental health leadership and workforce development framework, published in March 2015.

Jane Ellison

Since publication, Public Health England (PHE) has worked with national partners and with local authorities to co-ordinate implementation of the public mental health leadership and workforce development (PMHLWD) framework. Twenty national partners have signed the Call to Action to implement the framework.

PHE is working closely with Health Education England (HEE) to incorporate the PMHLWD framework into the forthcoming Mental Health Skills and Knowledge Framework (commissioned by the Department). It has been cited in the Mental Health Task Force report and PHE will continue to work with HEE to implement the PMHLWD framework’s priorities via the Task Force and Future in Mind working groups.

PHE has incorporated the PMHLWD framework into the revised Public Health Skills and Knowledge Framework, the review of the future workforce and its wider workforce programme. This has included integrating mental health and wellbeing into the Making Every Contact Count programme.

PHE has supported delivery via local public mental health networks joint commissioning of training, collating examples of training programmes, developing e-learning modules and delivering local workshops and presentations.

January 1, 2023
Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many interventions by the Forced Marriages Unit led to criminal prosecutions of people perpetrating forced marriages.

Karen Bradley

The jointly led Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) leads on the Government’s forced marriage policy, outreach and casework. Figures on the number of cases reported to the FMU via its public helpline and email inbox are published annually and are available on GOV.uk. The figures include a breakdown of cases by age range. The FMU acts in an advisory capacity, and information on the number of cases which resulted in prosecutions is therefore not collated centrally.

We made forced marriage a criminal offence in 2014 to send a clear message that this brutal practice will not be tolerated in the UK. We are encouraged by the first conviction in June 2015, and the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) most recent report shows that the volume of referrals from the police to the CPS has risen from 67 in 2013-14 to 82 in 2014-15. But there is still work to be done, and we will continue to work with partners to lead efforts to tackle this abhorrent crime.

January 1, 2023
Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2016-05-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve east-west transport connectivity in the North of England.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The Government is committed to improving transport connectivity across the North of England, including east-west routes. Current work includes upgrades to the road network as set out in Road Investment Strategy: for the 2015/16 – 2019/20 Road Period (March 2015).

Work has already started to deliver improved rail journeys between Liverpool and Manchester. The Ordsall chord will enable direct links from the Northeast to Manchester Airport. Sir Peter Hendy’s rail upgrade re-plan (Hendy review – Replanning Network Rail’s investment programme: a report from Sir Peter Hendy to the Transport Secretary (Nov 2015)) includes significant benefits for the North of England, such as the Transpennine Route Upgrade Programme, which is aligned to Rail North’s Long Term Rail Strategy (September 2015). Current proposals are to deliver faster journeys and more capacity on the existing railway line between Leeds and Manchester. This work is expected to provide up to six fast trains per hour, with a target journey time of 62 minutes between Manchester and York and 40 minutes between Leeds and Manchester.

Additionally, the new TransPennine Express (TPE) and Northern franchises, which came into effect on 1 April, will deliver a range of significant benefits to their passengers, including increases to services between Manchester and Newcastle, more daily services to Hull from Manchester and Leeds, and 44 new 125 mph TPE trains fitted with free Wi-Fi and real-time passenger information screens.

The Government is also working with Transport for the North on future transport plans in the North of England. As set out in the Northern Transport Strategy: Spring 2016 Report (March 2016), these plans include east-west connectivity improvements through HS3/Northern Powerhouse Rail and the strategic studies investigating the cases for a trans-Pennine road tunnel and upgrading the A66 and A69.

All four documents referred to in this reply have been placed in the libraries of both Houses.

January 1, 2023

Tim Loughton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Loughton on 2016-07-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many young people have (a) started, (b) completed and graduated from and (c) registered for the National Citizen Service since its inception.

Mr Rob Wilson

The table below provides the most complete information on the number of young people who have registered for, begun and completed NCS. There was considerable national growth in the programme in 2015 – exact figures on 2015 NCS participation will be published in the independent evaluation in due course.

	Total registered	Total participants	Total completers
2011	10,897	8,434	6,809
2012	30,987	26,003	21,360
2013	50,924	39,994	37,266
2014	74,559	57,789	52,413

The small number of participants for whom we recorded missing completion data have not been included in the above figures. Figures on participants and completers are available in the published independent evaluations of NCS.

January 1, 2023

John Pugh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Pugh on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of staff on the payroll of his Department who work in Westminster are (a) British nationals and (b) nationals of another country.

Mr Marcus Jones

All government departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules.

Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.

January 1, 2023
Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-10-28.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government to what extent the level of recorded crime in a police force’s area affects the amount of funding allocated under the proposed new formula for funding of police forces.

Lord Bates

The proposed police funding model is based on a set of objective indicators that correlate strongly with long term patterns of crime.

As we set out in our consultation on a proposed new funding model, we believe it is not appropriate to directly base force level allocations on crime statistics as these are directly influenced by police activity.

January 1, 2023