The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mrs Anne Main on 2015-12-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will publish an analysis of the outcomes and costs of the third badger cull.
George Eustice
The Government has published a summary of badger control monitoring during 2015 on the GOV.UK website. The Government will publish its costs once they have been finalised.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Jopling on 2016-01-27.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 22 July 2015 (HL1470), whether the review of the failures that caused the cost of the recent A1 roadworks near Gamston Airport to escalate has been completed, and what conclusion and lessons have emerged from that review.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The close out of the scheme and associated financial reconciliation is pending and therefore it would be premature to draw conclusions at this time.
Landscaping for the scheme and remedial works are nearing their final stages and completion of the contract is expected at the end of March. A “lessons learned” review will be held as soon as possible in April.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-02-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people appealing their ineligibility for the enhanced rate of mobility under personal independent payment have been successful in their appeals.
Mr Shailesh Vara
The First-tier Tribunal – Social Security and Child Support administered by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), hears appeals against Department for Work and Pensions’ decisions on a range of benefits including Personal Independence Payment.
The information about the number and success rates of SSCS appeals by benefit type, including PIP, is published in the Tribunal and Gender Recognition Certificate Statistics Quarterly at the link below:
The specific information requested is not held centrally.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nick Thomas-Symonds on 2016-03-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether unemployed 18 to 21 year olds will be referred to specialist employment support providers under the Youth Obligation from 2017 if they are unemployed after one year of claiming benefits.
Priti Patel
We will be introducing the Youth Obligation for all 18-21 year olds who are claiming Universal Credit and are in the All Work Related Activity Conditionality Group from April 2017.
They will receive intensive support from Day 1 of their claim. After 6 months, if they have not found employment, they will be expected to apply for an apprenticeship, a traineeship, gain work-based skills employers value, or go on a work placement to give them the skills they need to get on in work.
The detailed policy design is still under development. We will make further announcements over the coming months as we develop the policy detail.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chuka Umunna on 2016-04-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what role her Department had in the selection of appointed local authority heads of social services departments from 1985 to 2015.
Karen Bradley
The Home Secretary has not had any involvement in appointing local authority heads of social services departments.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-05-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people with (a) Crohn’s disease and (b) ulcerative colitis have been treated with biological drugs in each of the last five years.
George Freeman
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended four different biological drugs for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), the collective term for Crohn’s disease and colitis, for use after the failure of conventional therapies or in patients for whom such therapies are not appropriate. The National Health Service is legally obliged to fund medicines and treatments recommended by NICE’s technology appraisals.
Although information concerning the exact number of people with IBD who have been treated with biological drugs in each of the last five years is not available, and no specific assessment of access has been made, some data are collected as part of the IBD audit. The IBD audit programme is commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership on behalf of NHS England and Wales (with additional funding from Healthcare Improvement Scotland), as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme, and carried out by the Royal College of Physicians.
The biological therapies part of the IBD audit aims to assess nationally: the efficacy of biological therapies in the treatment of IBD; the safety of biological therapies in the treatment of IBD; and IBD patients’ views on their quality of life at defined intervals throughout their use of biological therapies. The latest round of audit findings, published in September 2015, showed treatment continued to be effective and that patients were receiving treatment with biological therapies at earlier stages of disease. More information can be found at the following link:
www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/ibd-biological-therapy-audit
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Lister of Burtersett on 2016-07-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they propose to lay regulations concerning the right to security of tenure for victims of domestic violence under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and whether they will first consult organisations working with victims of domestic violence.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
We have introduced fixed term tenancies for all new council tenancies to ensure we get the best use out of our social housing stock and focus this valuable resource on those who need it the most for as long as they need it. This is essential with 1.24 million households on council waiting lists. The changes will apply to new tenants, but will not apply to existing lifetime tenants who remain in their own home.
We are preparing the regulations which will set out the circumstances in which local authorities may exercise discretion to offer tenants seeking transfer further lifetime tenancies in limited circumstances. These will include where tenants downsize into a smaller home, move for work or to escape harm, including domestic violence. We will ensure that relevant organisations including those working with victims of domestic abuse will be able to feed in their views into the draft regulations.
We aim to lay the regulations in the Winter.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Madeleine Moon on 2016-10-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people with Parkinson’s disease have been transferred from long-term disability living allowance to personal independence payment in the last three years.
Penny Mordaunt
As at February 2016 (the latest data available), I estimate there were about 4,600 working age people in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) whose main disabling condition is recorded as Parkinson’s disease on the DLA computer systems, and who will be invited to apply for Personal Independence Payment in the future, or may have been invited to claim within the past 6 months.
As at July 2016, there were 1,300 claimants in receipt of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) who have been reassessed in the last three years, having previously been in receipt of DLA, and whose main disabling condition is recorded as Parkinson’s disease or Parkinson’s syndrome on the PIP computer systems.
The length of a PIP award is based on an individual’s circumstances. For some of the most severely disabled claimants, a review could be as long as ten years after the initial award, at which point only a light-touch review, rather than a face-to-face assessment, will be necessary.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2015-10-28.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many regulated Retail Financial Advisory firms there are; and how many have five or more financial advisers working for them.
Harriett Baldwin
This is an operational matter for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), who are operationally independent from Government. The question has been passed on to the FCA. The FCA will reply to you directly by letter. A copy of the letter will be placed in the Library of the House.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-11-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will place in the Library copies of the (a) labour and (b) materials data used to calculate the area cost adjustment factor element of the Sussex Police grant.
Mr Marcus Jones
The Area Cost Adjustment data referred to in the Police Grant Report (England and Wales) 2015/16 is that used for the 2013-14 Local Government Finance Settlement.
The main data used for the labour cost element are anonymised personal records from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Any release is governed by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and is the responsibility of the Office for National Statistics.
The main sources of data used for the rates cost element come from Valuation Office Agency estimates for offices. This data is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/business-floorspace-experimental-statistics