Category: Speeches

  • John Spellar – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    John Spellar – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Spellar on 2016-01-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her policy is on the use of private companies to arrange foster care placements.

    Edward Timpson

    The arrangement of foster care placements is the duty of local authorities. All placements must be made with consideration to the child’s assessed needs through a robust care planning process.

    The Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 set the statutory framework for all fostering services, including Independent Fostering Providers. The regulatory framework for the provision of foster care placements is clear that local authorities must have access to sufficient placements to meet the needs of the children they look after. As long as placements meet the needs of the child, it is for local authorities to determine whether placements are provided in-house or by independent providers.

  • Lord Fearn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Lord Fearn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Fearn on 2016-02-01.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what support has been given to the British Olympic team during the years 2014 and 2015.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    UK Sport’s investments in sports are made on a quadrennial rather than yearly basis, with all investment decisions and levels reviewed annually.

    In the current 2013-17 Rio Olympic and Paralympic cycle, UK Sport are investing around £350 million in the Summer Olympic and Paralympic sports, and a further £31 million in the Winter Olympic and Paralympic sports, targeting success in PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2022.

  • Ivan Lewis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Ivan Lewis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2016-02-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will estimate the maximum overall annual amount which could be raised if each local authority imposed the maximum social care levy.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    The Department estimates that if all local authorities who deliver social care were to choose to use a two per cent precept this would total £393 million in 2016-17. If similar flexibilities were used in full in subsequent years, this would rise to around £1.8 billion in 2019-20. Local authorities will be required to provide confirmation that the additional revenue has been used for Adult Social Care in addition to confirming the amounts of expenditure in statistical returns. In addition, the Secretary of State will take account of local authorities’ actions when setting referendum principles in future years.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether an impact assessment has been undertaken of the proposal in Question 35 of his Department’s consultation on the extension of charging overseas visitors and migrants using the NHS in England.

    Alistair Burt

    In relation to the Department’s recent consultation on extending charging to overseas visitors using the National Health Service in England, a lack of available data means that it has not been possible to estimate the cost to industry of the proposal to remove the exemption from charge category for overseas visitors working on United Kingdom-registered ships. However, the proposal was included in the Impact Assessment and is thought to be small overall.

    We are currently analysing responses to the consultation.

  • Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Paul Flynn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2016-04-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what involvement (a) Ministers and (b) officials of her Department had in the Security and Counter Terror Conference at Olympia on 19 and 20 April 2016.

    Mr John Hayes

    Home Office Ministers and officials have regular meetings and attend various events as part of the process of policy development and delivery. As was the case with previous administrations, it is not the Government’s practice to provide details of all such meetings and events.

  • Adam Afriyie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Adam Afriyie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Adam Afriyie on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government is taking to promote action to remove space debris.

    Joseph Johnson

    The United Kingdom, through the UK Space Agency (UKSA), is one of the thirteen members of the Inter-Agency Debris Coordination (IADC) Committee, which considers the risks posed by space debris. Our national experts, along with more than a hundred experts from other agencies including NASA, met at Harwell in March 2016 for the annual IADC meeting to discuss many issues, including the need for the removal of space debris from orbit, and how that could best be accomplished.

    The UK is leading studies in partnership with other national agencies to model the future space environment and identify the most effective ways of mitigating the future hazard of space debris.

    UKSA is working with its international partners in technical forums such as the IADC to develop scientific consensus on the best way to manage the hazard posed by debris, such as how many objects might need to be removed, and from where. UKSA is also working to build political consensus within UN forums such as the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to enable such missions to go ahead with appropriate supervision and support from the international community. This includes developing appropriate regulatory/oversight frameworks within the UK’s Outer Space Act which allow such technologies to be tested and demonstrated safely in the increasingly congested and contested space environment.

  • Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-09-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many hospitals are forecast to (a) open and (b) close in each of the next five years for which figures are available.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    The reconfiguration of services, including the opening and closing of hospitals, is clinically led and a matter for the local National Health Service.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Prime Minister

    Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Prime Minister

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-10-14.

    To ask the Prime Minister, whether any government Minister was present at her meeting with Rupert Murdoch held in September 2016.

    Mrs Theresa May

    Details of Ministers’ meetings with external organisations, including with newspaper and other media proprietors, editors and senior executives, are published on a quarterly basis and made available on the gov.uk website.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Paul Blomfield – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    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.

  • Caroline Lucas – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Caroline Lucas – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2015-12-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios for keeping global temperatures below two degrees require (a) negative emissions technologies and (b) peaking of global emissions before (i) 2015 and (ii) 2020; and if she will make a statement.

    Andrea Leadsom

    Of the 204 emissions scenarios included in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report database with climate model projections which are consistent with a more than 50% chance of keeping global warming below 2 °C by 2100:

    (a)177 of these include negative emissions technologies; and

    (b)noting that the scenarios do not consider emissions in 2015, but rather for each decade:

    (i) 111 of the scenarios require emissions to peak by 2010; and

    (ii) 46 additional scenarios require emissions to peak by 2020.

    The remainder either do not report total emissions (11) or peak after 2020. The general features of the scenarios in this database show that delaying strong action to reduce emissions would increase the risk of exceeding 2 °C of warming and associated impacts, and require deeper emissions cuts in the future and/or a heavier reliance on negative emissions technologies at scale. This is why the Department is seeking ambitious global action on climate change in Paris.