UKPOL.CO.UK

Category: Speeches

  • Stewart Malcolm McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Stewart Malcolm McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stewart Malcolm McDonald on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will take steps at the Anti-Corruption Summit being held in London in May 2016 to press for an international agreement on stricter rules concerning tax havens and beneficial owners.

    Mr Hugo Swire

    The Summit will address a range of measures to tackle corruption, including promoting transparency around beneficial ownership. Further information about the London Anti-Corruption Summit can be found on the summit web pages of the GOV.UK website.

  • Lord Mendelsohn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Mendelsohn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mendelsohn on 2016-05-09.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of cybercrime attacks and their impact on the UK economy.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    The most recently published crime statistics for England and Wales show that in the year ending December 2015 of the 617,618 fraud offences reported to the National Fraud Investigation Bureau, 14,347 (2.3%) were recorded under the Computer Misuse Act (i.e. cyber-dependent offences). This figure represented a 6% decrease compared to the year ending December 2014.

    While overall crime has fallen by more than a quarter since 2010, it is also changing. An accurate national picture is critical to informing our response to cyber crime. That is why the Office for National Statistics have now published, for the first time, initial experimental estimates of the numbers of cyber crimes committed.

    Based on a preliminary field trial, ONS estimate 5.1m fraud incidents and 2.5m incidents of computer misuse crime per year. Following the success of this trial, new questions relating to fraud and cybercrime were introduced onto half the survey sample from October 2015 and will be reported on a quarterly basis from later this year.

  • Ann Clwyd – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Ann Clwyd – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ann Clwyd on 2016-06-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his Bahraini counterpart on the prison sentence handed down to Sheikh Ali Salman; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    We are concerned about the recent extension of the imprisonment of Al Wefaq’s Secretary-General, Sheikh Ali Salman. We continue to raise his case with the Government of Bahrain, including most recently on 30 May when The Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), raised his case at the highest levels during a visit to Manama. We understand there is a further stage in the legal process.

  • Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-09-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department’s (a) £10 million payment to the Macfarlane Trust in 1987 and (b) £500,000 payment to the Eileen Trust in 1993 was allocated to his Department’s capital budget or revenue budget.

    Nicola Blackwood

    The Department does not hold the information requested.

    The Department only holds data for the last seven financial years, in accordance with departmental policy for retention of financial data, and the Finance Act 1998 – Schedule 18 Part III, Duty to keep and preserve records.

    The government spending control regime has changed many times since the period referred to in the question, however generally payments to charities such as these would score as “grants”. The treatment of a grant as “revenue” or “capital” is explained on page 31 of HM Treasury’s Consolidated Budgeting Guidance 2016-17, which can be found at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/503365/Consolidated_budgeting_guidance_2016-17.pdf

    “

  • Barry Sheerman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Barry Sheerman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many local authority staff report bullying and intimidation each year.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    Bullying and intimidation are serious matters and all employers, including local authorities, should have in place arrangements to ensure employees can safely report this behaviour, including by those in a senior position.

    My Department does not collect information about incidents of bullying or intimidation of local authority staff, nor have we made any assessment of council codes of conduct to protect officers from such behaviour.

  • Tom Brake – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Tom Brake – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2015-12-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure there are enough neonatal nurses who have completed accredited training in specialised neonatal care to enable neonatal units to meet marker of good practice 2.2.3 in the Toolkit for High Quality Neonatal Services, published by the NHS and his Department in October 2009.

    Ben Gummer

    A key standard set out within NHS England’s service specification for specialised neonatal critical care is that hospitals trusts who do not meet the staffing levels recommended by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, must be working towards an agreed plan with their respective Regional Specialised Commissioning Teams to meet and maintain the nurse staffing levels in line with the Department’s Toolkit for High Quality Neonatal Services.

    The increasing demand for neonatal care has resulted in additional challenges for some trusts in meeting the recommended nurse to patient ratios. However, 71 (54%) of the 131 neonatal critical care services now meet required staffing ratios and NHS England Regional Specialised Services Commissioning Teams continue to work with their respective hospital trusts to improve this situation.

  • Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-01-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of potential savings to the public purse arising from the proposed residence test for legal aid.

    Mr Shailesh Vara

    It is right that individuals should have a strong connection with the UK to benefit from taxpayer funded legal aid. The residence test proposed during the previous Parliament is a fair and appropriate way to demonstrate that connection.

    The Government does not currently record the residence status of civil legal aid clients so cannot accurately estimate the annual savings that may be achieved by introducing a civil legal aid residence test. It is likely there will be a reduction in legal aid volumes and expenditure from imposing residence restrictions on civil legal aid, resulting in savings to the legal aid fund.

  • Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Care Quality of 9 February 2016, on party of esteem in the NHS constitution, Official Report, column 1430, if he will add the right to psychological therapies to the constitution.

    Alistair Burt

    The NHS Constitution right to drugs and treatments reflects the legal funding requirement that applies to interventions recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) technology appraisal guidance.

    NICE has not been asked to undertake a technical appraisal of psychological therapies. If in the future, psychological therapies are recommended by NICE, and are consequently mandated for use in the National Health Service, we will consider consulting on including a right to psychological therapies within the Constitution.

    Over the last spending review we invested over £400 million into the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme to ensure access to talking therapies for those who need them and this has contributed to achieving very real improvements in the lives of people with anxiety and depression.

  • Mrs Flick Drummond – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Mrs Flick Drummond – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mrs Flick Drummond on 2016-03-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the serum folate levels in women of child-bearing age were in the latest results of the National Diet and Nutrition Survey; and how that figure compares to the World Health Organisation thresholds.

    Jane Ellison

    Results from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS), published in March 2015, show that the mean serum folate level in women of child bearing age (16-49 years) was 20nmol/l. Approximately 16.5% of women in this age group fell below the published World Health Organization threshold for biochemical folate deficiency however, as a result of methodological difficulties the threshold needs to be adjusted to be comparable with the laboratory method used to measure folate in NDNS. The adjusted threshold will be higher than the published threshold and so the percentage of women with serum folate levels below the adjusted threshold is expected to be higher than the published value. A note setting out these points was published on 17 February 2016, alongside the NDNS report.

  • Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anne-Marie Trevelyan on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2016 to the hon. Member for St Albans to Question 30494, on general practitioners: EU nationals, if he will take steps to collect and publish before 23 June 2016 estimates of the numbers of nationals of other EU member states registered with a GP in each of the last 10 years.

    Alistair Burt

    There are no plans to collect, estimate or publish this information.