Category: Speeches

  • Matthew Offord – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Matthew Offord – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2015-09-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on the security situation in Somalia of al Shabaab’s seizure of Buqda.

    Grant Shapps

    We assess that the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM’s) withdrawal from Buqda, and its consequent re-occupation by Al Shabaab, will have little impact on the security situation in Somalia, given Buqda’s limited strategic importance within the context of the overall AMISOM campaign.

    AMISOM and Somali National Security Forces (SNSF) have regained 75% of the territory formerly controlled by Al-Shabaab, forcing it out of many of its traditional strongholds, including major urban centres and its former headquarters in Baraawe. The current AMISOM offensive is designed to remove Al Shabaab from their strong holds in the Gedo, Bakool and Bay regions of Somalia. But Al Shabaab still holds ground in the lower Juba Valley and retains the ability to infiltrate other areas and cause instability.

    We continue to support African Union and SNSF efforts to defeat Al Shabaab, including through the provision of stipends, training, equipment and infrastructure enhancements, and capacity-building. We are also supporting stabilisation and countering violent extremism efforts, including working with the Federal Government of Somalia to develop counter-terrorism legislation.

  • Nicholas Soames – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Nicholas Soames – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-09-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to improve the quality of adult social care; and if he will make a statement.

    Alistair Burt

    The Government is committed to improving the quality of adult social care. We have taken a number of recent steps to do so.

    In October 2014, we introduced a tougher inspection system by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Following inspections, the CQC now also awards each care service a single quality rating with providers rated as “Outstanding”, “Good”, “Requires Improvement” or “Inadequate”. Services rated “Inadequate” are being placed into Special Measure which means they could face closure if they fail to improve.

    These new ratings and other information about the type and quality of care at every care home and homecare service in the country are now available on NHS Choices and the MyNHS Transparency website, making it much easier for people to compare the quality of services.

    This year we introduced a Certificate of Fundamental Care, now known as the Care Certificate. This will help ensure that care workers can deliver a consistently high quality standard of care.

    The Department is funding and working with a number of organisations including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Skills for Care, the Social Care Institute for Excellence, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association on a range of projects to help adult social care organisations and staff improve the quality of care. These resources include new NICE Quality Standards and Guidelines which bring clarity to what excellence looks like in care and Commissioning for Better Outcomes – A Route Map* that sets out a series of commissioning standards that will be used as part of local government sector-led improvement to drive best practices in local authority commissioning under their new duties in the Care Act 2015.

    *Available at:

    http://www.local.gov.uk/documents/10180/5756320/Commissioning+for+Better+Outcomes+A+route+map/8f18c36f-805c-4d5e-b1f5-d3755394cfab

    “

  • Nicholas Soames – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Nicholas Soames – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-09-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department paid in spectrum charges in each financial year from 1999-2000 to 2014-15.

    Mike Penning

    The table below details the amount the Department paid in spectrum charges from 2009/10 to 2014/15. The variation in charges from 2010 is the result of Home Office reducing its holdings by sharing and releasing spectrum. Use of spectrum in the years from 1999 to 2009 remained at a constant level and our records indicate this was charged at £2,916,000 per annum.

    Financial Year/ Cost:

    2009-2010 £2,916,000

    2010-2011 £2,819,820

    2011-2012 £2,317,836

    2012-2013 £1,779,309

    2013-2014 £1,816,022

    2014-2015 £1,325,654

  • Douglas Carswell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Douglas Carswell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2015-09-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the reasons were for each application made by local authorities in England and Wales for care orders in (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012, (d) 2013, (e) 2014 and (f) January to March 2015.

    Caroline Dinenage

    This information is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

  • Hilary Benn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Hilary Benn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much his Department spent in legal fees during the judicial review brought against his Department on the solar farm at Ellough Airfield, Suffolk.

    Kris Hopkins

    Planning casework is a quasi-judicial function of the department, and as was the case under the last Administration, it attracts a high volume of legal challenges. This is particularly the case in light of the long-term growth of both judicial review and the growing creep of European Union directives, regulations and case law.

    Yet to place the Department’s spending in context, I would observe that the Department spent £1.7 million in external lawyers’ fees in 2009-10 (excluding Treasury Solicitors), in 2013-14, the figure had fallen to £699,000.

    The proposed application for a sizeable solar farm development in Suffolk was refused by Waveney District Council. That decision was appealed by the developer, was recovered for Ministerial decision, and that appeal was refused by the Secretary of State. The decision letter outlines the reasons, but particular issues included the effect upon the character and appearance of the countryside.

    The appellant, Lark Energy, challenged the decision in the High Court; four of the five grounds of challenge were rejected by the Court. The challenge however succeeded on just one ground – a technical point of law on the application of the statutory test for appeals under the relevant planning legislation. The Department spent £6,596 (ex VAT) in defending this challenge. The appeal is now back with the Department for re-determination.

    Equally, I would observe that a week later, the High Court upheld the decision of the Secretary of State in a recovered appeal to refuse a proposed six turbine wind farm on the Somerset Levels, following its initial refusal by Sedgemoor District Council. The applicants, Ecotricity, were ordered to pay the Department’s costs (which may be in the region of £9,000).

    All decisions on recovered appeals are taken by the Secretary of State on their merits, following due process and after careful consideration of both the public inquiry evidence and the independent Inspector’s recommendation.

  • Angus Robertson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Angus Robertson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angus Robertson on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the cost is of the Weapon Handling and Launch System and Submerged Signal Ejector support contract.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    The Weapon Handling and Launch System support contract, which includes Submerged Signal Ejector support, has an agreed fixed price of £22 million to provide defined technical and logistic support until 31 March 2019. The contract also allows for further tasking of the support contractor by the Ministry of Defence and the purchase of consumable spares when required at an additional cost.

  • Ian Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Ian Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Lucas on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to his Department’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security 2014-2017, in what way, as part of the implementation of that plan, women’s participation at grassroots level will be measured.

    Mark Simmonds

    My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, along with the Secretaries of State for International Development and Defence, launched the 2014-2017 National Action Plan (NAP) at the Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict Summit earlier this month.

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, working with Department for International Development and Ministry of Defence, is committed to ensure that the promotion of women’s participation in conflict resolution is an integral part of our overseas conflict policy and forms one of the main focuses of the NAP. The NAP outlines several ways we will do this, for example providing financial and capacity building support to civil society organisations promoting women and girls’ participation in peacebuilding.

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has also funded and helped to facilitate workshops in two of the NAP’s focus countries (Afghanistan and Burma) with another being held in a third (Somalia) in the next few months. The workshops have been well attended by civil society groups that, in many cases, represent the views of women from the grassroots level.

    Measuring participation of women from grassroots level is challenging; there is a lack of baseline and country-level data on women in peace and security issues. With this in mind, the UK has allocated specific funding to the external and independent monitoring and evaluation of this NAP.

  • Robert Flello – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Robert Flello – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Flello on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the proposed changes to the social care system in the Care Act 2014 Part 1 regulations on adults with autism.

    Norman Lamb

    The Care Act 2014 will reform the care and support system for everyone, including adults with autism. The core principles of the Care Act 2014 and the regulations and statutory guidance which support its implementation are to maintain the wellbeing of people who have care and support needs and support them in living independent lives.

    The draft regulations and guidance were co-produced with stakeholders, and this included engaging with the National Autistic Society. The Department is currently consulting on the regulations and statutory guidance that will support the implementation of the Care Act 2014. The public consultation started on 6 June and runs until 15 August 2014.

    The Health and Social Care Information Centre does not collect any data on the number of adults with autism receiving support under the current, or proposed, social care systems and therefore are unable to provide a response. The national eligibility criteria being introduced under the Care Act 2014 will allow local authorities to maintain levels of access for service users when they move from the current framework to the new care and support system in April 2015.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many contract or temporary employees were employed in (a) the Case Resolution Directorate and (b) the Case Assurance and Audit Unit in each year of those bodies’ existence; and what proportion of the overall staff of such bodies were contract or temporary employees.

    Karen Bradley

    The Case Resolution Directorate (CRD) employed a total of 350 temporary staff
    during the summer 2011. It is not possible to provide a breakdown of how many
    contract/ temporary employees were employed for each year that CRD was in
    existence.

    The Case Assurance and Audit Unit (CAAU) employed 98 Full Time Equivalent (FTE)
    staff in 2011, 134 FTE staff in 2012 and 224 FTE staff in 2013. It is not
    possible to break this down by how many were contract/temporary employees or
    employed full time. FTE means that part time employees are counted by the
    proportion of full time hours they work, so that staff working half the time of
    an equivalent full time colleague would count as 0.5 FTE.

  • David Hanson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    David Hanson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many passports have been issued under the Government’s new passport fast-tracked free policy since that policy came into effect.

    James Brokenshire

    As of 13 July 2014, 12,325 passports have been fast-tracked as a result of the
    measures announced by the Home Secretary to the House of Commons on 12 June
    2014.