Category: Speeches

Kirsty Blackman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kirsty Blackman on 2016-04-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what monitoring his Department undertakes of waiting times for immigration appeal hearings.

Mr Shailesh Vara

HMCTS regularly monitors waiting times for immigration and asylum appeal hearings across the UK. They are considered monthly by the HMCTS Board and the Ministry of Justice Executive Committee. Tribunal Statistics, including average waiting times for appeals, are published quarterly by the Ministry of Justice. These can be viewed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics

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January 1, 2023

Tom Tugendhat – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Tugendhat on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the cost was for (a) management of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation estate of Service Family Accommodation (SFA), (b) the maintenance of SFA and (c) improvements to SFA in (i) 2013, (ii) 2014 and (iii) 2015.

Penny Mordaunt

The cost for the management of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation estate of Service Family Accommodation (SFA), the maintenance of SFA and the improvements to SFA, by financial year (FY), can be found within the table below.

	FY 2012-13	FY 2013-14	FY 2014-15	FY 2015-16	Totals
	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million	£ million
Management of DIO Estate	20.6	15.7	20.4	18.8	75.5

Maintenance of SFA	42	39.9	41.1	40.9	164.5

Improvements	64.5	96.3	65.9	56.7	283.4

Totals	127.1	151.9	127.4	117.4	523.8

January 1, 2023

Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Danny Kinahan on 2016-07-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with the Consumer Council on UK ferry operators and their pricing structures.

Mr John Hayes

I have held no such recent discussions. The level of charges on ferries across the Irish Sea is a commercial matter for the companies concerned, subject to normal competition law.

January 1, 2023
John Mann – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many crossings across traffic are planned to be closed on the A1 (a) southbound and (b) northbound.

Mr John Hayes

The current major works on the A1 from Leeming to Barton in North Yorkshire will result in six permanent gap closures. These gaps will be accessed via a new local road and alternative routes alongside the new motorway for the benefit of the local community. Access to the new motorway will be via a new junction at Catterick and an improved junction at Scotch Corner.

Over the next two months three, maintenance schemes will require temporary gap closures on the A1 at Highfields roundabout, near Berwick; between Lane Head to Old Swarland in Northumberland; and at Buckden (Brampton Rail Bridge) in Cambridgeshire. The affected gaps on the A1 will be re-opened on completion of their respective maintenance works.

January 1, 2023
Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-11-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans he has to improve employment support for people who are classed as economically inactive due to long term sickness or disability.

Priti Patel

In the Autumn Statement on Wednesday 25 November, the Chancellor announced a real terms increase in funding to help people with health conditions and disabilities including those in receipt of the support component of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), return to, and remain in, work.

Government will be launching a new ‘Work and Health Programme’ – restructuring our current provision so that it provides the best possible support for people with health conditions or disabilities, including those classed as economically inactive due to long term sickness or disability.

At least £115m of funding will go to the Work and Health Unit, including a work and health innovation fund to test new ways to join up health and employment to help people with disabilities and health conditions to return to and stay in work.

Government will publish a White Paper in the New Year that will set out further reforms to improve support for people with health conditions and disabilities and further reduce the disability employment gap.

January 1, 2023
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-12-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the clinical and ethical justifications for setting the benchmark in the NHS Supply Chain generic project plans for a national formulary for wound care that 80 per cent of patients will be treated using clinically appropriate dressings.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The wide variety of choice in the current system is leading to duplication of wound care products. This can create more complexity for nurses and clinicians, making their clinical decisions more difficult and potentially leading to over specification and variation in standards of care. Of the 4,796 wound care products available through the NHS Supply Chain, 34% of lines have had no sales in the last 12 months.

Providing an agreed set of National Health Service requirements for wound care products will start to reduce this duplication, complexity and therefore potential risk, helping to improve patient outcomes through less variation in care.

This issue was also highlighted by 74% of respondents to a Royal College of Nursing survey run by Nursing Times (Dec 2014) seeing opportunities to reduce duplication on wound care products, (more than any other type of product).

The project is part of a wider piece of work the Department is working with the NHS Supply Chain on to deliver £300 million of savings by October 2018. Central to this is reducing the number of specifications and variations by category so the NHS can leverage its scale and deliver clinically appropriate solutions that represent ‘value for money’. Such approaches are common in other countries and help drive savings, improve clinical standards and protect front line nursing.

January 1, 2023
Tim Loughton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Loughton on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, how many civil partnerships have been (a) conducted, (b) terminated and (c) converted to marriage status since such partnerships were established.

Caroline Dinenage

Based on the latest publicly available data from the Office of National Statistics, since the Civil Partnership Act came into force in December 2005, the total number of civil partnerships formed in England and Wales up to the end of 2014 is 62,621.

From January 2007 to December 2014, there were 4,527 civil partnerships dissolutions in England and Wales.

A total of 7,732 couples chose to convert their existing civil partnership into a marriage in the six months between 10 December 2014 and 30 June 2015 in England and Wales.

This information is available from the Office of National Statistics: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/taxonomy/index.html?nscl=Civil+Partnerships

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January 1, 2023
Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-02-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will place in the Library copies of the local blueprint submissions for the NHS Sustainability and Transformation Plan.

George Freeman

These plans are for local use, and there are no plans to publish them centrally. Local areas may publish their plans if they so choose.

January 1, 2023

Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many organ transplants have not been successful in each of the last five years.

Jane Ellison

The information on the number of successful and unsuccessful organ transplants performed in each of the last five years is shown in the following table. This includes single and multi-organ transplants containing kidney, pancreas, liver, heart, lung and/or intestinal from both deceased and living donors.

Although deceased donor rates were lower in 2014/15, data show that deceased donor rates for 2015/16 have exceeded 2014/15 rates. The official data are due to published in summer 2016.

Organ Transplants in the United Kingdom, 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2015

Financial year	Total number of organ transplants	Number of unsuccessful¹ transplants	% unsuccessful
2010/2011	3,751	127	3.4%
2011/2012	3,971	131	3.3%
2012/2013	4,221	127	3.0%
2013/2014	4,656	143	3.1%
2014/2015	4,433	122	2.8%

Source: NHS Blood and Transplant

Notes:

¹Unsuccessful has been defined as failed within the first two weeks after transplantation. This figure is based on 98% of transplant recipients where the two week post-transplant outcome is known.

January 1, 2023

Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 2.28 of the White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, published in March 2016, when her Department plans to consult sector bodies on the proposed creation of centres for excellence for initial teacher training; and how that consultation will take place.

Nick Gibb

The Government’s White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, confirmed that we intend to use a new set of quality criteria to determine how initial teacher training (ITT) places are allocated to training providers in future, ensuring that training is concentrated with the highest-quality providers. On the basis of these criteria, which will include factors such as the quality of trainees recruited, the quality of the training programmes, and the quality of outcomes for trainees, we will designate some providers as Centres of Excellence. We expect to set out further details of the quality criteria that will apply for the 2017/18 training year, and which providers will be designated as Centres of Excellence, when we confirm the methodology for allocating places, which is currently under discussion.

The Department for Education has actively been engaging the ITT sector in discussions about the proposals in the White Paper, including the establishment of ITT Centres of Excellence. Engagement to date has included a series of roundtable discussion events for university- and school-led providers and their representative bodies, such as the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) and the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT).

We expect to confirm the allocations methodology for 2017/18 after further consultation with providers and their representative organisations over the summer, in time for the start of recruitment in the autumn term.

January 1, 2023