The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mrs Mary Glindon on 2014-03-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants have received the personal independence payment since April 2013.
Mike Penning
PIP is a brand new benefit that is replacing the broken DLA system, we published early management information on Tuesday 11 February 2014. Between April and December 2013, around 22,000 new claimants had been given an award of PIP.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-05.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the logbook loans industry.
Lord Deighton
The Government has fundamentally reformed regulation of the consumer credit market, including logbook lenders, by transferring responsibility from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on 1 April 2014.
The Government is very concerned about evidence of consumer detriment in the logbook loan sector, as highlighted in the FCA’s recent research paper.
The FCA has identified logbook lenders as a higher risk industry, and as such they will be in the first phase of firms to require full authorisation. Logbook loan providers are also required to meet the FCA’s binding rules, and the FCA has said that it “won’t hesitate to take action” if they do not put their customers first.
In addition, the Government has asked the Law Commission to look at how to bring the highly complex legislation underpinning logbook loans up to date.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2014-03-24.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to fill vacant school governor positions.
Lord Nash
Responsibility for filling a vacancy on a governing body rests with the relevant appointing body for that vacancy. This will vary depending on the category of school and the category of governor.
Governing bodies should review their membership and size on a regular basis and ensure that appointments are made in an efficient and timely manner. The Governors’ Handbook recommends that for every vacancy, governing bodies should conduct a skills audit to identify any gaps in the skills, knowledge and experience of existing governors. Governing bodies should also set out the specific skills and experience that the school needs for the relevant appointing body or electorate.
The Department for Education has committed funding to School Governors’ One-Stop Shop (SGOSS), the governor recruitment charity, to March 2015. SGOSS provides a free service, matching high quality candidates that want to become governors with schools that have governor vacancies, according to the skills the schools need. In addition we are working with employers to encourage them to promote volunteering as a governor to their staff. This can potentially provide schools with an important source of highly skilled governors and is also an excellent learning and development opportunity for the employees concerned, carrying benefits back to their employer.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Lord Bishop of Coventry on 2014-06-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government for how many projects they provided funding under the Human Rights and Democracy Programme in 2013 for work associated with freedom of religion and belief.
Baroness Warsi
In the 2013-14 financial year the Human Rights and Democracy Programme (HRDP) received 218 proposals for funding. Seventeen of these proposals were for work associated with Freedom of Religion and Belief (FORB), representing 7.8% of proposals received. Six projects were ultimately funded, to the value of £214,029. This represents 3.3% of the total resource available.
The programme is keen to see more good quality project bids on this theme in future bidding rounds, and have actively encouraged more quality bids for the 2014-15 financial year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2014-03-24.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Jordan concerning reports of Palestinian refugees being held under harsh conditions in Cyber City refugee camp in northern Jordan.
Baroness Northover
We are in regular contact with the Government of Jordan about refugees in Jordan, including Palestinian refugees.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2014-06-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the cost of the special administration process in relation to Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust.
Earl Howe
The appointment of Trust Special Administrators (TSAs) to Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust in April 2013 was made by Monitor. The TSAs’ final proposals were accepted by Monitor in January 2014, and by the Secretary of State in February 2014.
In an announcement on 13 March 2014, Monitor stated that the costs of the process to date had been £7,250,000, with an additional £250,000 incurred by the team of administrators in expenses.
Following the Secretary of State’s acceptance of the proposals, the TSAs have remained in post to continue with the day to day management of the Trust and to work on implementing the proposals.
In the announcement Monitor anticipated that the overall cost of the TSA contract for the lifetime of the project would be between £12 million and £15 million.
Monitor’s announcement can be found on its website at:
www.gov.uk/government/news/mid-staffs-monitor-announces-next-steps
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his Department’s policy is on allowing officials to appear before all-party parliamentary groups.
Brandon Lewis
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, the right hon. Member for Horsham on 26 March 2014, Official Report, column 300W.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Addington on 2014-06-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how personal histories of recognised special educational needs will be taken into account when making assessments of eligibility for the Disabled Students’ Allowance.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
There are no proposed changes to the current process of assessment. All applicants for the Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) will undertake a study needs assessment and independent study needs assessors will provide recommendations, giving due regard to personal histories of recognised special educational needs, where these have been provided. The support and strategies recommended by assessment centres will be provided by a combination of reasonable adjustments by Higher Education Institutions and DSAs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2014-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what proportion of the UK’s (a) coal, (b) gas and (c) oil requirements were met by imports from Russia in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
Michael Fallon
The amounts of coal and oil imported from Russia by the UK for each year between 2008 and 2012 compared to total UK demand for those fuels are shown in the following tables.
Coal
|
(thousand tonnes) |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
|
Import |
21,249 |
17,726 |
8,322 |
12,126 |
16,933 |
|
Proportion of demand |
33% |
34% |
15% |
22% |
25% |
Primary Oil
|
(thousand tonnes) |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
|
Import |
8,295 |
5,065 |
5,000 |
6,058 |
7,491 |
|
Proportion of demand |
10% |
7% |
7% |
8% |
11% |
Petroleum Products
|
(thousand tonnes) |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
|
Import |
1,435 |
2,066 |
2,306 |
2,407 |
2,630 |
|
Proportion of demand |
2% |
3% |
3% |
4% |
4% |
There was no gas imported directly from Russia by the UK.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Quirk on 2014-06-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have observed any correlation between bad behaviour in schools and the absence of a specified dress code for (1) pupils, and (2) teachers.
Lord Nash
The Government does not have any evidence of any correlation between bad behaviour in schools and the absence of a specified dress code for pupils and teachers.
The Department for Education has issued advice that strongly encourages schools to have a uniform, as it can play a valuable role in contributing to the ethos of a school and setting an appropriate tone. However, it is for the governing body of a school (or the academy trust in the case of academies and free schools) to decide whether there should be a uniform policy and other rules on appearance. This flows from the duties placed upon all governing bodies by statute to ensure that school policies promote good behaviour and discipline among the pupil body.
Dress codes for teachers are a matter for employers to determine, whether that is the governing body, academy trust or local authority. As part of the general terms and conditions of employment agreed with employees we would expect schools to consider an appropriate dress code, relevant to the individual setting, taking into account the requirements of the post.