The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Lucas on 2014-04-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) Palestinians and (b) Jews displaced from their country of origin in the Middle East since 1984.
Hugh Robertson
We have not made an estimate on this issue and do not keep records of this type.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sir John Randall on 2014-04-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make a comparative assessment of the sources, reliability and mutual compatibility of the statistics on the number of human trafficking victims from Albania given in parliamentary written answers and in the annual reports of the National Crime Agency.
Karen Bradley
A comparative assessment has been made.
Parliamentary questions regularly ask for specific details about suspected
victims of trafficking referred to the trafficking victim support service
operated by The Salvation Army.
The source of this data is The Salvation Army records.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) publishes statistics each year on the number of
potential victims who have been referred to the National Referral Mechanism.
The source of this data is the NCA records.
The two sets of figures measure slightly different things but are mutually
compatible.
Not all of the potential victims who are referred to the National Referral
Mechanism will then be referred to The Salvation Army for victim support. Some
might not receive a positive reasonable grounds decision and others might not
want Government-funded support.
We would therefore expect the number of cases referred to the National Referral
Mechanism, reported by the NCA, to be higher than the number of cases referred
to The Salvation Army for victim support, reported by the regular Parliamentary
questions.
This is borne out by our comparative assessment. The table below lists the PQs
that have requested data about the numbers of potential victims referred to The
Salvation Army, and lists the number of Albanian victims supported each month.
In total, this data indicates that there were 139 Albanian adult victims
referred to The Salvation Army for victim support in 2013 in England and Wales.
This is lower than the 208 potential adult Albanian victims who were originally
referred to the National Referral Mechanism in 2013 from England and Wales, as
reported in the NCA’s annual report.
|
Month |
MP |
Hansard Reference |
No. of Albanian Victims Supported |
|
January |
Tony Baldry |
14 February 2013, c866W |
5 |
|
February |
Amber Rudd |
11 March 2013, c33W |
9 |
|
March |
Margot James |
3 June 2013, c925W |
7 |
|
April |
Robert Buckland |
3 June 2013, c927W |
14 |
|
May |
David Simpson |
19 June 2013, c712W |
10 |
|
June |
Chris Ruane |
10 July 2013, c276W |
9 |
|
July |
Fiona Bruce |
6 February 2014, c325W |
12 |
|
August |
Caroline Spelman |
28 October 2013, c358W |
9 |
|
September |
Peter Bone |
14 October 2013, c512W |
16 |
|
October |
Fiona Bruce |
3 December 2013, c613W |
23 |
|
November |
John Randall |
9 January 2014, c277W |
17 |
|
December |
Frank Field |
14 January 2014, c481W |
8 |
|
TOTAL |
139 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl McCartney on 2014-04-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Summers v Fairclough Homes that exaggerated or fabricated personal injury claims might be struck out in exceptional circumstances; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Shailesh Vara
The Government is committed to reducing the number of fraudulent personal injury claims. To this end, we are considering what specific reforms might be appropriate.
As announced last year, we are working with stakeholders in the industry to tighten the medical evidence process so that only evidence from accredited experts can be considered, and the costs for those reports can be fixed. This will mean people can no longer profit from exaggerated or fraudulent compensation claims but victims with genuine cases can still get the help they deserve. We are introducing these reforms later in the year. We are also working to secure better data on motor accident cases, including the number of fraudulent cases.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Murphy on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she is taking to emphasise the importance of education provisions and support for disabled children, their teachers and families in order to ensure that Millennium Development Goal 2 is attained.
Justine Greening
The UK Government’s programmes and partnerships are focused on ensuring better inclusion of children with disabilities. For example, the Girls’ Education Challenge is supporting over £9 million of disability-focused programmes.
In September 2013 we announced two additional commitments to step up our support; ensuring all DFID funded education construction is fully accessible and improving data on children with disabilities.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Tomlinson on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will take steps to extend Pulse Oximetry screening for children.
Dr Daniel Poulter
The UK National Screening Committee has recommended that a pilot for pulse oximetry screening for children should be set up to explore the practicalities of implementation. Ministers have accepted this advice and a pilot will commence shortly.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregg McClymont on 2014-04-29.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people are employed by HM Revenue and Customs in regional post rooms at each location in the UK.
Mr David Gauke
As requested please find detailed below staff numbers employed in HMRC Regional Post Rooms employed solely in post room activities.
Shipley 45
Cardiff 65
Bootle 35
Newcastle 98
Cumbernauld 46
I also refer the Honourable Gentleman to my answer on 12 May 2014.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angus Robertson on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, who authorises the public release of photographs of aircraft that are intercepted during Quick Reaction Alert flights.
Mr Mark Francois
Photographs are routinely taken during Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) interceptions. There is strong public and media interest in the RAF Quick Reaction Alert deterrent capability. MOD policy is to release a limited amount of non-sensitive information on QRA launches, sometimes including photographs. This provides the public with strong examples of how the RAF is able to respond to this kind of incident. It also provides public awareness of the RAF’s ability to defend the UK through the effectiveness of its air defences and to maintain the full deterrence value of the QRA mission. Media enquiries regarding QRA launches also often include requests for photographs.
Consequently, RAF Operations Staffs in coordination with MOD officials, including the MOD Directorate of Media and Communications, will occasionally consider these photographs for public release.
Photographs of a recent QRA mission were released on 25 April 2014. The previous release of photographs of intercepted aircraft from a recent mission was in March 2010; additionally for other QRA information releases in the last three years, MOD have utilised stock images from the Defence Image Library.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Lavery on 2014-04-29.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will place in the Library a copy of the business case for the outsourcing of compliance checks on tax credits claims.
Nicky Morgan
From April to July 2013, HMRC carried out a trial to test whether it would be feasible to increase the number of compliance checks on tax credits claims, through the use of private sector resource. HMRC will publish the evaluation of the trial and the customer research report in due course.
It is not appropriate to place the business case in the public domain given the commercial sensitivities and the risk of prejudice to HMRC’s ability to tackle tax credits error and fraud.
In terms of the external costs of the trial, I refer the Hon Member to the Thirty-Fourth Report of the Committee of Public Accounts [2013/14] into HMRC Tax Collection: Annual Report & Accounts 2012–13, which may be found at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubacc/666/66602.htm. All internal HMRC operating costs are published annually in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts.
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information patients are entitled to as to whether a medical operation will be undertaken by a fully surgically qualified member of staff.
Dr Daniel Poulter
It is the responsibility of the individual National Health Service trust or NHS foundation trusts to ensure that patients are treated by suitably qualified staff.
The Department encourages patients to make an informed decision before having medical operations. As part of this, patients can ask to have information on the clinical staff that will be conducting any medical operation and the Department would expect that the trust should provide this information to them.
The NHS Constitution sets out patients’ rights when using NHS services, these include:
– The right to be treated with a professional standard of care, by appropriately qualified and experienced staff, in a properly approved or registered organisation that meets required levels of safety and quality; and
– The right to be involved in discussions and decisions about your health and care, including your end of life care, and to be given information to enable you to do this. Where appropriate this right includes your family and carers.
One of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) core 16 quality and safety standards, is that providers must ensure that those carrying on a regulated activity, such as medical operations, must have the qualifications, skills and experience necessary for the work to be performed. The CQC can take action against healthcare providers if they are concerned about them employing inappropriately qualified staff.
In addition, the General Medical Council (GMC) holds the central registers of doctors’ qualifications. The medical register shows who is properly qualified to practice medicine, whilst the specialist register shows doctors who have completed specialist training, including surgical training. Patients may visit the GMC website to search the Medical Register online.
On patient consent, the GMC’s guidance, Consent: patients and doctors making decisions together states patients must be provided with the information they have requested on:
“the people who will be mainly responsible for and involved in their care, what their roles are, and to what extent students may be involved.”
This means that as part of the consent process, doctors are expected to give honest answers to any questions from patients, including questions about their qualifications to carry out the particular procedure in question. This is specifically expressed in the GMC’s document, Good Medical Practice, paragraph 66, where it says“You must always be honest about your experience, qualifications and current role.”
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what additional staffing requirements will arise in HM Prison Hull and HM Prison Chelmsford from the re-opening of closed wings; what the cost of this re-opening will be; and where any additional staff be sourced from.
Jeremy Wright
We will always have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts and continue to modernise the prison estate so that it delivers best value for the taxpayer
This Government has a long term strategy for managing the prison estate. We will have increased the adult male prison capacity so that we have more places than we inherited from the previous Government.
The retention of significant spare prison capacity over and above what is required is expensive and cannot be justified given the current financial climate. The mothballing of spare capacity at HM Prisons Chelmsford and Hull saved the taxpayer £3.6m in the financial year 2013-14. This compares to the significantly lower cost of maintaining this accommodation on a mothballed basis, so that it could be reactivated if necessary.
We have reviewed the refurbishment requirements at both sites and believe that, with minor investment, they can now be reopened on a contingency basis without carrying out a full refurbishment. These costs are anticipated to be around £132k by the time they have reopened. From the end of March to date, around £12k has been spent on Chelmsford, and around £107k has been spent on Hull.
The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Hull is around 65 members of staff – of which approximately 40 are uniformed. The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Chelmsford is around 30 members of staff – of which approximately 20 are uniformed grades. This means we are able to create additional places at an average cost of £7k per place (subject to final benchmarking review), as opposed to the average cost of a prison per place of £26,139.
The staffing requirement will initially be met by short term detached duty from other prisons, before looking to redeploy staff permanently where surpluses exist – and if necessary through external recruitment.
Subject to certification, Hull will create 282 places and Chelmsford 148 places, with prisoners due to start arriving this summer.
The reactivation of these places is a prudent and good value for money response to an increased prison population. Under the previous administration, police and court cells were turned into temporary prisons, with over 50,000 prisoners held in these cells in 2007-08 alone.