Category: Speeches

  • Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lester of Herne Hill on 2014-06-04.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether public funds are used by the Police Federation to support defamation litigation.

    Lord Taylor of Holbeach

    Funding provided by the Government to the Police Federation of England and Wales may only be used for specific purposes. These are to pay part of the salaries of its principal officers, and to support their statutory function in negotiating the pay of police officers.

    As the Home Secretary announced on 21 May, all Government funding provided to the Police Federation will cease by August this year.

  • Lord Tyler – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Tyler – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Tyler on 2014-03-24.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what UK Border Agency controls are in place for entry into the UK from Jersey, Guernsey and Sark.

    Lord Taylor of Holbeach

    There are no physical border controls in place for those entering the UK from Jersey, Guernsey or Sark. Jersey, Guernsey and Sark are part of the Channel Islands. The UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and the Republic of Ireland collectively form a common travel area (CTA). Under Paragraph 15 of the UK Immigration Rules a person who has been examined for the purpose of immigration control in one part of the CTA does not normally require to be examined on arrival into any other part of the CTA.

  • Lord Patel of Blackburn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Patel of Blackburn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patel of Blackburn on 2014-06-04.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the proportion of Muslims in senior positions in British diplomatic missions abroad.

    Baroness Warsi

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion for all its employees. The FCO’s management information system shows that, out of the 246 Senior Management positions overseas, 80 members of staff have declared their religion. Of these, three are Muslim, which corresponds to 3.75% of those who declared and 1.22% of the overall total.

    All FCO UK based staff are asked to provide diversity information about their ethnicity, disability status, sexual orientation and religion or belief. Supplying this data is voluntary. The FCO is working to improve diversity declaration rates by staff, including for religion and belief, and as part of this effort a three month campaign titled “Why Should I Tell You” was run between November 2013 and January 2014 to encourage staff to provide their diversity information. Over this period declaration rates for religion and belief increased from 31 to 35%.

    The FCO launched the Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) Campaign in Summer 2013 aimed at the recruitment, progression and development of BME staff. The campaign aims to improve young people’s understanding of the organisation and to encourage more applications to our fast stream, particularly from BME communities. It also includes a leadership programme for high performing BME staff to prepare them for senior management and other targeted career development courses, mentoring and coaching. The initial results have been very encouraging.

    The FCO publishes an annual Equality Report which provides information about the diversity and makeup of our staff, as required by the Equality Act 2010. The 2014 report can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/diversity-and-equality-report-2014.

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  • Paul Uppal – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Paul Uppal – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Uppal on 2014-03-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to encourage local authority pension funds to become active owners or stewards of their assets as defined in the Financial Reporting Council’s Stewardship Code.

    Brandon Lewis

    Each local authority that administers a pension fund is already subject to statutory guidance that states that it should recognise the Financial Reporting Council’s Stewardship Code and ensure that the Code is adopted by their fund managers, investment consultants and advisers. The guidance also states that the authority should include a statement of its policy on responsible ownership in its statement of the principles governing its investment decisions and report periodically to scheme members on the implementation of the policy. Sixteen of the eighty nine local government pension funds in England and Wales are themselves signatories to the Stewardship Code as asset owners.

  • Lord Hoyle – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Hoyle – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hoyle on 2014-06-04.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many experiments were carried out on animals in the United Kingdom each year from 1997 to 2014.

    Lord Taylor of Holbeach

    The following table contains information on the number of procedures undertaken for the years 1997 to 2012.

    The Home Office expects to publish, for Great Britain, 2013 statistics on 10 July 2014 and 2014 statistics in summer/autumn 2015.

    The publication of 2013 and 2014 statistics for Northern Ireland is a matter for the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland (DHSSPSNI), which separately publishes Northern Irish statistics.

  • Jake Berry – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Jake Berry – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jake Berry on 2014-03-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what estimate he has made of the number of properties in (a) Rossendale and Darwen constituency and (b) the North West which do not have mains gas access and which use domestic heating oil.

    Michael Fallon

    Estimates for the number of households which do not have mains gas and which use domestic heating oil are not available. However, the number of households that did not have access to a mains gas supply in the Rossendale and Darwen constituency can be estimated by combining figures for the lower layer super output areas that most closely match this area.

    In 2012, there were approximately 1,100 households (three per cent) which had no access to mains gas. The number of households that did not have access to mains gas in the North West is estimated to be 156,000 (five per cent of households within the North West).

    These data are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lsoa-estimates-of-households-not-connected-to-the-gas-network.

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  • (4) in local authority schools – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    (4) in local authority schools – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by (4) in local authority schools on 2014-06-04.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Nash on 14 May (WA 532) stating that the Ofsted Report for 2013 found there were 700,000 pupils in schools where behaviour is just not good enough”

    Lord Nash

    Ofsted’s annual report (2012/13) indicates that around 700,000 pupils are in schools where behaviour needs to improve.

    This figure is based on Ofsted’s behaviour inspection judgement for 2013, which shows that nationally 8 per cent of schools in England are rated less than ‘good’, and the number of pupils on roll in schools taken from the rounded January 2013 School Census Data. Information in the form requested is not held by the Department.

  • Ms Diane Abbott – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Ms Diane Abbott – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ms Diane Abbott on 2014-03-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the report by the Refugee Council, When Maternity Doesn’t Matter, what steps her Department has taken to reform the dispersal policy of the former UK Border Agency.

    James Brokenshire

    The report covers procedures for accommodating pregnant asylum seekers who are destitute. The Home Office has been consulting about changes to these procedures and is considering some detailed suggestions by the Refugee Council and Maternity Action. Once that is completed we will move towards finalising and publishing revised guidance on the procedures.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Gwynne – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2014-06-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps are taken to verify the competence of (a) doctors and nurses and (b) staff of pharmaceutical companies involved in the conduct of clinical trials.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) expect everyone involved in a clinical trial to be qualified and trained to perform their tasks (as per Schedule 1, part 2 (2) of the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations(SI 2004/1031).

    Staff of pharmaceutical companies are not “conducting” a trial as defined in the clinical trial regulation (SI 2004/1031 Reg 2 “interpretation”). However, the same Good Clinical Practice principles apply to those involved in clinical trial activities; i.e. they should be qualified and trained to perform their tasks. At sponsor site inspection, inspectors will verify the training records, CV, and job description of selected employees to confirm adequate training has been given.

    Sponsors are expected to carry out checks in audits or monitoring to ensure that on completion of training, staff are indeed carrying out their duties according to requirements and/or procedures (these checks should be documented in monitoring/audit reports). Inspectors check the monitoring visit reports to determine non-compliances are adequately followed up and re-training is given to site personnel when necessary.

    The voluntary MHRA Phase 1 Accreditation Scheme requires that a Principal Investigator (PI) for a First in Human study has relevant experience and a post graduate qualification in pharmaceutical medicine (such as a Diploma in Pharmaceutical medicine, Diploma in Human Pharmacology, MSc in Clinical Pharmacology or equivalent). An exemption to this requirement has been issued for PI’s that do not have a post graduate qualification but are able to demonstrate that they have a significant amount of experience in this field (and are often involved in teaching the post-graduate courses). An application for an exemption is assessed independently by the Faculty of Medicine.

  • Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission

    Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-24.

    To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, pursuant to the Answer of 19 March 2014, Official Report, column 655W, on electoral register, what assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the reasons for the increase between December 2000 and April 2011 in the proportion of eligible people not registered at their current address.

    Mr Gary Streeter

    The Electoral Commission informs me that it has set out its analysis of the key reasons for the decline in levels of registration in this period in two reports – ‘The completeness and accuracy of electoral registers in Great Britain’ and ‘Great Britain’s electoral registers’.

    Both reports can be found here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/our-work/our-research/electoral-registration-research

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