Category: Speeches

David Simpson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to ensure the effective implementation of regulations (a) relating to storage of slurry and (b) in general for safety in farm yards.

George Eustice

Implementing safety regulations in farm yards is the responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The HSE recognises agriculture as a priority industry and has a programme for measurable and sustainable changes to the industry’s health and safety performance.

The regulation of slurry storage is a devolved matter. In England it is controlled by the Water Resources (Control of Pollution) (Silage, Slurry and Agricultural Fuel Oil) Regulations 2010 (the SSAFO regulations), with the Environment Agency as the main regulator. From this year the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is including slurry storage in its cross compliance inspections. Both the RPA and Environment Agency work closely with the HSE on farm safety.

Slurry storage and management in England has been reviewed recently by a Joint Industry and Government Working Group and this included a review of the SSAFO regulations. The Group’s report was published on 21 November 2013 and is available online at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/slurry-management-and-storage-joint-government-and-industry-report.The report recognised the risks involved in managing slurry and included a recommendation about developing regular assessment of the condition of slurry stores to provide assurance that stores both prevent environmental pollution and meet health and safety requirements.The Government and industry continue to work in partnership to implement the recommendations.

“

01/11/2022
Philip Davies – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-03-31.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what programmes which receive funding from his Department are available solely to (a) men and (b) women.

Simon Hughes

The information required to provide a full response to the question could not be collated within the timeframe available. I will write to the honourable member providing a full reply in due course

01/11/2022
Keith Vaz – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many meetings he has had with world leaders to discuss the situation in Yemen since 1 January 2013.

Hugh Robertson

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), as well as other FCO Ministers, have regular discussions on Yemen with their counterparts, particularly with those from the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Friends of Yemen Ministerial Group, which the UK hosted in London most recently on 29 April.

01/11/2022
David Amess – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Amess on 2014-03-31.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many bids have been received for each community rehabilitation company; how many of those were (a) successful and (b) discounted; and if he will make a statement.

Jeremy Wright

The contract winners for each Community Rehabilitation Company will be announced by the end of 2014. Bids to run the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) have yet to be submitted, but are expected in June 2014. In mid December 2013, the 30 bidders who passed the first stage of the competition to bid for the rehabilitation contracts were announced and approximately one third of the bidders included a potential mutual organisation within their consortium. A list of the bidders who have been successful at this stage can be found at:

https://www.justice.gov.uk/transforming-rehabilitation/competition

“

01/11/2022
Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the out-of-hospital survival rates are for patients who suffer a heart attack in each year since 1984 for which information is available.

Jane Ellison

Information onsurvival rates for patients who suffer an out of hospital heart attack or an out of hospital cardiac arrest are not collected centrally.

The British Heart Foundation suggests that between 2-12% of people treated by the emergency services after suffering an out of hospital cardiac arrest survive to be discharged from hospital.

The Department has made no assessment of the effect of stress on heart failure, nor has it made any estimate of heart attacks among workers who work 40 or 60 hours per week.

However, researchers analysing data from the Whitehall II study observed that people who believed stress was significantly affecting their health had double the risk of suffering from coronary heart disease, compared to people who did not believe stress was having an impact.

01/11/2022
Stephen Doughty – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2014-03-31.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average waiting time is for applicants for personal independence payment in each region of the UK to be assessed by (a) Capita Health and Wellbeing and (b) Atos Healthcare in each region.

Mike Penning

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) started from April 2013 and although limited data has started to feed through, we need to wait until the Department has quality assured, meaningful figures for publication. The Department is working to guidelines set by the UK Statistics Authority to ensure we are able to publish statistics that meet high quality standards at the earliest opportunity. We intend to publish official statistics on PIP from spring 2014 in line with our publication strategy –https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/284330/pip_stats_release_strategy_feb14.pdf

An ad-hoc release of PIP information was published on Tuesday 11th February 2014.

“

01/11/2022
Rehman Chishti – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rehman Chishti on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Answer of 10 June 2014, Official Report, column 896W, on hospitals, what progress his Department has made at Medway NHS Trust since it was placed in special measures in 2013.

Jane Ellison

Medway was recently re-inspected by the Chief Inspector, who will be publishing the results of the re-inspection shortly alongside his recommendation as to whether the foundation trust has made sufficient improvement to exit the regime.

The Trust is making good progress in the majority of areas reviewed in 2013 by the Keogh team. However, since the Keogh review the Trust has received warning notices from the Care Quality Commission in relation to its Maternity services (October 2013) and Emergency services (March 2014) indicating continuing quality concerns in other areas.

Since the Keogh review the Trust has created 29 additional medical posts and 115 additional nurse and nurse support staff posts. It has struggled to recruit sufficient numbers to these posts with the result that it remains highly reliant on locum and agency staff.

01/11/2022
Lord Mendelsohn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mendelsohn on 2014-03-31.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prosecutions for VAT carousel fraud have taken place in the United Kingdom over the last six years.

Lord Wallace of Tankerness

The records held by the Crown Prosecution Service do not identify the number of prosecutions for fraud cases known as VAT carousel fraud. Such information could only be obtained through a manual search of records which would incur a disproportionate cost.

01/11/2022
Luciana Berger – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2014-06-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the prevalence and effect of the sale of so-called legal highs (a) online and (b) in shops.

Norman Baker

The Government monitors the prevalence of use of particular new psychoactive substances through the Crime Survey for England and Wales. The latest results of the crime
survey can be found here:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/period-ending-decembe
r-2013/stb-crime-stats-dec-2013.html

New questions have been included in the 2014/15 Crime Survey, to capture the use of a wider range of new psychoactive substances than was previously the case.

The Home Office is currently undertaking a six month review led by an expert panel to look at how the UK’s legislative, educational and health response to new psychoactive substances can be enhanced. It is anticipated that the panel will report their recommendations to Home Office Ministers before summer recess.

01/11/2022

Helen Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2014-03-31.

To ask the Attorney General, how many prosecutions have been (a) commenced, (b) resulted in a non-custodial sentence and (c) resulted in a custodial sentence for (i) witness intimidation, (ii) perverting the cause of justice and (iii) conspiracy to pervert the course of justice as a result of incidents arising from cases involving domestic violence in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

Oliver Heald

The records held by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) identify the number of offences in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing in magistrates’ courts which were flagged as involving domestic violence, rather than the number of defendants or cases prosecuted.

The data is accurate only to the extent that the flag has been correctly applied.

Offences of perverting the course of justice are charged under Common Law, conspiracy to pervert justice, by way of Section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and intimidation of a witness or juror by way of Section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

The table below shows, for each of the last five years, the number of these offences charged and reaching a first hearing at magistrates’ courts, which were identified as involving domestic violence.

	2009-2010	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 { 51 }: Intimidating/threatening or harming a witness or juror	846	859	763	611	686
Common Law: Perverting the course of justice (including attempts)	140	136	103	121	150
Criminal Law Act 1977 { 1 }: Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice	4	7	5	4	8

Data Source: CPS Case Management Information System

There is no indication of the final prosecution outcome, or if the charged offence was the substantive charge at the time of finalisation. It is also often the case that an individual defendant is charged with more than one offence against the same victim.

It is not possible to centrally disaggregate offences charged by way of Section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, to separately identify those offences relating to witnesses from those concerning jurors. Such information could only be obtained through a manual search of records which would incur disproportionate cost.

The CPS does not hold records of sentences imposed following a conviction. Statistics relating to sentences are maintained by the Ministry of Justice.

01/11/2022