Category: Speeches

  • Karl Turner – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Karl Turner – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2015-10-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many temporary agency staff were recruited by the Legal Aid Agency to work on the procurement process for crime duty provider contracts; and what proportion of staff assessing the bids for such contracts were external staff.

    Mr Shailesh Vara

    13 temporary staff were employed through the Brook Street Agency and a Crown Commercial Services Recruitment framework and were selected by the Legal Aid Agency and interviewed by permanent members of staff to ensure their suitability. These individuals made up 19% of the overall assessment team. In addition contracts were entered into with legal practices to provide additional resource.

    The key criteria for employment were analytical skills and the ability to conduct a qualitative assessment. A legal or procurement background was considered an advantage but not essential, given that they would be supervised by permanent staff from the Legal Aid Agency.

    The procurement was undertaken in line with the Public Contract Regulations and applicant organisations were required to pass a number of stages of assessment in order to be considered suitable to hold a duty provider contract. The criteria against which organisations were assessed is set out in the Information For Applicants which govern this procurement process.

  • Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Stephen Timms – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-18.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the rate is of (a) unemployment and (b) employment among people living in the UK who (i) were born in Lithuania and (ii) are Lithuanian nationals.

    Mr Rob Wilson

    The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

  • Fiona Bruce – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Fiona Bruce – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona Bruce on 2015-12-17.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to paragraph 1.144 of the Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015, how women’s charities can apply for some of the £15 million annual fund.

    Greg Hands

    Bids and nominations for donations from the sanitary products VAT women’s charities fund can be submitted to HM Treasury by letter. The letter should set out the amount being sought and detail what it would fund. All representations will be given full consideration ahead of Budget 2016, and further rounds of donations will follow at future fiscal events. The fund will continue to run over the course of this Parliament or until the UK can apply a zero rate of VAT on sanitary products.

  • Lord Touhig – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Lord Touhig – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Touhig on 2016-01-28.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much is spent annually on training reservists in (1) the army, (2) the Royal Navy, and (3) the Royal Air Force.

    Earl Howe

    The requested information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  • Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 14 January 2016 to Question 21315, whether the changes to the Incident Report System of September 2015 made any improvements to the recording of knife finds.

    Andrew Selous

    Finds of certain prohibited items in prisons, including knives, are recorded on the NOMS Incident Reporting System (IRS).

    Until October 2015, any weapon in prison would be recorded under a miscellaneous incident type, and therefore would not provide consistent and complete information on weapon finds. In October 2015 we introduced a new incident type ‘Find’ on IRS, including a new category for ‘Weapons’, which means that separate data on weapons is now recorded.

  • Charles Walker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the House of Commons Commission

    Charles Walker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the House of Commons Commission

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charles Walker on 2016-03-16.

    To ask the Rt. hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington representing the House of Commons Commission, what estimate the House of Commons Commission has made of the number of senior House officials who will potentially fall under the provisions of the 4th EU Money Laundering Directive, 2015/849.

    Tom Brake

    The Commission has made no estimate of the numbers, if any, of senior House officials who might be held to fall within the definition of “politically exposed persons” for the purposes of the 4th EU Money Laundering Directive, nor would there be any reason for it to do so. Several senior House officials will themselves be aware of the provisions of the Directive as a result of their parliamentary work.

  • Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-04-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with her EU counterparts on the introduction of citizenship-for-investment schemes by EU member states.

    James Brokenshire

    I refer the Rt Hon. Member to the answers I gave on 22 March to Questions 31324 and 31325 from my Hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) and the answers I gave on 9 March to Question 29833 from the Hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and to Question 29873 from my Hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst).

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-05-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with medical organisations on the use of aspirin to prevent strokes.

    George Freeman

    The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) clinical guideline on stroke and transient ischaemic attack in over 16s: diagnosis and initial management (CG68), published in July 2008, recommends that all people presenting with acute stroke who have had a diagnosis of primary intracerebral haemorrhage excluded by brain imaging should be given aspirin 300 mg as soon as possible but certainly within 24 hours.

    Thereafter, aspirin 300 mg should be continued until two weeks after the onset of stroke symptoms, at which time definitive long-term antithrombotic treatment should be initiated.

    This guidance is due to be reviewed by NICE in July 2016 to see whether it needs to be updated.

  • Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    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 2016-07-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the National Audit Office investigation into the collapse of the Uniting Care Partnership Contract in Cambridge and Peterborough, what further reviews are being undertaken into the circumstances of the failure, and whether the outcomes of those reviews will be published.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    The Department welcomes the National Audit Office (NAO) report. Decisions about the Strategic Projects Team (SPT) are, however, for NHS England. Following an internal review and the NAO report, NHS England identified concerns about the work of the SPT. As a result, the SPT will close and all its ongoing commitments will be reviewed with a view to bringing them to a conclusion.

    NHS Improvement advises that it also welcomes the NAO report and is working closely with NHS England and the Department to consider assurance processes for such complex transactions. NHS Improvement further advises that its focus since May has been liaison with the NAO on its report and joint consideration with NHS England of the assurance issues raised.


    NHS England confirms that the NAO investigation supports the findings of its previously published independent review. Before the NAO investigation, NHS England had already commissioned a follow-up review focusing on the role of external advisors, the effectiveness of the Gateway review process, and the role of the clinical commissioning group leadership and governing body. This work continues and NHS England expects to publish findings later this summer.

    More widely, NHS England has been undertaking assessments of current and planned novel contracts and is developing an assurance framework for contracts of this sort. This is being informed by the findings of the Uniting Care reviews.

  • Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine West on 2016-10-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many instances of Islamophobic abuse have been recorded in each of the last 12 months.

    Sarah Newton

    The Home Office does not hold the requested information. The Home Office has published data for 2011/12 to 2014/15 on hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales for the five centrally monitored strands (race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity) but these data cannot be broken down by religion of the victim. The 2015/16 data will have been published on 13 October 2016.

    From April 2016, the Home Office began collecting data from the police on the targeted religion of religious hate crime offences in order to help forces build community trust, target their resources and enable the public to better hold them to account. This information will be provided voluntarily in 2016/17, but we intend to make it mandatory from the following year. We will publish the first data from this collection in the 2016/17 Hate Crime statistics publication in 2017.

    This Government is committed to tackling hate crime. The UK has one of the strongest legislative frameworks in the world to tackle hate crime. We are working across Government with police, (including National Community Tensions Team), the Crown Prosecution Service and community partners to send out a clear message that hate crime will not be tolerated and we will vigorously pursue and prosecute those who commit these crimes.