Category: Speeches

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-01-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her policy is on religious education as a compulsory part of the school curriculum.

    Nick Gibb

    The government firmly believes in the importance of religious education (RE).

    RE is a compulsory subject for all pupils up to the age of 18 in state funded schools. For schools without a religious character, the RE curriculum needs to reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are, in the main, Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain.

  • Martyn Day – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Martyn Day – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Martyn Day on 2016-02-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will take steps to prepare to contribute from the public purse to the new education funding platform to be launched at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May 2016.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    The UK has bold ambitions for the World Humanitarian Summit, which comes at a critical time given the number of people experiencing crisis. We are working with a range of partners, including the UN, government, NGOs and the private sector, to ensure it delivers transformative change to crisis response including education.

    In the run up to the Summit, the UK has been playing a leading role in agreeing principles and global action on education in emergencies and protracted crisis situations, including at the Conference on Supporting Syria and the Region. We are co-funding the design of the new education funding platform and will take a decision whether to support this once the design has been fully appraised.

  • Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-02-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what her Department’s wellness strategy is.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    DFID seeks to create a workplace where we protect the health, safety and wellbeing of staff, optimise the opportunity to promote a healthy workforce, maintain safe systems of work and proactively support the physical and emotional wellbeing of staff.​ These principles are reflected throughout DFIDs HR Policies and approach to People Management.

  • Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-03-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much funding his Department received from the European Social Fund (a) between 2007 and 2014 and (b) from 2014 to the last month for which data is available.

    Nick Boles

    The Skills Funding Agency (and its predecessor, the Learning and Skills Council) is a co-financing organisation for the European Social Fund in England. It received £1,494,936,801.00 between January 2007 and December 2013 and £485,027,046.00 from January 2014 to December 2015, a total of £1,979,963,847.00. The money was used to support skills projects across England.

    For the 2014-2020 Programme in England the Skills Funding Agency has put in place funding agreements with Local Enterprise Partnerships to the value of £725m from the European Social Fund.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-04-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department’s policy of the recommendations by the Maritime Accident Investigation Branch in its review of the sinking of the Cemfjord; what discussions his Department has had with the Maritime Coastguard Agency on implementing those recommendations; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) report into the sinking of the Cemfjord was published on the 21 April. The Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) is carefully considering the recommendations about maritime safety information, ship reporting and routeing, and monitoring.

    None of the recommendations in the MAIB report are addressed specifically to the Department. However, the Department takes these findings, and those from other MAIB reports, into consideration in the development of policy and in its interactions in international forums on these issues.

  • Lord Storey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Lord Storey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-05-24.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much the Public Duty Cost Allowances were in (1) 2013–14, (2) 2014–15, and (3) 2015–16.

    Lord Bridges of Headley

    The costs of the Public Duties Cost Allowance are published annually in the Cabinet Office Annual Report and Accounts.

    The cost of the PDCA in 2013-14 was £331,348 and in 2014-15 was £331,818.

    Details of costs for 2015-16 will be included in the 2015-16 Annual Report and Accounts which will be published in due course.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-07-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on the treatment of strokes of withdrawing access to patent foramen ovale closure and left atrial appendage occlusion during the commissioning through evaluation analysis phase.

    David Mowat

    NHS England’s Commissioning through Evaluation (CtE) programme enables a limited number of patients to access treatments, such as patent foramen ovale closure and left atrial appendage occlusion, which are not routinely funded by the National Health Service. These are usually treatments which show significant promise for the future and enable a small number of patients to access them while new clinical and patient experience data are collected within a formal evaluation programme. This approach ensures that each CtE scheme provides valuable new data, beyond that already available from clinical trials, or where there is no clinical trial data, to inform future commissioning policy decisions.

    During the analysis phase, NHS England’s published policy position for the treatment concerned will continue to apply. For patent foramen ovale closure and left atrial appendage occlusion this will mean that these procedures will not be routinely available within the NHS. However, patients already being treated as part of a CtE scheme will continue to receive appropriate follow-up care.

    Once the CtE evaluation report is available, or if other significant clinical trial information becomes available more quickly, NHS England’s published policy for the treatment concerned will be reviewed and a decision will be made about whether NHS England will or will not make the treatment available within the NHS.

  • Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-10-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many times explosive ordinance officers were deployed to deal with incidents in Northern Ireland between 1 January 2016 and 1 July 2016.

    Mike Penning

    Incidents requiring explosive ordnance disposal experts in Northern Ireland are dealt with solely by military personnel. The information requested on the number of occasions Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel have responded to incidents in Northern Ireland is published annually in the Report of the Independent Reviewer of the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. The statistics will be included in the forthcoming report which covers the period of August 2015 to July 2016.

  • Andrew Rosindell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Andrew Rosindell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2015-11-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he had during his recent visit to the Gulf states to encourage those states to increase their involvement in the (a) war against ISIL and (b) resolution of the refugee situation in Syria.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    The Foreign Secretary discussed the counter ISIL effort with all the countries that he visited during his recent trip to the Gulf, which included Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and UAE. We will continue to work intensively with Gulf States to deal with ISIL, both bilaterally and multilaterally, including under the auspices of the Global Coalition to counter-ISIL.

    Our partners in the Gulf share our view that ISIL presents a threat to regional stability. Several of them have suffered from ISIL attacks in their homelands, and many host large numbers of refugees fleeing Assad’s and ISIL’s brutality. They are committed to defeating ISIL, and fully recognise that coordinated international action is the best way to achieve that. All the countries that the Foreign Secretary visited during his recent trip are working to defeat ISIL, including as part of the Global Coalition to counter-ISIL.

    As a result of the Syrian crisis, there are now over 4 million refugees from Syria in neighbouring countries. All of the countries that the Foreign Secretary visited are in agreement with us that a political solution is the only way to resolve the Syrian crisis.

  • Andrew Tyrie – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Andrew Tyrie – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Tyrie on 2015-11-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what reasons the Airports Commission used his Department’s National Air Passenger Demand Model and National Air Passenger Allocation model in its work; whether the assumption of homogenous capacity in those models affected the net present value figures in Table 7.1 of the Commission’s Final Report, published in July 2015, compared with a model that distinguished between long and short-haul, business and leisure, and domestic and international capacity; and what assessment he has made of whether the use of a model that distinguishes between such different types of capacity would increase or decrease the net present value of each of those shortlisted schemes.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The Government is currently considering the large amount of very detailed analysis contained in the Airports Commission’s final report before taking any decisions on next steps.

    The Government will carefully consider all the evidence set out, including that on costs, when making a decision on additional runway capacity.