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  • Margaret Ferrier – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Margaret Ferrier – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ferrier on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps her Department has taken to promote use of the UK Guarantees Scheme in Northern Ireland.

    Mr Ben Wallace

    In the Northern Ireland economic pact, Building a Prosperous and United Community, the Government committed to applying its Infrastructure Guarantee Scheme flexibly to ensure that locally or regionally significant projects in Northern Ireland will be eligible.

  • Mark Hendrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Mark Hendrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been made redundant by HM Courts and Tribunals Service since 31 May 2014; and what the cost to the public purse of such redundancies has been.

    Mr Shailesh Vara

    There have been no compulsory redundancies in HMCTS since 31 May 2014. There have been voluntary departures agreed in HMCTS, as detailed in the HMCTS Financial Statement of Accounts. Since 31 May 2014 there have been 231 voluntary departures at a combined cost of £8,696,728.

  • Jim Fitzpatrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Jim Fitzpatrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Fitzpatrick on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the proposed closure of Bow County Court on access to justice for the residents of Poplar and Limehouse constituency.

    Mr Shailesh Vara

    The consultation closed on 8 October. HM Courts & Tribunals Service is currently evaluating all responses submitted, and will take into account any potential impacts identified from the responses received.

    No decision has been taken to close any court and an announcement on the outcome of the consultation will be made in due course.

  • Peter Bone – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Peter Bone – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Peter Bone on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the (a) average cost of building new prisons planned by the Government and (b) length of time it will take from conception to completion to build such a prison.

    Andrew Selous

    £1.3bn will be invested to reform and modernise the prison estate to make it more efficient, safer and focused on supporting prisoner rehabilitation. The government will build nine new, modern prisons, five of which will open in this Parliament and the rest shortly after.

  • Nia Griffith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Nia Griffith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nia Griffith on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of the forms on his Department’s website is available in Welsh.

    Mike Penning

    There are 60 Ministry of Justice forms published on gov.uk. Of these, three are translated into the Welsh language, which is five percent of the total. This does not include forms from agencies or arms’ length bodies of the Ministry of Justice. We are committed to providing our forms in the Welsh language where it is clear there is demand.

    Guidance for departments on the translation of documents for the Government website is provided by the Government Digital Service and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design/welsh-language-on-gov-uk

    “

  • Daniel Kawczynski – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Daniel Kawczynski – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Kawczynski on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what work her Department is undertaking with agencies outside the UN High Commissioner for Refugees system in order to assist and resettle the most vulnerable refugees.

    Richard Harrington

    The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the internationally recognised and mandated agency for dealing with refugees. We therefore work exclusively with the UNHCR in identifying which vulnerable refugees are selected for resettlement in the UK, based on the UNHCR’s vulnerability criteria. We also work very closely with other bodies to deliver services on the ground to resettle Syrians through this scheme. These include the International Organisation for Migration, local authorities and national and regional NGOs.

  • Jim Fitzpatrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Jim Fitzpatrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Fitzpatrick on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department plans to take account of the conclusions of the United Nations/World Health Organisation Second Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety when preparing the UK’s response to the next set of Sustainable Development Goals.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    Road traffic injuries cost developing countries an estimated 1-2% of their gross national product, equivalent to over US$100 billion annually, with a widening of the disparity between advanced and developing countries. Road accidents kill an estimated 1.3 million people and injure up to 78 million people each year.

    We are pleased that the burden of road crashes has been recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals and we are committed to supporting the international community to achieve the target of halving the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020.

    DFID recently increased its funding to the Global Road Safety Facility (GRSF) hosted at the World Bank and will contribute £4.5 million between 2013 and 2017. The GRSF provides funding, knowledge, and technical assistance that lever road safety investments into transport sector programmes.

    We also focus on road safety through our research and evidence portfolio. For example our programme on High Volume Transport and the programme “Research for Community Access Partnership” (ReCAP) both have strong road safety research components. DFID also supports a programme in Nepal working to improve road infrastructure for road safety on a critical section of Nepal’s national network.

  • Mike Kane – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Mike Kane – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the potential role for the private sector in increasing birth registration in fagile contexts.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    Accurately recording births, deaths, adoptions, marriages and divorces will be critical in achieving the newly agreed Global Goals. In fragile contexts, registration is essential to enable refugees to obtain humanitarian services and protection under international law.

    Although globally, the births of nearly 230 million children under age five have never been recorded and almost two thirds of deaths are not counted at all, some progress is being made, largely in Latin America and Asia. The increasing use of technology and the private sector have played important enabling roles in building this momentum and will continue to be crucial to further progress.

    DFID supports statistical capacity building and implementation of national statistical plans in a number of countries through global programmes such as the Statistics for Results Facility Catalytic Fund (SRF-CF), implemented in eight countries. In Nigeria, for example, SRF-CF supported eight outreach birth/death registration centres. DFID also provides bilateral support to countries’ national statistical systems.

    At a policy level, DFID supports the Commission for Information and Accountability (COIA) where CRVS is one of ten priority areas. DFID also provides support to the UNHCR, the mandated UN agency to advocate for the protection and promotion of the rights of refugees, which plays a crucial role in assisting refugees in with documentation. To date, DFID has allocated over £44 million to UNHCR’s operations in Jordan and in Lebanon, of which a proportion will go to funding the registration and issuing of birth certificates for refugees.

  • Patrick Grady – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Patrick Grady – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Patrick Grady on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will issue a response to Early Day Motion 676, British Women and the New British Passport.

    James Brokenshire

    The theme for the latest design is ‘Creative United Kingdom’ and celebrates 500 years of creativity in the United Kingdom. It features well known images from artists, landmarks and architecture, iconic British innovations and the performing arts and represents all four countries in the UK.

    The images of Ada Lovelace, for her continued importance to modern day computing, and Elisabeth Scott, as a pioneer for women in architecture, are rightly deserving of their place within this celebration of creativity.

    The new passport design has been in development since February 2013 and it has been necessary to secure the appropriate consents in order to use particular images. Narrowing the image choices down to a final number was an extremely difficult decision. The images chosen within the new passport design have enabled the use of evolving security technology to make it even more difficult to commit passport fraud. Passports featuring the new design have started to be issued.

  • David Burrowes – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    David Burrowes – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Burrowes on 2015-12-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to lay before Parliament a report on the steps the Government proposes to take in relation to independent child trafficking advocates, pursuant to section 48(7) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

    Karen Bradley

    Section 48(7) of the Modern Slavery Act requires the Government to lay before Parliament a report setting out the steps it proposes to take in relation to independent child trafficking advocates within nine months of Royal Assent of the Modern Slavery Act. The Government will publish this report by 16 December, whilst Parliament is sitting.