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  • Lord Laird – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Lord Laird – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether all quasi-judicial decisions made by government departments or agencies should be made public.

    Lord Bridges of Headley

    There are a wide variety of quasi-judicial decisions and each are subject to different statutory requirements. In many cases the reasons behind the decisions are published with the decisions, for instance where a Secretary of State decides to make, or not make, a Development Consent Order under the Planning Act 2008, the decision letter and associated order, if applicable, must be published.There are several reasons why decisions might not be published and those include national security, sensitive personal data or commercial sensitivity.

  • Lord Truscott – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Truscott – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Truscott on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to co-operate with Russia in the fight against ISIL.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    We have a shared interest with Russia in tackling ISIL and bringing peace and security to the region. We are concerned that the majority of Russian airstrikes in Syria to date have targeted areas in which ISIL is not present. It is important that Russia continues to engage in the International Syria Support Group.

    At the G20, the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), and President Putin agreed that the international community needed to find a way to work together to find a political solution to the conflict in Syria and focus on the shared aim of destroying ISIL.

  • Lord Truscott – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Lord Truscott – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Truscott on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following recent atrocities by ISIL against a number of countries, including Russia, they have reconsidered the statement by the Defence Secretary on 19 February that there is a real and present danger” Russia could try to destabilise the Baltic states.”

    Earl Howe

    The Government’s position has been stated in the recently published Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 (Cm 9161). Russia’s behaviour is hard to predict and although highly unlikely, we cannot rule out the possibility that Russia may feel tempted to act aggressively against NATO Allies. We also want to keep open the possibility of co-operation and will continue to seek to engage with Russia on global security issues, including international efforts to tackle the ISIL threat.

  • Lord Truscott – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Truscott – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Truscott on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, following the recent atrocities committed by ISIL in France, Egypt and the Lebanon, whether they have reconsidered the statement by the Foreign Secretary on 10 March that Russia represented the single greatest threat to UK Security”.”

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    As the Strategic Defence and Security Review makes clear, Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and destabilising activities in Ukraine directly challenge European security and the rules-based international order. We have long been clear that Russia’s actions are unacceptable. Nevertheless we need to work with Russia on key areas of shared interest: in particular to end fighting in Syria, and to focus on the shared aim of destroying the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. That was the basis on which the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), met President Putin at the G20 Summit in Antalya on 16 November.

  • Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the cost to (1) small businesses, and (2) personal taxpayers, of HMRC’s delays in answering telephone enquiries in terms of lost productivity.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    HM Revenue and Customs has not made such an assessment.

  • Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce HMRC’s delays in answering telephone enquiries.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) recognise that their customer service has not been good enough, and have taken major steps to improve, including recruiting 3,000 new staff into customer service roles, available outside normal office hours when many of their customers choose to call. This year has seen their biggest-ever training programme as HMRC build customer support teams that can move across a wide range of work according to customer demand. By the end of December 1,600 existing staff will be trained to cover a wider range of work. Hundreds of these people are already taking calls. These improvements have started to make a difference. Last month, HMRC answered more than 80 per cent of calls, and average queue times are now around 10 minutes or less.

  • Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they plan to take to ensure equality of treatment for mental and physical illness.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    We have put into legislation through the Health and Social Care Act 2012 that mental health should have equal priority to physical health. We have also committed NHS England through the NHS Mandate to achieve parity of esteem between mental and physical health.

    We are implementing the first waiting times targets for mental health services to ensure more people have timely access to care in the same way they do for treatment for physical health. We have also increased access to talking therapies through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme.

  • Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of what is an acceptable average period for (1) small businesses, and (2) personal taxpayers, to wait for their calls to a government department to be answered.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    HM Revenue and Customs has a target to handle 80 per cent of call attempts to their contact centre helplines. It also aims to answer calls within 5 minutes.

  • Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Oates – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the average time it takes HMRC to respond to written communications from (1) small businesses, and (2) personal taxpayers.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not collect data in such a way that the average waiting time for responses to written communications can be calculated. The performance is measured as a percentage of post cleared within 15 and 40 working days of receipt. HMRC has published the information on the performance results including post turnaround in the Annual Report and Accounts 2014-15.

    HMRC’s data on response times for written communication cannot be easily analysed by customer group.

  • Lord Naseby – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the The Lord Chairman of Committees

    Lord Naseby – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the The Lord Chairman of Committees

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Naseby on 2015-11-18.

    To ask the Chairman of Committees what consultation there has been about the proposals for record copies of public acts to be printed on paper rather than vellum.

    Lord Laming

    The House of Lords agreed to cease using vellum for public Acts in 1999, with a resolution to that effect being passed on 14 October 1999. At that time, the change was not agreed by the House of Commons.

    Since then the House of Lords has continued to pay for the production of two copies of each public Act of Parliament, printed on vellum. (One copy is retained in the Parliamentary Archives; one copy is sent to the National Archives.) The Lords has done this even though it is not in accord with the October 1999 resolution of this House.

    In the past six years (2009/10 to 2014/15) the Lords has spent a total of £620,440 on vellum Acts; an average of just over £103,000 per year.

    This is despite the availability of archival paper which is of extremely high quality and durability. Private Acts of Parliament have been printed on archival quality paper since 1956, and I am not aware that vellum is now used for any other governmental or parliamentary records.

    The National Archives have confirmed the view they took in 1999; that they do not require a vellum copy, and that archival quality paper is sufficient to maintain the public record.

    Switching from vellum to high quality archival paper would, on a conservative estimate, save approximately 80% on current costs – or around £80,000 per year. The exact level of savings to public funds will depend on the number of Acts passed, and number of pages per Act, per year, and the precise specification and contractual arrangements agreed for future printing.

    As well as being an expensive raw material, vellum requires a highly specialised form of printing which is not widely available, the machinery for which is expensive to maintain, and which is likely to be more difficult to procure on the expiry of the House’s current printing contract in March 2016.

    As the start of a new Parliament seemed a natural point at which to implement the change previously agreed by this House, the main party Leaders, the Convenor and the Lord Speaker were consulted early in the present session, and the House Committee was informed in July 2015. I then wrote to the Chairman of the House of Commons Administration Committee on 17 September to invite that House to agree to the change.