Tag: 2014

  • Ian Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Ian Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Lucas on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average cost per night is of a bed in (a) an intensive therapy unit or high dependency unit, (b) a district general hospital, (c) a spinal cord injury centre and (d) a spinal cord injury centre for a ventilated spinal cord injured patient.

    Jane Ellison

    Information is not available in the format requested.

    Such information as is available is from reference costs, which are the average unit costs to National Health Service trusts and foundation trusts of providing defined services in a given financial year to NHS patients. Unit costs for inpatient care, including spinal cord injury, requiring the use of a hospital bed for at least one night are submitted per finished consultant episode rather than per night. Only unit costs for inpatient stays beyond the expected length of stay for each treatment are submitted per bed day. Unit costs for critical care, including in an intensive therapy unit or high dependency unit, are submitted per critical care bed day. This information is shown in the following table.

    National average unit costs of adult critical care, elective and non-elective care, and spinal cord injury care in England, 2012-13

    Unit cost per finished consultant episode4

    Unit cost per excess bed day5

    Unit cost per critical care bed day6

    Adult critical care1

    –

    –

    1,173

    Inpatient care2

    1,758

    273

    –

    Spinal cord injury care3

    7,649

    354

    –

    Notes:

    1National average adult critical care costs submitted in reference costs by all NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts that provided patient care in critical care units during 2012-13 give the nearest equivalent to the average cost per night of a bed in an intensive therapy unit or high dependency unit. They relate to parts of the patient’s hospital stay that require organ system support in a designated critical care bed. These are conventionally grouped into critical care areas, such as an intensive therapy unit or high dependency unit, but may include temporary, non-standard locations.

    2National average elective and non-elective inpatient costs submitted in reference costs by all NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts that admitted patients during 2012-13 give the nearest equivalent to the average cost per night of a bed in a district general hospital. No attempt has been made to distinguish between district general hospitals and other types of trust, such as specialist or teaching trusts.

    3National average elective and non-elective inpatient costs submitted in reference costs against treatment function code 323, spinal injuries, by the following eight trusts providing spinal cord injury centres in England give the nearest equivalent to the average cost per night of a bed in a spinal cord injury centre:

    (a) Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

    (b) Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust

    (c) Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust

    (d) Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

    (e) South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

    (f) Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust

    (g) St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust

    (h) The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

    4Reference costs for elective and non-elective inpatient episodes of care distinguish between the inlier unit cost below a statistically derived expected length of stay (known as a trim point) for a given treatment, and an excess bed day cost for each bed day over the trim point. Inlier unit costs cover the costs of active treatment and are submitted per finished consultant episode rather than per bed day.

    5Excess bed day costs are used to estimate the cost of an overnight stay in a hospital bed and generally include routine ward costs such as nursing, dressings, and blood tests, although they may also include the costs of active treatment where this continues beyond the trim point, especially for specialised services.

    6Adult critical care costs are submitted per critical care bed day.

    Source: Reference costs, Department of Health

  • Iain Wright – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Iain Wright – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Iain Wright on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he expects to make a decision on the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust’s submission on a new hospital at Wynyard.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    The Department is currently considering the business case submitted by North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust in August 2013. It is not possible to give an indication of when a final decision on the case will be made. The proposals represent a very significant financial commitment and it is vital we ensure they are value for money and affordable to the Trust.

  • Iain Wright – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Iain Wright – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Iain Wright on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how long the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust’s submission on a new hospital at Wynyard has been considered by his Department.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    The Department is currently considering the business case submitted by North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust in August 2013. It is not possible to give an indication of when a final decision on the case will be made. The proposals represent a very significant financial commitment and it is vital we ensure they are value for money and affordable to the Trust.

  • Mark Pritchard – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Mark Pritchard – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Pritchard on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will hold discussions with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime on a global response to the sale of stolen antiquities to fund terrorism.

    Norman Baker

    The UK takes the funding of terrorist organisations through any means very seriously. This Government endorsed guidelines on countering trafficking in cultural property and related offences at the UN Office on Drugs and CrimeCommission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at its twenty-third session in May 2014.

  • Andrew Rosindell – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Andrew Rosindell – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to protect civil liberties whilst tackling Islamic extremism across the UK.

    James Brokenshire

    The government is committed to disrupting extremism and we use the full force of the law to do so, including proscribing groups concerned in terrorism, prosecuting the perpetrators of hate crime and excluding preachers of hate from the UK. We also remain committed to protecting fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of speech. That is why it is vital that we challenge those extremist ideas that also form part of a terrorist ideology, and threaten these freedoms. Central to this is challenging those behaviours and views which run counter to our shared values, which include freedom of speech, democracy, the rule of law, equality of opportunity and treatment, and the rights of all men and women to live free from persecution of any kind.

  • Tom Watson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Tom Watson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what the value is of duplicate supplier payments identified by her Department since 2010; and what proportion of such payments have since been recovered in each of the last two financial years.

    Dr Andrew Murrison

    My Department does not hold records of duplicate supplier payments. The system currently operating in the Northern Ireland Office registers invoice numbers and will not allow two invoices with the same reference number to be paid. To manually search through the invoices received and paid from 2010 to date would incur disproportionate cost.

  • Ian Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Ian Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Lucas on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what timescale the upgrade of the Halton Curve will follow.

    Claire Perry

    The Government is providing £10.4m, in support of the Liverpool City Region Growth Deal, to fund the reinstatement of the Halton Curve. The scheme is currently being developed by Network Rail and detailed proposals are expected to be available early next year. Final sign off of funding for the scheme will be for the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership and delivery is expected in 2016/17.

  • Chuka Umunna – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Chuka Umunna – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chuka Umunna on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 9 April 2014, Official Report, column 292W, on Royal Mail, how many staff of the Shareholder Executive worked on the privatisation of Royal Mail.

    Matthew Hancock

    The 17 core staff referred to in the Answer of 9 April 2014, Official Report, column 292W, were all from the Shareholder Executive working on the Royal Mail Initial Public Offering.

  • Jon Trickett – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture Media and Sport

    Jon Trickett – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jon Trickett on 2014-07-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to improve the broadband infrastructure for businesses in rural areas.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The Government is investing £780 million, with local match funding, to provide superfast broadband coverage to 95% of UK premises, including in rural locations. Coverage will include both business and residential consumers. In addition, the Government has also launched 8 pilot projects to explore options for improving coverage of superfast broadband beyond 95%, including to the most hard to reach areas of the UK.

  • Hilary Benn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Hilary Benn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what statistics his Department holds on the use of fixed penalty notices in each local authority area.

    Brandon Lewis

    The most recent official statistics (for 2009-10) show that 9 million parking fines were issued a year by local authorities in England. From 1997-98 to 2010-11, local authority total income from sales, fees and charges in England from parking rose from £608 million to £1.25 billion; net profits from parking rose from £223 million to £512 million in the same period. A survey by LV= car insurance last year estimated that councils hand out 10.7 million fines a year across the UK, and British motorists pay out over £30 million each month in parking fines.

    Councils in England were forecast to make £635 million net profit from parking charges fines in 2013-14. Yet legislation passed by Parliament is clear that parking charges and fines should not be used to raise general revenue. However, some councils are raising money illegally from parking.

    Last July, the High Court ruled that one London borough had illegally hiked parking charges to raise general revenue. The BBC television programme, Inside Out, also drew to my attention parking contracts signed by local authorities where outsourced parking wardens are rewarded for issuing more fines – in flagrant breach of the Government’s operational guidance to councils. The Local Government Association’s own participatory budgeting tool has also encouraged councils to raise parking charges and fines as a source of general revenue.

    Such practices are a breach of fundamental constitutional principles from Magna Carta, the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights: taxes should not be levied without recourse to Parliament, and the justice system should not be corrupted to raise money.

    Higher parking charges and more parking fines were the explicit policy of the Labour Government. Labour DCLG Ministers called for councils to charge for more services, including parking, bemoaned that: ‘Only one in five councils are using charging to the full potential… [such as for] reducing congestion’ (Speech to the Local Government Association, 2 July 2008). Planning guidance issued by the Labour Government in 2001 (so-called PPG13) told councils to hike parking charges and adopt aggressive enforcement to discourage drivers.

    My Department holds information on councils’ income from penalty charge notices. In my answer of 12 March 2014, Official Report, Column 260W, I placed in the Library a table showing the amount of money raised in parking fines in each local authority in England over time, which illustrates the need to reverse Labour’s approach.

    Since 2010, this Government has already:

    · Scrapped Labour’s Whitehall policy that pressured councils to hike car parking charges as a ‘demand management measure’ to discourage car use (PPG13).

    · Removed Whitehall restrictions which restricted the provision of off-street parking spaces;

    · Abolished Labour’s Whitehall policy which inhibited parking charge competition between council areas, and instead introduced a new policy that says parking charges should not undermine the vitality of town centres;

    · Introduced a policy that parking enforcement should be proportionate;

    · Issued new planning practice guidance on removing street clutter and encouraging the provision of shopper-friendly parking space provision; and

    · Introduced the local retention of business rates, which means that councils benefit from business and retail growth in town centres, rather than just hiking parking charges.

    In addition, the Government recently announced a further series of reforms:

    · Stopping the abuse or misuse of on-street parking CCTV on an industrial scale. Parking CCTV spy cars were introduced by the last Labour Government.

    · Reforming operational parking guidance so it is less heavy handed with motorists, prevents over-aggressive action by bailiffs, positively supports local shops and clearly reinforces the prohibition against parking being used to generate profit;

    · Introducing mandatory 10 minute “grace periods” at the end of on-street paid and free parking, and off-street municipal parking;

    · Implementing a new right to allow local residents and local firms to demand a review of parking in their area, including charges and the use of yellow lines;

    · Proposing a widening of the powers of parking adjudicators, and updating guidance so the public know when they can be awarded costs at tribunals;

    · Trialling a 25% discount for drivers at appeal stage, reversing the current disincentive for drivers with a legitimate case to appeal;

    · Changing guidance so drivers parking at an out-of-order meter are not fined if there are no alternative ways to pay;

    · Maintaining a freeze on parking penalty charges for the remainder of this Parliament; and

    · Updating the local government Transparency Code to increase information about local parking charges and the number of parking spaces.

    Unreasonable parking charges and fines push up hard-working people’s cost of living. If parking is too expensive or difficult, shoppers will simply drive to out of town supermarkets or just shop online, undermining the vitality of town centres and leading to ‘ghost town’ high streets. But, by rejecting Labour’s approach, this Government is standing up for hard-working people and local shops.