The below Parliamentary question was asked by David T. C. Davies on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients resident in England but receiving health care in Wales have requested that their treatment be delivered in England in the last year.
Jane Ellison
This information is not held by the Department.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Guy Opperman on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to raise the plight of persecuted Christians abroad; and what steps he is taking to raise the case of Meriam Ibrahim with his Sudanese counterpart.
Mark Simmonds
I am appalled at the death sentence given to Meriam Ibrahim, and her continued imprisonment. Immediately following her trial, I issued a statement describing her conviction as barbaric and calling upon the Government of Sudan to respect the right to freedom of religion or belief and international human rights laws as enshrined in its own constitution. The Chargé d’Affaires of the Sudanese Embassy in London was summoned to the Foreign Office on the 19 May at the request of Foreign Secretary. DFID Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Lynne Featherstone, reiterated our demand with the Sudanese Foreign Minister when she met him on 20 May. Our Embassy in Khartoum, that attended her trial, continues to press the Sudanese authorities for Meriam Ibrahim’s release, and is in close contact with the defence team.
This is a priority human rights area for us. We speak out regularly against violence perpetrated against Christians. The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) gave a speech in Washington in November last year on the need for unity in confronting the intolerance and sectarianism that leads to minority communities being persecuted. We also lobby for changes in discriminatory laws and practices that affect religious minorities, including Christians, and support UN resolutions on the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Martin Horwood on 2014-03-18.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to incentivise charities to manage their assets in a manner compliant with the Financial Reporting Council’s UK Stewardship Code.
Nick Hurd
The Financial Reporting Council’s Stewardship Code does not direct itself to matters particular to charities such as their responsibilities under charity law and their focus on beneficiaries. ‘Good Governance – a Code for the Voluntary and Community Sector’ developed by a coalition of charity and voluntary sector bodies is a code designed for charities and the voluntary sector. This Code has the support of the Charity Commission which encourages its adoption through publications and signposting on its website.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether (a) he and (b) other Ministers in his Department will be attending the high-level Ministerial Dialogue on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action on 6 June 2014 in Bonn, Germany; what the Government’s aims are in such talks; and if he will make a statement.
Gregory Barker
The UK is represented at senior official levels at Bonn. It is a mid-year meeting paving the way for the Lima Conference of Parties (COP) in December and ministers do not usually attend the Bonn meetings.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Liz Kendall on 2014-04-03.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, which social care providers have been identified by HM Revenue and Customs as non-compliant with national minimum wage legislation; how much is owed in arrears by each such provider and to how many workers; and what value of fines have been levied on such providers to date.
Mr David Gauke
The Government takes the enforcement of National Minimum Wage (NMW) very seriously and HMRC enforce the national minimum wage legislation on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and has done so since the introduction of NMW in April 1999. It does that by investigating all complaints made about employers suspected of not paying the minimum wage, in addition carrying out targeted enforcement where it identifies a high risk of non-payment of NMW across the whole of the UK.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have a legal duty of confidentiality towards their customers. For NMW, this includes employers and their workers. This means that HMRC cannot supply all the information requested as this would breach HMRC’s statutory duty of confidentiality under s18(1) of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005.
Fines are associated with criminal offences. Where minimum wage arrears are identified for any pay reference periods starting on or after 6 April 2009, the employer will be charged an automatic penalty. The rate of the penalty charge was 50% of the arrears falling in pay periods after 6 April 2009 (minimum penalty charge was £100 and the maximum was £5,000).
The Government has increased the financial penalty percentage from 50 per cent to 100 per cent of the unpaid wages owed to workers, and the maximum penalty from £5,000 to £20,000. These new limits are now in force where arrears are identified in pay reference periods on or after 7 March 2014. The Government will also bring in primary legislation as soon as possible so that the maximum £20,000 penalty can apply to each underpaid worker.
To ensure that underpaid workers receive the arrears of national minimum wage due to them, HMRC contacts every employer for confirmation that they have paid the arrears to workers. In cases where 5 or fewer workers are owed arrears HMRC also contacts all those workers for confirmation of payment. In cases where more than 5 workers are identified as being owed arrears HMRC contacts an additional sample of workers for confirmation of payment.
HMRC records information by Standard Industry Codes. The table below shows the number of employers in the Social Care sector found to be non-compliant with NMW legislation in the last year. Also shown are the value of arrears, the number of underpaid workers identified and the value of penalties issued to employers as a result of those investigations.
|
Financial Year |
Number of employers recorded as Social Care Sector and found to be non-compliant |
Arrears identified during those investigations |
Underpaid workers identified during those investigations |
Penalties issued during those investigations |
|
2013-14 |
30 |
£800,883 |
3,620 |
£46,020 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Smith on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what plans his Department has to provide assistance to people with cold-related health conditions who are struggling to pay their heating bills.
Gregory Barker
The evidence is clear that living in cold homes can have a substantial range of negative health impacts. We have a strong package of policies already delivering assistance to those in need. These include:
– the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) which funds efficient boilers and insulation measures to low income and vulnerable households and is now guaranteed until at least 2017;
– the Warm Home Discount scheme, which gave over 1.2m of the lowest income pensioners £135 off their electricity bills in winter 2013/14, and supported more than 2m households in total;
– Winter Fuel and Cold Weather payments which provide support to pensioners and vulnerable low income groups; and
– the Big Energy Saving Network which is providing outreach to consumers, helping them understand tariffs and switching options as well as how they could benefit from energy efficiency programmes available to them.
In July 2013 DECC published the document Fuel Poverty: a framework for future action, this stated Government’s intention to continue to prioritise ‘vulnerable’ fuel poor households (i.e. those containing an elderly person, a child or someone who is long term sick or disabled) within fuel poverty policies.
We have been discussing links between fuel poverty and health with colleagues in the Department of Health, and Public Health England, at all levels, including Ministerial, as part of our preparation for a new fuel poverty strategy.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-03-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the (a) average life span and (b) health outcomes of members of gangs.
Norman Baker
[holding answer 24 March 2014]
We know that young people, including gang members, who are exposed to violence have poorer health outcomes. This is set out in a practical guide we recently produced with the NHS Confederation on reducing violence, and in the Department of Health report ‘Protecting people, promoting health’.
To address these issues, the Ending Gang and Youth Violence annual report 2013 includes ‘youth violence and health’ as a key priority.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, what steps he is taking to disseminate the lessons learned from the data mining pilots for the introduction of individual electoral registrations; and if he will make a statement.
Greg Clark
The Government published its results in March 2012 and July 2013 and can be found at:
The Electoral Commission also produced their assessment of the pilots. Their reports can be found at:
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Henderson on 2014-03-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans the Government has to improve the rail infrastructure on the North Kent rail line.
Stephen Hammond
The Government is working with Network Rail, train operators and Kent County Council to progress the case for journey time reductions between Ashford and Ramsgate by 2019 through infrastructure improvements. Funding is available for this, subject to a satisfactory business case.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what use his Department has made of the National Wellbeing Index introduced by the Office for National Statistics in formulating policy since the introduction of that Index in 2011; and what policies his Department has introduced to improve national wellbeing as defined in that Index since 2010.
Norman Lamb
The Department has worked closely with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on the development of the Measuring National Wellbeing Framework. Given the experimental nature of the data it is too early to use it specifically to formulate policy. However, some examples of relevant work taken forward by the Department include:
– working in partnership with ONS to include a measure of mental wellbeing into the Measuring National Wellbeing Framework;
– including wellbeing questions on a range of health surveys, for example the Health Survey for England, Health Behaviours of School-aged Children, the trial of a local level survey of 15 year olds, and the current wave of the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey;
– including wellbeing as a key indicator in the Public Health Outcomes Framework;
– publishing a narrative and a series of factsheets on why wellbeing matters to health policy;
– publishing a report on the predictors of wellbeing across the lifecourse;
– conducting two wellbeing workshops with policy makers to allow them to consider their policies from a wellbeing perspective; and
– co-founding a collaborative studentship with the University of Warwick on positive genetics using twin data to explore how genetics are related to wellbeing.
Wellbeing will also be considered in the forthcoming Chief Medical Officer’s annual report.