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Tag: 2014

  • Caroline Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Caroline Lucas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    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.

  • Liz Kendall – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Liz Kendall – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    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
  • Robert Smith – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Robert Smith – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    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.

  • Charlotte Leslie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Charlotte Leslie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    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.

  • Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Deputy Prime Minister

    Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Deputy Prime Minister

    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:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/60723/FINAL-Data-Matching-Evaluation-Report-new.pdf

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/223850/Data_Mining_Evaluation_FULL_Report_FINAL.pdf

    The Electoral Commission also produced their assessment of the pilots. Their reports can be found at:

    http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/162106/Data-mining-pilot-evaluation-report.pdf

    http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/146836/Data-matching-pilot-evaluation.pdf

    “

  • Gordon Henderson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Gordon Henderson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    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.

  • Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    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.

  • Mr Gareth Thomas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Mr Gareth Thomas – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Gareth Thomas on 2014-03-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of disability living allowance claims took longer than 40 days to process in each of the last three years for which data is available.

    Mike Penning

    Please see the table below showing the percentage of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) new claims, for Normal Rules (NR), that took longer than 40 days to process. Claims not yet processed within 40 days, include cases where we are awaiting additional information from the claimant and/or medical evidence.

    2012/13

    Volume of Claims Cleared

    402,861

    Volume of claims cleared after 40 working days

    89,678

    % of DLA New Claims (NR)
    cleared after 40 working days

    22.3%

    Prior to 2012/13 the measure reported against was an Actual Average Clearance Time (AACT). This is the cumulative clearance days divided by the number of cleared events within the reporting period.

    Please see the table below for 2010/11 and 2011/12:

    2010/11

    2011/12

    Volume of Claims Cleared

    431,572

    412,556

    AACT (Level 37.7 days)

    30.3

    27.2

    Notes:

    The reported figure only relates to DLA (NR) new claims. NR claims are those where the claimant is not terminally ill and the normal rules of entitlement therefore apply.

    The figures above cover the period from 1st April to 31st March and shows the national position including working age and child claimants.

    The AACT level (37.7 days) shown in the above table is a measure based on a prior year’s performance.

    We have not provided data for 2013/14 due to not having a full financial year available at this time.

    Source:

    Source: Department for Work and Pensions – RDA 80123 report – DLA Management Information Statistics

  • Thomas Docherty – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Thomas Docherty – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thomas Docherty on 2014-06-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether a Minister will be responsible for preparing the Department’s response to the Belgian government’s request for information regarding the Typhoon as a successor to their F-16 fleet.

    Michael Fallon

    The Eurofighter Typhoon programme is carried out in partnership with the Governments of Germany, Italy and Spain. This includes cooperation on exports. The Government of Belgium has expressed an interest in Typhoon as well as other competing aircraft as a potential replacement for their F-16 fleet. UK Trade and Investment have been invited, to participate in preliminary discussions at official level on Typhoon. United Kingdom Trade and Investment (UKTI) officials are working with colleagues across Government, in the partner nations and with Eurofighter GmbH to coordinate a response.

    Within UK Government work on Typhoon export campaigns is led by UKTI, but HMG takes a collaborative approach to defence exports and so all campaigns are a cross departmental effort. Information on staffing numbers is not therefore available centrally.

    Ministerial responsibility for UKTI rests with my noble Friend the Minister of State for Trade and Investment (Lord Livingston of Parkhead). My noble Friend reports to my Rt Hon Friends the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, as the two responsible Cabinet Ministers.

    Information regarding Ministers’ meetings is published by the Department on the internet: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=department-for-business-innovation-skills&publication_type=transparency-data

    The Minister of State for Trade and Investment discussed Typhoon exports during his meeting with BAES on 18 December 2013. The Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills has no immediate plans to meet his Belgian counterpart.

    “

  • Helen Goodman – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Helen Goodman – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Goodman on 2014-03-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that children and adoptive parents receive support beyond the initial stages of the adoption process.

    Edward Timpson

    People who adopt are making a life changing decision, both for themselves and the children they adopt.

    Research indicates a high level of need among adoptive families for therapeutic services often many years after the adoption process has ended.

    It is for this reason that we have committed £19.3 million into an Adoption Support Fund to make therapeutic support much more widely accessible, timely and of high quality for adoptive families.