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Tag: 2014

  • Richard Fuller – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Richard Fuller – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Fuller on 2014-05-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many court buildings which were not counted as closed had no cases listed in the preceding (a) three, (b) six and (c) 12 months at 31 March 2014; and what the location was of each such building.

    Jeremy Wright

    Providing a detailed response to these questions will require officials to manually collate data. This cannot be accomplished in the time available. My honourable friend Shailesh Vara will therefore write with a detailed response as soon as possible, and will place a copy of this letter in the library of the house.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Gwynne – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department publishes for pharmaceutical companies to ensure that the clinical trials they conduct are carried out ethically and safely.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    The International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH) Note for Guidance on Good Clinical Practice (GCP) is an international standard for GCP. It became operational in the European Union in January 1997 and is a set of internationally recognised ethical and scientific quality requirements which must be observed for designing, conducting, recording and reporting clinical trials that involve the participation of human subjects. This guidance is available on the web and is published on the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) website. In addition the MHRA published the MHRA Good Clinical Practice Guide in September 2013.

    The Health Research Authority (HRA) publishes a range of resources on research ethics that have relevance to clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. These resources are available on the HRA website at:

    www.hra.nhs.uk/resources/

    “

  • Alex Cunningham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Alex Cunningham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he plans to bring forward draft regulations for the introduction of standard packaging for tobacco products.

    Jane Ellison

    Before reaching a final decision on standardised packaging of tobacco products, and in order to ensure that the decision is properly and fully informed, we intend to publish the draft regulations to make sure that intentions are clear, alongside a final short consultation.

    This consultation will ask, in particular, for views on anything new since the last full public consultation that is relevant to a final decision. The content and timing of the consultation will be announced shortly.

  • Greg Knight – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Greg Knight – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what funding the UK has given (a) directly and (b) indirectly to the European Space Agency in each of the last five years; what that funding was for; and what assessment he has made of the benefits arising from that funding to the UK.

    Mr David Willetts

    Direct UK funding of the European Space Agency (ESA) has been as follows:

    2009/10: £242.8m

    2010/11: £231.1m

    2011/12: £232.0m

    2012/13: £207.6m

    2013/14: £267.5m

    In addition, national expenditure averaging £20M a year has been expended within the UK to build and operate scientific instruments carried on spacecraft of ESA. The funding to ESA has been used to contribute to missions and technology in the fields of space science and exploration, Earth observation for science and applications, telecommunications and broadband delivery, access to microgravity facilities for life and physical sciences, space weather, navigation technologies, human spaceflight and weather monitoring. As well as resulting expenditure in the UK due to the just retour principle, wider benefits have accrued in new scientific knowledge; and improved delivery of public services.

    ESA is the primary route for Government R&D space investment. Several economic analyses of investment impact have been undertaken, drawn together in BIS Economics Paper No3[1]. The UK Space Agency (part of BIS) undertakes a biennial survey of the size and health of the UK space industry[2] showing growth from £3.4B turnover in 1999/2000 to £9.5B in 2011, reflecting the results of sustained investment as well as the growth of the market.

    The UK Space Agency monitors contracts that return back to UK industry from our ESA subscriptions and also monitors where R&D work has positioned UK industry for success in larger operational contracts.

    A UK R&D investment of £15M for the Astrium E3000 Spacecraft through the ESA telecoms programme (‘ARTES’) was more than matched by industry and resulted in the award of 41 spacecraft contracts worth over £600M to UK industry, an un-discounted ROI of over thirty. Analysis has shown that the return on investment from UK ARTES programmes ranges from 2 to 30 with an average of 6:1. The UK Space Agency also works with the OECD to pool analysis of benefits from space funding as reflected in the OECD Handbook on Measuring the Space Economy[3].

    The scientific programmes of ESA directly contribute to UK academic excellence. The ‘Wakeham Review of Physics'[4] reported to government that in terms of impact (citations) in the space sciences, the UK “is second to the USA and well separated from the following pack”. Data from satellites such as ESA’s Cryosat 2 have directly informed the IPCC 5th Assessment on climate change[5].

    An example of a public service benefit space investment is the weather forecast. The MetOffice (also part of BIS) has undertaken analysis showing that satellites have made the greatest impact in improving weather prediction among available observing techniques[6] “accounting for 64% of short-range global forecast error reduction”. Of all the nine data sources used, the new European Metop satellite has made the largest single impact: “about 25% of the total impact on global forecast error reduction”.

    [1]http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file54519.PDF

    [2] http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/ukspaceagency/docs/industry/size-and-health-report-oct-2012.pdf

    [3] http://www.oecd.org/futures/oecdhandbookonmeasuringthespaceeconomy.htm

    [4] http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/reviews/physics/review.pdf

    [5] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

    [6] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/9/m/FRTR562.pdf

  • Tessa Munt – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Tessa Munt – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tessa Munt on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when NHS England will publish a tariff for stereotactic ablative radiotherapy.

    Dr Daniel Poulter

    I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I have her on 25 November, 2013, Official Report, column 160W.

    Monitor and NHS England published Methodology Discussion Paper on the 23 April 2014, which is available at:

    www.monitor.gov.uk/node/6272

    where the sector can provide feedback on the 2015/16 national tariff payment system. A copy has been placed in the Library.

    The sector will have further opportunities to comment and provide evidence during the summer of 2014 prior to the final tariff publication. Services which have been subject to local price setting will also be reviewed for the local pricing arrangements as part of the review for 2015-16 and 2016-17.

  • Jonathan Reynolds – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Jonathan Reynolds – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Reynolds on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment he has made of the effect of changes to tariff levels and degression thresholds outlined in Phase 2B of the feed-in-tariff on manufacturing and employment in the sub-15KW wind sector.

    Gregory Barker

    As the first degression for wind tariff bands was only introduced on 1 April 2014, it is too early to say what impact it has had on manufacturing and employment in the sub-15kW wind sector. Up to the end of 2013, over 5,150 wind installations had been accredited for FITs, and this pace of deployment has shown no signs of slowing since April 2013. The degression mechanism is very important for the cost control of the FITs scheme and for keeping the cost to the electricity consumer as low as possible.

  • Mike Weatherley – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Mike Weatherley – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Weatherley on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, when the Intellectual Property Office’s response to its call for evidence on the effect of the repeal of section 52 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 will be published.

    Mr David Willetts

    The Government is drawing on responses to its Call for Evidence on transitional provisions for the repeal of section 52 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to inform its forthcoming consultation on the issue. The Government is currently carrying out further work to develop assessments of various options for transitional provisions, and intends to publish its consultation document and accompanying Impact Assessment later this year.

  • Jim Murphy – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Jim Murphy – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Murphy on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many full-time equivalent staff in her Department have responsibility for disability policy.

    Justine Greening

    DFID has a core team of disability experts who provide specific guidance on disability across different sectors. In addition, there are 80 social development advisors who have responsibility for considering social development – including disability – across all aspects of policy and programming in DFID’s devolved structure; and one full time equivalent staff working on central disability policy.

  • Jim Shannon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Jim Shannon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to the government of Iraq on its proposal to legalise the marriage of girls from nine years of age.

    Hugh Robertson

    We have raised our concerns about the draft Personal Status law with the Iraqi Justice Minister. The law remains in draft, and has not been approved by Iraq’s parliament. We expect Iraq to uphold its international obligations under UN conventions to protect the rights of women and children.

  • Craig Whittaker – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Craig Whittaker – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2014-04-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many HSA4 forms submitted in each month since 2010 are pending completion.

    Jane Ellison

    The information is not available and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.