The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ms Karen Buck on 2014-03-12.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the actual and percentage change was in the number of households from each London local authority provided with temporary accommodation outside their home borough between March 2010 and December 2013.
Kris Hopkins
[Holding Reply: Monday 17 March 2014]
I refer the hon. Member to my answer to her of 19 December 2013, Official Report, Column 713W.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laming on 2014-06-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they intend to take to reduce the number of children and young people who currently disappear from public care.
Lord Nash
It is every Council’s responsibility to provide looked after children with safe, secure care. This includes protecting them from the risks of going missing. New guidance was issued in January 2014 on children who go missing from care. The guidance places a duty on local authorities to offer all children an independent interview when they return from going missing. These interviews can reduce the likelihood of the child going missing again, as well as identify risks to which they may have been exposed whilst missing. We have also now started to collect national data for all children who go missing from care, not just those missing for 24 hours. This data will help build a clearer picture of the extent to which children go missing from local authority care.
The new Ofsted inspection framework has a focus on missing children. To be judged as “good” local authorities will have to show that:
“Comprehensive records are held and shared between agencies to help and protect children and young people. Together they take steps to ensure that all children, including those who are excluded from school, are safe and that for those who are missing or often missing there is a clear plan of urgent action in place to protect them and to reduce the risk of harm or further harm.”
Where Ofsted find poor practice they make specific recommendations to the local authority in their report.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2014-03-12.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the empty property business rates for the vacant properties recorded on the e-PIMS database owned by (a) his Department and (b) any executive agencies or non-departmental public bodies of his Department in the current financial year.
Mike Penning
The Department does not own any buildings. The DWP estate was sold (freehold, feuhold and long leasehold interests) or transferred (short leasehold interests) to Telereal Trillium under a 20 year PFI contract known as “PRIME” in 1998.
Any properties that become surplus to DWP’s requirements are returned to Telereal Trillium under the PRIME contract.
The Health and Safety Executive estimate that the empty property business rates for the vacant properties recorded on the e-PIMS database in the current financial year is £40,143.33. However, this relates to Douglas House in Edinburgh which, strictly speaking, is not empty. There are other occupants in the property but HSE’s space held on e-PIMS is shown as vacant to attract potential tenants. As a result, the e-PIMS entry will make Douglas House appear empty.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 2014-06-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Prime Minister’s comments in Brussels on 27 May that Brussels was too big and too busy” indicate that they intend to oppose any further expansion of the European Union.”
Baroness Warsi
The Prime Minister, my Rt. Hon Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron)’s comment was that Brussels is “too big and too bossy”. He was referring to the need for the EU to reform to become less interfering and more competitive, flexible and democratically accountable. He was not pronouncing on the EU’s territorial size.
The UK continues to be a strong supporter of enlargement based on firm but fair conditionality, focussing on key concerns shared by many Member States, particularly around the rule of law. Enlargement has proved a huge driver of peace, prosperity and progress across our continent.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-03-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what data his Department collects on the number of men in prison who have been victims of sexual abuse.
Jeremy Wright
Prisoners are assessed on entry to prison for addiction problems and there is a package of support available to them. The MoJ’s Transforming Rehabilitation programme will provide individual support to all released prisoners. This will include identifying risks and needs for individual ex-prisoners, and providing services to address them.
The Ministry of Justice does not collect these data centrally on a regular basis. However, a survey of 1,435 adult prisoners sentenced to between one month and four years in 2005 and 2006 (Surveying Prisoner Crime Reduction – SPCR) provides self-reported estimates for each question.
The full reports can be accessed on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/surveying-prisoner-crime-reduction-spcr
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town on 2014-06-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will bring forward delegated legislation under the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 enabling complaints against claims management firms to be heard by the Legal Services Ombudsman.
Lord Faulks
The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 provides the necessary enabling powers to put in place the funding arrangements for the Legal Ombudsman to deal with complaints against claims management companies. These provisions were commenced on 21 March 2014. They include a power for the Lord Chancellor to make Regulations to charge fees to recover the costs he has incurred in meeting the expenditure of the Legal Ombudsman in relation to claims management complaints.
The Government consultation on the proposed structure of the Lord Chancellor’s cost recovery fee ended on 6 June and the responses are being analysed. Once the fee structure is finalised, the Fee Regulations will be laid in Parliament for approval. Following this, an order to commence section 161 of the Legal Services Act 2007 will be laid. This will extend the remit of the Legal Ombudsman to enable it to deal with complaints about authorised claims management companies.
The government is committed to enabling this as soon as possible.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Jim Murphy on 2014-03-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much in housing benefit payments was paid to recipients in (a) Glasgow, (b) Edinburgh, (c) Dundee and (d) Aberdeen in the last year.
Steve Webb
The amount paid in Housing Benefit in 2012/13 can be found in the table below.
|
2012/13 |
|
|
£m |
|
|
HB |
|
|
Glasgow City |
348 |
|
City of Edinburgh |
200 |
|
Dundee City |
77 |
|
Aberdeen City |
55 |
Source: Local authority statistical data and subsidy returns.
Note: Expenditure is shown for the last complete financial year. Benefit expenditure for Housing Benefit can be found in the Local Authority tables as per link https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/266828/la-tables-201213.xls
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Priti Patel on 2014-06-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding his Department has provided to each local authority for highways in each of the last 10 years.
Mr Robert Goodwill
I have placed a table in the Libraries of the House which sets out how much each local highway authority has been allocated for highways in the last ten years.
This table includes funding we have provided through a number of funding streams including Highways Maintenance Integrated Transport Block, Local Major Projects, Local Pinch Point Fund and Community Infrastructure Fund projects.
Local authorities are also able to use revenue funding, allocated by the Department of Communities and Local Government through the Revenue Support Grant for maintaining their local highways. Neither revenue nor capital highways maintenance block funding is ring-fenced and it is for local highway authorities to decide upon their spending priorities across the whole range of services that they provide.
The Department is also funding local highways maintenance projects in Portsmouth, Birmingham, Sheffield, Isle of Wight and the London Borough of Hounslow through the Private Finance Initiative.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2014-03-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have been signed off work in the UK as a result of having obsessive compulsive disorder.
Mike Penning
The Department for Work and Pensions does not hold information on the number of people taking sickness absence from work as a result of having obsessive compulsive disorder.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dominic Raab on 2014-06-09.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much funding for the extraction of North Sea oil has come from (a) the Government, (b) the Scottish Government and (c) the private sector in each year from 1984.
Michael Fallon
I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
Government departments and agencies, including notably the Department of Energy and Climate Change and its predecessor departments, have for many years supported research aimed at identifying UK hydrocarbon potential and finding ways of finding and extracting it more cost-effectively. Comprehensive records of the amount spent on such activities by year across Government are not available.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change does not have detailed information on the annual expenditure of the Scottish Government.
Estimates of total annual pre-tax expenditure in £ billions by the private sector on finding and developing UK hydrocarbons (oil and gas, in the North Sea as well as elsewhere in the UK and on the UK Continental Shelf) for the period 1984–2013 are given in the table below. More detailed information through to 2012 is available online at https://www.gov.uk/oil-and-gas-uk-field-data#ukcs-income-and-expenditure.
|
1984 |
1985 |
1986 |
1987 |
1988 |
1989 |
1990 |
1991 |
1992 |
1993 |
|
6.3 |
6.5 |
5.6 |
5.0 |
5.3 |
6.1 |
8.0 |
10.4 |
10.2 |
9.5 |
|
1994 |
1995 |
1996 |
1997 |
1998 |
1999 |
2000 |
2001 |
2002 |
2003 |
|
8.5 |
9.4 |
9.4 |
9.6 |
9.9 |
7.8 |
7.5 |
8.3 |
8.6 |
8.2 |
|
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
2007 |
2008 |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
|
8.4 |
9.9 |
12.0 |
12.4 |
13.1 |
13.3 |
14.9 |
18.3 |
21.8 |
25.8 |
“