Tag: 2014

Lord Lexden – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lexden on 2014-06-10.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Wallace of Tankerness on 26 February (HL Deb, col 921), whether they are now in a position to implement the Succession to the Crown Act 2013.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

All Realms have concluded the necessary processes before implementation apart from Australia. The Council of Australian Governments agreed that States would legislate first, before legislation was brought forward by the Canberra Government.

Four states have now enacted legislation; the remaining two have introduced legislation which is due to be enacted shortly. All State Premiers have expressed support for the proposed changes and the Government understands that the Australian Government stands ready to legislate when all the State legislation has been enacted

01/11/2022

Fiona O’Donnell – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electorial Commission

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona O’Donnell on 2014-03-13.

To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what the electoral registration figures were in each ward in the recent confirmation dry run conducted in East Lothian constituency.

Gary Streeter

The Electoral Commission informs me that the confirmation dry run involved matching all entries on the electoral registers against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Customer Information System database. Entries would be marked as green if they matched with DWP, amber if they were a partial match or red if there was no match.

The ward results for the East Lothian constituency were as follows:

Ward	Green matches	Amber matches	Red matches
Dunbar and East Linton	78.7%	5.1%	16.2%
Fa’side	80.9%	3.0%	16.0%
Haddington and Lammermuir	77.9%	5.6%	16.5%
Musselburgh East and Carberry	79.5%	2.6%	17.9%
Musselburgh West	74.5%	2.5%	23.0%
North Berwick Coastal	78.4%	5.3%	16.2%
Preston/Seton/Gosford	82.2%	2.0%	15.8%

Results for all wards are available on the Commission’s website here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0003/163146/Confirmation-dry-run-2013-Results-Wards.xls

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01/11/2022

Lord Palmer – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Palmer on 2014-06-10.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Chantler Review’s suggestion that there is a spillover effect, whereby the branding of consumer goods intended for adult consumption may also appeal to young people; and what assessment they have made of the implications for consumer goods other than tobacco that might be deemed to put children at risk.

Earl Howe

Tobacco is treated uniquely in regulatory terms, because it is a uniquely harmful consumer good. All smoking is addictive and harmful to health. Around half of all regular smokers are eventually killed by a smoking-related illness, and on average, smokers who die from a smoking-related illness lose around 16 years of life. Smoking is the primary cause of preventable morbidity and premature death, accounting for almost 80,000 deaths in England each year, some 18% of all deaths of adults aged 35 and over.

Regulatory controls on tobacco are commensurate with the potential harm to the health of smokers and others that it can cause. Over the past decade in particular, tobacco has become increasingly regulated and controlled as further evidence about the harm to health from smoking has emerged. Tobacco, therefore, is subject to greater levels of regulation than other consumer products.

01/11/2022
Jonathan Edwards – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Deputy Prime Minister

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Edwards on 2014-03-12.

To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, what discussions he has had with the Electoral Commission on returning officer responsibilities in Carmarthenshire at the forthcoming European elections.

Greg Clark

I have regular meetings with the Chair of the Electoral Commission.

Cabinet Office officials have been working closely with the Electoral Commission and have discussed a range of issues to support the efficient and effective running of the forthcoming European Parliamentary election.

01/11/2022
Lord Beecham – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2014-06-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the event of a rise in the anticipated costs of community rehabilitation companies emerging from the bidding process, the Secretary of State will delay the process; and, if so, what estimated impact on the National Probation Service would trigger such a decision.

Lord Faulks

The Transforming Rehabilitation Programme is opening up the market to a diverse range of new providers, so that we can harness the best that the private and voluntary sectors has to offer to reduce reoffending. We are on track to award and mobilise Payment by Results (PbR) contracts for offender rehabilitation services across England and Wales by 2015. Bids to run the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) have yet to be submitted, but are expected by the end of June 2014. We currently have strong, competitive bidder interest across all Contract Package Areas, and we do not expect rising costs to be an issue.

01/11/2022
Steve Rotheram – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve Rotheram on 2014-03-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many times a convicted attempted murderer released on licence has been allowed to enter an exclusion zone formed as part of their licence arrangement within one week of their release in each of the last 10 years.

Jeremy Wright

Unfortunately, it is not possible to answer these questions without carrying out a manual search through all relevant individual offender files, at disproportionate cost.

Conditions such as an exclusion zone may be applied to an offender’s licence where it is necessary to manage the risk that the individual offender poses following release into the community – and where it is proportionate to that risk. Where qualifying victims have exercised their statutory right to make representations about the offender’s licence conditions, the exclusion zone set will take into account those representations. In each case, the supervising officer proposes conditions as appropriate and requests these from the appropriate authority, which applies it to the licence on behalf of the Secretary of State. In the case of determinate sentence prisoners, the authority is the prison governor; in the case of indeterminate sentence prisoners, or others whose release is on the direction of the Parole Board, the authority is the Parole Board.

These conditions must be kept under review, and are intended to be flexible to the possible resettlement needs of an offender in the community and any new risks that arise.

An exclusion zone will rarely be absolute, as it is recognised that there may be exceptional reasons why the offender needs to enter the exclusion zone. Thus, where an exclusion zone is included in the offender’s licence, it will usually be open to the supervising officer to grant the offender permission to enter the exclusion zone, for a temporary period and for a specific purpose.

As this is a purely localised decision, there is no national record of the number of occasions such permission has been given. It is, therefore, not possible to answer the questions regarding how many times an offender has been granted permission to enter the exclusion zone applied to his licence.

Data from the last 10 years is not available in the required electronic format to answer the question relating to numbers of offenders with exclusion zones included in their licence. To provide such information would again require a manual interrogation of offenders’ records and this would incur disproportionate cost.

01/11/2022
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2014-06-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made as to which alternative facilities will be used by those who currently use Worcester Walk-In Health Centre if it is closed.

Earl Howe

The reconfiguration of local health services is a matter for the National Health Service. All service changes should be led by clinicians and be in the best interests of patients, not driven from the top down.

We are aware that the local consultation on the Worcestershire Urgent Care Strategy closed on 9 April 2014. The clinical commissioning groups in Worcestershire are now considering the responses. No decisions have yet been made.

01/11/2022
Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2014-03-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans his Department has for the future use of Post Office card accounts.

Steve Webb

The Post Office card account (POca) contract expires in March 2015 with the possibility of a 2 year extension beyond that date.

No decision has been made on the future of the POca but discussions are currently taking place between DWP, Post Office Ltd and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to consider the future needs of customers beyond 2015.

01/11/2022
Lord Berkeley – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2014-06-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the switch data encryption system proposed by HS2 Ltd for communication with petitioners against the High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill allows petitioners to copy, circulate and otherwise communicate as a normal email; and whether any tracking or monitoring of such communications will be available to HS2 through the system.

Baroness Kramer

Egress is an email system used by many government departments, NHS trusts and local authorities, including the London Borough of Camden, for communicating externally. It does not provide HS2 Ltd with any abilities to track or monitor emails sent by others. Petitioners will use Egress to download their petition response document; it will not be attached to an email. HS2 Ltd will only be able to confirm if and when the Petition Response Document (PRD) has been downloaded. Once downloaded, the PRD can be saved and copied, and circulated to others, subject to the constraints of email service providers on large files.

01/11/2022
Charlie Elphicke – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlie Elphicke on 2014-03-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department made before the 2012 Budget of the number of properties valued at more than (a) £2 million and (b) £5 million.

David Gauke

The number of residential properties in the UK valued at more than £2 million was estimated before Budget 2012 to be around 55,000.

Before Budget 2012, an assessment of the average annual payment required from each property above £2 million in order to raise a net sum of £2 billion per annum was not made.

On 1 July 2013, during Report stage of the Finance Bill, I referred to “a simple calculation arrived at by dividing £2 billion by 55,000 (an internal HMRC estimate of the number of properties valued at over £2 million) to give a ‘mean’ average of £36,000.”

A so-called mansion tax would depress stamp duty land tax and inheritance tax yields. The exact impact would be dependent on the rates and bands chosen.

01/11/2022