UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: 2014

  • Tom Greatrex – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture Media and Sport

    Tom Greatrex – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Greatrex on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the number of films made in the UK as co-productions with foreign companies in each year since 1997.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The number of films made in the UK as co-productions with foreign companies is recorded in the BFI’s Statistical Yearbook and set out in the following table. Data is not available for the period before 2002 and does not include the numbers of inward investment which are substantially financed and controlled from outside the UK and which are attracted to the UK by factors including the UK’s filmmaking infrastructure and film tax relief. An international co-production is where a film is produced by more than one production company from more than one country.

    2002

    2003

    2004

    2005

    2006

    2007

    2008

    2009

    2010

    2011

    2012

    66

    106

    105

    67

    53

    33

    29

    38

    34

    47

    40

    Source: BFI

  • John Robertson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    John Robertson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Robertson on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what estimate he has made of the duration in days that airports in the south east of England would be able to run at full aviation fuel demand capacity in the event of an emergency on the scale of the Buncefield explosion in 2005.

    Michael Fallon

    UK supplies of aviation fuels are resilient to most hazards and additional protections have been put in place since the incident at Buncefield in 2005. Any impact upon supplies would depend entirely on the nature of any incident.

  • Guto Bebb – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Guto Bebb – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Guto Bebb on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent reports he has received on the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped in the West Bank on 12 June 2014; and what steps he has taken to secure their release.

    Hugh Robertson

    I refer my hon. Friend to my answer of 26 June 2014 (Official Report, column 258W).

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

    Chris Bryant – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Bryant on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will estimate the cost to the public purse of extending entitlement to (a) free prescriptions, (b) free eye tests and (c) free dental care to all claimants of universal credit once universal credit has been fully rolled out.

    Jane Ellison

    The cost to the public purse of extending entitlement to free prescriptions, eye tests and dental care to all claimants of Universal Credit once Universal Credit has been fully rolled out will depend on the number of claimants at that time. This number will depend on a range of factors. The Government intends that broadly the same number of individuals will be passported via Universal Credit as are currently passported.

  • Ivan Lewis – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Ivan Lewis – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what additional support she is providing to the passport office in Belfast.

    James Brokenshire

    The Belfast Office Full Time Equivalent (FTE) workforce in June 2014 was 216.29
    compared with 147.76 FTE in June 2012. The increase in staff has been to deal
    with the introduction of processing of work from overseas in 2013-14 and the
    introduction of an evening shift in January 2014 to assist in dealing with UK applications.
    Currently there are 20 additional staff redeployed to Belfast to assist in the
    examination function.

  • Philip Davies – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Philip Davies – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the marginal cost was of one extra prisoner being accommodated in each prison in England and Wales when each prison is functioning at its operational capacity in the latest period for which figures are available.

    Jeremy Wright

    The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) does not have information on the marginal cost of a prisoner for each prison. The calculation of a marginal cost would normally apply where a permanent change to a prison’s operational capacity is taking place.

    Prisons are not expected to operate above their operational capacity and ensuring that this capacity is set to reflect the provision of safe and decent accommodation and the operation of suitable regimes ensures that levels of crowding in prisons are carefully managed.

    Sensible measures have been taken to ensure that we have sufficient capacity to deal with any temporary increases in population. These include creating additional places in prisons in a safe and decent way and ensuring that prisons reflect the needs of the current population. Any short term increases in capacity will only be those sites where additional prisoners can be safely and decently accommodated and where a senior prison manager has certified that the additional prisoners will be held in safe, secure and decent accommodation.

    We will end this Parliament with more adult male prison places than we inherited, more hours of work in prisons than we inherited, more education for young detainees than we inherited and a more modern, cost effective prison estate than we inherited.

  • Chris Bryant – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Scotland Office

    Chris Bryant – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Scotland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Bryant on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, if he will estimate the cost to the public purse of extending entitlement to court fees exemptions to all claimants of universal credit once universal credit has been fully rolled out in Scotland.

    David Mundell

    The Scottish Government is responsible for defining the entitlement criteria for these passported benefits. They will need to consider the current eligibility criteria and make arrangements to ensure that they can continue to deliver these benefits as Universal Credit is introduced.

    There is ongoing engagement between the Scottish Government and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that any solution is simple, fair, easy to understand and affordable.

  • Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission

    Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what the postal vote matching rates were during the data matching dry run in each (a) local authority area and (b) constituency in the UK.

    Mr Gary Streeter

    The Electoral Commission informs me that the data for local authorities is available on its website here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0020/163145/Confirmation-dry-run-2013-Results-Local-Authority.xls

    The Commission does not hold the data in a way that is broken down by constituency.

    “

  • Eilidh Whiteford – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Eilidh Whiteford – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Eilidh Whiteford on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the statement by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee on 26 June 2014, that ‘there isn’t any doubt that there are some people who’ve gone to foodbanks because they have been subject, for example, to sanctions or delays in receiving benefits’.

    Esther McVey

    The evidence David Mundell, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland provided to the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee on the 26 June highlighted the underlying complexity to the use of foodbanks.

    The Government has already commissioned a report on food security by Warwick University, which was published in February 2014. The Government has no immediate plans to produce or commission further research, but will keep this under review.

    Benefit clearance times are steadily improving with 92% of benefits being processed on time (within 16 days) nationally which is 6 percentage points higher than in 2009/10.

    We have in place a robust system of safeguards that seek to ensure sanctions are only applied to those claimants who wilfully fail to meet their requirements. It remains the case that the vast majority of claimants do comply and are not sanctioned – each month only around 5% of JSA claimants are sanctioned and fewer than 1% of ESA claimants. Reduced payments are made where necessary to prevent hardship.

  • Graham Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Graham Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Jones on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many hydraulic fracturing licences are pending approval in (a) England, (b) Lancashire and (c) Hyndburn constituency.

    Michael Fallon

    There is no “hydraulic fracturing licence”. DECC issues Petroleum Exploration and Development Licences (PEDLs). However, PEDLs are not specific to shale gas and do not give permission for operations, but grant exclusivity to licensees in relation to hydrocarbons (including shale gas but also other forms) within a particular area. All operations, such as drilling, hydraulic fracturing or production, however require planning permission, and applications are subject to public consultation. They also require access agreement with relevant landowner(s), Environment Agency permits, HSE scrutiny, and DECC consent before operations can commence. DECC is not currently considering any applications for hydraulic fracturing in the UK.