Tag: 2015

  • Lord Roberts of Llandudno – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Roberts of Llandudno – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno on 2015-11-10.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what mental health support they are offering to recently arrived Syrian refugees.

    Lord Bates

    The Syrian VPR scheme prioritises those who cannot be supported effectively in their region of origin.

    Before accepting or rejecting a referral local authorities will be provided with information on medical needs and will think carefully about whether they have the infrastructure and support networks needed to ensure the appropriate care and integration of these refugees.

  • Michael Tomlinson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Michael Tomlinson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Tomlinson on 2015-12-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of green belt land in the Dorset County Council area has been redesignated as community land trust in the last five years.

    Brandon Lewis

    The Department does not hold information centrally on the amount or type of land held by community land trusts.

    The Department’s annual Green Belt statistics monitor the amount of land designated as Green Belt in England and any changes to the designated area since the previous year. The statistics record the change by local planning authority.

    Of the local planning authorities for which information was requested, the following have made changes to the Green Belt in the last five years:

    East Dorset reduced the area of designated Green Belt in 2014-15 by 160 hectares to 16,720 hectares, a reduction of 1 per cent; and

    Purbeck increased the area of designated Green Belt in 2012-13 by 460 hectares to 8,200 hectares, an increase of 6 per cent.

  • Grahame Morris – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Grahame Morris – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Grahame Morris on 2015-11-10.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effect of fiscal support for the offshore oil and gas sector on (a) employment and (b) pay rates in that sector since 2010-11.

    Damian Hinds

    The government is committed to maximising the benefits of the UK’s oil and gas resources for the UK economy – the oil and gas industry is the UK’s largest industrial investor, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs, supplying a large portion of the UK’s primary energy needs and making a significant contribution to GDP.

    The government has taken action as part of our plan to reform the fiscal regime to make it an attractive destination for investment and safeguard the long-term future of this vital national asset. In the March Budget, the government announced a £1.3 billion package of measures which are expected to deliver over £4 billion of additional investment, supporting jobs and supply chain opportunities, and increase production by 15% by 2019-20, the equivalent of 0.1% of GDP.

  • Brendan O’Hara – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Brendan O’Hara – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Brendan O’Hara on 2015-12-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to reduce shortages in the number of trained air warfare personnel; and what assessment he has made of the effect of that shortage on military operations in Iraq and Syria.

    Penny Mordaunt

    The term "air warfare personnel" is not recognised within the Royal Air Force. Allocation of manpower is sensibly prioritised to ensure that operational needs are met in full.

  • Michael Dugher – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Michael Dugher – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Dugher on 2015-11-10.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what Support for Mortgage Relief provisions are available to customers of Northern Rock Asset Management.

    Harriett Baldwin

    No specific provision has been made for customers of Northern Rock Asset Management or any other bank or building society following the restriction to finance cost relief for individual residential landlords.

    Restricting finance cost relief to the basic rate of income tax means all individual landlords will be treated the same by the tax system, regardless of their overall income.

  • Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-12-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate she has made of the cost of disallowance penalties relating to the Common Agricultural Policy as a result of the return to paper-assisted digital applications in 2015.

    George Eustice

    The new Common Agricultural Policy has been widely recognised as being more complex for farmers to understand and harder for Member States to administer. The new schemes have not yet been audited by the European Commission so it is too early to say what the level of any disallowance will be, but complexity tends to increase disallowance risk.

    For the Basic Payment Scheme 2015 the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) sent pre-populated claim forms to farmers and land owners to allow them to submit their applications before the deadline. The RPA provided an unprecedented level of support to farmers and land owners through the Rural Payments Helpline and 50 Drop In Centres that allowed some 88,000 applications to be received within the deadline. ‘Paper-assisted’ means that forms were completed on paper but then entered on to a digital system by RPA staff.

  • Kate Osamor – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Kate Osamor – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Osamor on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to raise awareness of the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning.

    James Wharton

    Building upon the success of the Fire Kills campaign, the Department for Communities and Local Government is running a campaign to raise awareness of the risks of carbon monoxide poisoning in the home. The Department has developed new Public Safety Radio Broadcasts that give advice on how best to avoid the risks and how to spot the danger signs of carbon monoxide poisoning. These are available for broadcasters to download free of charge.

    The Department has also published guidance to be given to tenants at the start of new tenancies which includes references to new requirements on private landlords to install and check carbon monoxide alarms in rooms where there are solid fuel burning appliances.

    The guidance is available at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-rent.

  • Nigel Dodds – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Nigel Dodds – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Dodds on 2015-12-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many full-time sight loss adviser posts there are in hospitals in England.

    Alistair Burt

    In England, eye clinics and their staffing, including Eye Clinic Liaison Officers (ECLO), are commissioned and funded by individual clinical commissioning groups on the basis of local assessments of need.

    The Department does not collect data on the number of eye clinic liaison officers employed in hospitals or how much has been spent on funding ECLOs.

    The Government fully appreciates the impact that sight loss can have on a person’s life and the importance of information being available for those newly diagnosed with sight loss, including signposting patients to appropriate support and rehabilitation services.

  • David Anderson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    David Anderson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent assessment he has made of the prevalence of (a) the indicators of mental disorders including stress, depression, fatigue and post traumatic stress disorder and (b) the provision of support by service providers or others to personnel in 13 and 39 Squadrons.

    Mark Lancaster

    The Government is committed to improving the mental health of our Armed Forces and has long recognised that Service life can cause stress. Support to personnel has improved in a number of ways, including providing pre and post-operational stress management training, a wide range of psychiatric and psychological treatments and initiatives such as Decompression and Trauma Risk Incident Management (TRiM) and Post Operational Stress Management.

    Measures are in place to increase awareness at all levels of the risk of Mental Health disorders and indicators to help identify these. Trained TRiM providers are embedded within both Squadrons to offer peer group mentoring and support, whilst also educating non-medical Service personnel on how to identify indicators of mental health problems.

  • Barbara Keeley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Barbara Keeley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barbara Keeley on 2015-12-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the cost to the public purse of introducing the national living wage into social care from April 2016.

    Alistair Burt

    These estimates are a matter for HM Treasury.