The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Champion on 2015-09-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the human rights situation in Egypt.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office published its annual Human Rights and Democracy Report on 12 March 2015, which provides an assessment of the situation in Egypt, and is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/case-studies/country-case-study-egypt
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Guto Bebb on 2015-09-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of lung cancer patients who would benefit from the immunotherapy nivolumab; and if he will make a statement.
George Freeman
NHS England has advised that it is not currently possible to estimate the numbers of patients in England who will be suitable for treatment, as the licence for nivolumab has been split into two distinct sub-groups (squamous and non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer) and the latter has yet to receive a marketing authorisation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2015-09-17.
To ask the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington representing the House of Commons Commission, how many people employed by the House of Commons (a) directly and (b) indirectly are not receiving a wage of at least £7.85 an hour.
Tom Brake
The House of Commons is an accredited London Living Wage Employer. In order to obtain our accreditation, the House has to satisfy the Living Wage Foundation that no directly employed or contracted workers engaged to work on the Parliamentary Estate are paid less than the London Living Wage (LLW), currently £9.15 an hour.
All contractors and their sub-contractors with staff based in London providing services to the House have agreed to pay at least the London Living Wage to those of their staff working on contracts for the House; or, in the case of staff working for contractors outside London, at least the Living Wage of £7.85 an hour. These contractual requirements are included within our Standard Terms and Conditions of Contract.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Goodman on 2015-09-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what reasonable adjustments will be made to support any disabled young person required to attend boot camp to prepare for employment under the Earn or Learn policy.
Priti Patel
From April 2017, we will be introducing the new Youth Obligation for Universal Credit (UC) claimants aged 18-21 who will be expected and supported to look for work. This new programme of support will help young people develop skills and experience to get and keep work.
The first three weeks of this will be a Work Coach led Intensive Activity Period (IAP), where young people on the Youth Obligation will complete a set curriculum of activity designed to help establish them as effective full time job-seekers straight away and support them into work as soon as possible.
Any requirements placed on claimants through the Youth Obligation will be reasonable and tailored to their individual needs and capabilities, taking into consideration any health condition they may have.
We will set out our policy design for disabled young people under the Youth Obligation in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Phillips on 2015-09-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that hospitals balance their budgets.
George Freeman
We are investing the additional £8 billion the National Health Service has said it needs to implement its own future plan, on top of the extra £2 billion we have given the service. However, additional spending is not the only answer to these financial challenges. The NHS must now put in place cost-control measures we have introduced, like clamping down on rip-off staffing agencies, while we continue to work with hospitals on ways to improve productivity and reduce waste.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Paisley on 2015-09-16.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what data was used to assess the effect on merchants of exempting three party card schemes from interchange fee regulation as part of the EU Multilateral Interchange Fees regulation.
Harriett Baldwin
The European Interchange Fee Regulation is directly applicable to UK law. The exemption for three party schemes was part of the European Commission’s original proposal, which can be found here:
www.eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52013PC0550&from=EN
The final Regulation was agreed by the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council in March this year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Mackinlay on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much was collected from local authorities at all tiers from non-domestic property tax levied on public conveniences in each of the last three years.
Mr Marcus Jones
My Department does not collect that data.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Griffiths on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of (a) all pupils, (b) white British boys receiving free school meals and (c) children in care achieved no A* to C grades at GCSE, excluding equivalents, in the most recent year for which figures are available.
Nick Gibb
The information is not held in the required format.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on the security situation in Somalia of al Shabaab’s seizure of Buqda.
Grant Shapps
We assess that the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM’s) withdrawal from Buqda, and its consequent re-occupation by Al Shabaab, will have little impact on the security situation in Somalia, given Buqda’s limited strategic importance within the context of the overall AMISOM campaign.
AMISOM and Somali National Security Forces (SNSF) have regained 75% of the territory formerly controlled by Al-Shabaab, forcing it out of many of its traditional strongholds, including major urban centres and its former headquarters in Baraawe. The current AMISOM offensive is designed to remove Al Shabaab from their strong holds in the Gedo, Bakool and Bay regions of Somalia. But Al Shabaab still holds ground in the lower Juba Valley and retains the ability to infiltrate other areas and cause instability.
We continue to support African Union and SNSF efforts to defeat Al Shabaab, including through the provision of stipends, training, equipment and infrastructure enhancements, and capacity-building. We are also supporting stabilisation and countering violent extremism efforts, including working with the Federal Government of Somalia to develop counter-terrorism legislation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to improve the quality of adult social care; and if he will make a statement.
Alistair Burt
The Government is committed to improving the quality of adult social care. We have taken a number of recent steps to do so.
In October 2014, we introduced a tougher inspection system by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). Following inspections, the CQC now also awards each care service a single quality rating with providers rated as “Outstanding”, “Good”, “Requires Improvement” or “Inadequate”. Services rated “Inadequate” are being placed into Special Measure which means they could face closure if they fail to improve.
These new ratings and other information about the type and quality of care at every care home and homecare service in the country are now available on NHS Choices and the MyNHS Transparency website, making it much easier for people to compare the quality of services.
This year we introduced a Certificate of Fundamental Care, now known as the Care Certificate. This will help ensure that care workers can deliver a consistently high quality standard of care.
The Department is funding and working with a number of organisations including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Skills for Care, the Social Care Institute for Excellence, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and the Local Government Association on a range of projects to help adult social care organisations and staff improve the quality of care. These resources include new NICE Quality Standards and Guidelines which bring clarity to what excellence looks like in care and Commissioning for Better Outcomes – A Route Map* that sets out a series of commissioning standards that will be used as part of local government sector-led improvement to drive best practices in local authority commissioning under their new duties in the Care Act 2015.
*Available at:
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