The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2015-11-18.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether members of the security forces are included within the concept of parity of esteem as required by the Belfast Agreement 1998.
Lord Dunlop
The Government believes in parity of esteem for all the people of Northern Ireland.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Crawley on 2015-12-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many welfare claimants were sanctioned between 21 and 27 December 2015; and how many such claimants were single parents.
Priti Patel
The information requested is not yet available.
The Department publishes Official Statistics on Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), (including JSA Lone Parents) and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) sanction decisions and these statistics are published via the following link:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
The latest set of Official Statistics was released on 11 November 2015 and covers all decisions made to 30 June 2015.
Guidance on how to extract the information required from Stat-Xplore can be found at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started—SuperWEB2.html
The latest set of Official Statistics on Income Support Lone Parent sanctions was released on 11 November 2015 and covers all decisions made to 30 June 2015. A summary of this data can be found here
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Imran Hussain on 2015-11-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the effect of withdrawal of ESOL Plus mandated funding on the ability of refugees in the UK to access ESOL courses.
Nick Boles
The decision to withdraw the 2015/16 ESOL Plus (Mandation) funding was taken in the knowledge that providers could use their adult skills budget to continue to provide ESOL training for jobseekers and therefore mitigate any adverse impact. Our data showed that the numbers of claimants being referred to ESOL Plus (Mandation) provision was significantly lower than originally anticipated.
Adults who are granted refugee status or humanitarian protection become eligible for skills funding through the adult skills budget, as any other English resident and are not subject to the normal 3 year qualifying period.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much and what proportion of his Department’s budget for employment support has been allocated to the Work and Health Programme for each of the next four years.
Priti Patel
In the Autumn Statement, the Chancellor announced a new Work and Health Programme to provide specialist support for claimants with health conditions or disabilities and those unemployed for over 2 years after current Work Programme and Work Choice contracts end.
The Department is currently undertaking its normal prioritisation process to determine how funding secured at the Spending Review is allocated on an annual basis.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Thompson on 2015-11-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department plans to reduce the Big Lottery Fund budget for Scotland.
Tracey Crouch
In line with the arms’ length principle of lottery distribution, the Big Lottery Fund itself decides how much of its funding to allocate to Scotland and to each of the other home nations.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dubs on 2015-12-16.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider providing a 24-hour mental health helpline for serving soldiers.
Earl Howe
Combat Stress provides a free 24-hour service for the entire military community (Service personnel, veterans, and their families) when seeking confidential and safe help and advice about Service-related mental health issues. The MOD is the single biggest contributor of funding to Combat Stress.
In addition, the MOD has a contract with the Big White Wall, a 24-hour online community which provides safe, anonymous support to anyone struggling with mental health issues. It is free for all serving personnel, veterans, and their families.
There are no plans for MOD to provide an additional mental health helpline.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Monaghan on 2015-11-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what specific changes are needed to her Department’s policies to ensure that the UK meets the EU target of 15 per cent of energy to be sourced from renewable sources before 2020; and what the timetable is for implementing each of those changes.
Andrea Leadsom
We continue to make progress towards our renewable energy target of 15% final energy consumption by 2020. Provisional figures show 6.3% of final energy consumption came from renewable sources for 2013 and 2014, against a target of 5.4%.
Progress on renewable electricity generation has been particularly strong with over a quarter of electricity generated, between April and June this year, coming from renewable sources.
The Spending Review will be announced on 25th November, and a Department for Transport consultation will be running next year on increasing the amount of renewable transport fuel. We will carefully consider the impacts of both on the UK’s progress towards the renewables target of 15%, including whether there will be a role for trading.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead on 2015-12-16.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what response they have made to the violence against women in South Sudan since conflict broke out in December 2013.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
We remain deeply concerned by the situation in South Sudan and are responding accordingly. We are pressing the Government of Sudan to progress its commitments to tackle violence against women and raised this issue most recently with the Minister of Defence in November. The UK’s humanitarian programme has a strong focus on protection, including supporting the prevention of sexual and gender-based violence. We are also supporting projects that empower women and seek to provide justice to the most vulnerable groups, including women and girls. Additionally, the UK played a key role to ensure the new mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan has an even stronger focus on protecting civilians, including women and girls.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Henry Smith on 2015-11-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, when his Department plans to make an announcement regarding resettlement of the British Indian Ocean Territory by Chagos islanders.
James Duddridge
A twelve week public consultation ended on 27 October. Nearly 850 written responses were received from as far afield as Tanzania, Switzerland, Thailand, France, and of course the main Chagossian communities in the UK, Mauritius and Seychelles. Officials are continuing their analysis of these, and the results of meetings held with Chagossians in their own communities, to allow a decision on a way ahead soon.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Redfern on 2015-12-16.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assistance is being offered to social work teams to equip them with the necessary resources to provide high quality and affordable residential care both (1) nationally, and (2) in North Lincolnshire.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Government is committed to improving the quality of adult social care and has taken a number of steps to improve it in all localities.
The Department is working with its delivery partner Skills for Care to improve training and development for the workforce. In April 2015, 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.
Ultimately it is a local decision as to how to allocate resources for social care, as such the Department cannot comment specifically on North Lincolnshire.