The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2015-11-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she has taken to ensure that organic food producers are subsidised under the Common Agricultural Policy.
George Eustice
Organic farmers in England are eligible to claim Common Agricultural Policy support under the Basic Payments Scheme and are also eligible to apply for funding under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Empey on 2015-12-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the total number of persons currently employed to deliver electoral services in Northern Ireland.
Lord Dunlop
The Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland is currently considering a range of options for reforming his Office. This includes capitalising on new technology by introducing on-line registration.
The Chief Electoral Officer will have regard to the continued effective delivery of elections in Northern Ireland and ensuring that his Office remains on a sustainable financial footing. The Northern Ireland Office fully supports him in this approach. I understand that work on some options is at an early stage.
The Representation of the People Act 1983 makes provision for the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland to delegate returning officer functions to the clerk of a district council.
Detailed questions on headcount and budget are operational matters for the Chief Electoral Officer who is independent of Government. The Chief Electoral Officer publishes all such information in his annual report which is presented to Parliament and copies are made available in the Library of the House.
The headline budgets allocated to the Chief Electoral Office are:
|
Financial Year |
Operational Funding |
Capital Funding |
|
2013/14 |
£5.452m * |
£100k |
|
2014/15 |
£2.336m |
£56.2k |
|
2015/16 |
£2.296m |
£25k |
* includes £3m for the 2013 canvass
The Northern Ireland Office has not agreed any budgets with the Chief Electoral Officer for future years pending receipt of the Department’s detailed Spending Review 2015 settlement letter from HM Treasury.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to reduce the incidence of depression among new mothers.
Alistair Burt
Reducing the incidence of depression among new mothers is a high priority for the Government.
The Mandate from the Government for the National Health Service includes an objective for NHS England to work with partner organisations to reduce the incidence and impact of postnatal depression through earlier diagnosis, and better intervention and support.
The NHS Mandate also includes an objective that every woman has a named midwife who is responsible for ensuring she has personalised care throughout pregnancy, childbirth and during the postnatal period. This will help clinicians to identify perinatal mental health problems as early as possible and to give women the support they need.
To help achieve this we have increased the number of midwives by over 1,800 and the number of health visitors by over 3,500 since May 2010. In addition, 6,400 midwifery students and an extra 1,000 health visitors are in training respectively.
We are also working to improve the provision of perinatal mental health services which is why it was announced in the March budget that the Government would invest an additional £75 million over the next five years, £15 million per year, to support women with mental ill health in the perinatal period. NHS England is leading a work programme to ensure that this extra money is spent in the right way, at the right time and in the right places. This work is being carried out collaboratively with partner organisations, including the Department and Public Health England, clinical experts and service users.
Health Education England (HEE) has committed to ensure that the right knowledge and training is available so that the NHS is skilled in how it looks after women’s mental as well as physical health. The HEE Mandate includes an objective that there will be specialist perinatal mental health staff available for every birthing unit by 2017. HEE is also committed to working with the medical royal colleges to support specific perinatal mental health training being incorporated into the syllabus for doctors in postgraduate training by 2017.
The Department has funded the Institute of Health Visitors which has trained over 600 perinatal mental health visitor champions to enable health visitors to identify and manage perinatal depression and other maternal mental health conditions.
The Department has also funded the Maternal Health Care Policy Research Unit to undertake a project to develop and pilot test a perinatal mental health indicator which would reflect the mental health care a woman receives at certain critical perinatal time-points; the antenatal booking, the early postnatal period, and approximately one year postnatally.
In line with the approach on other access and waiting time standards, NHS England appointed the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health to run expert engagement and produce implementation outputs, for example commissioning guidance and model pathways. An Expert Reference Group has been formed to oversee this work. NHS England plan to be able to make the recommendations of the group public as soon as possible.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2015-12-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of car parking charges and their effect on the high street.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
We are committed to supporting our high streets and effective parking management is essential for businesses to survive and grow.
Local authorities should be making it easier to park by looking to reduce the cost of parking in local authority owned car parks, and working with private sector providers to ensure they are providing a competitive offer that makes people want to visit high streets and town centres. This provides the best support to local shops, local jobs and tourism by increasing footfall.
The Government has brought forward a range of measures to help motorists, including banning CCTV ‘spy cars’, introducing 10 minutes grace periods and a new guidance to challenge parking policies.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2015-11-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to reduce loneliness and isolation for elderly people through increased contact during transitional care.
Alistair Burt
Prevention is core to the Government’s approach to people managing their health and care needs. My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health set out in his speech to the Local Government Association on 1 July that we all have a responsibility at an individual, family, and community level to identify people with care needs such as loneliness and provide support and improve their wellbeing.
Through the Care Act 2014 the Department has required local authorities to have measures in place to identify people in their area who would benefit from universal services to help reduce, delay or prevent needs for care and support. This includes needs that may arise from social isolation.
Given the complexity of loneliness and the different ways that people are affected there is no single solution that can tackle loneliness and having a range of interventions and solutions is helpful, and commissioners can consider how loneliness can be tackled when a person is transitioning between services.
The Department has supported a ‘digital toolkit’ for local commissioners, which was developed by the Campaign to End Loneliness, and is now incorporated in their guidance Loneliness and Isolation: Guidance for Local Authorities and Commissioners. This supports commissioners in understanding, mapping and commissioning for loneliness and social isolation in their communities, and includes promising approaches to tackling loneliness.
The Department has funded the Social Care Institute for Excellence to develop and run the Prevention Library which includes examples of emerging practice to prevent, reduce or delay peoples care and support needs from deteriorating. This includes examples of integrated working such as the Social Prescribing Scheme in Rotherham.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer on 2015-12-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what body, institution or group is responsible for measuring and analysing UK soils through soil testing, and whether such soil testing is regulated.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The 2007 Countryside Survey measured changes in soil organic matter content of soils in Great Britain. It also measured bulk density and a number of other physical and chemical characteristics of soil. A new baseline survey for soil carbon was carried out in 2009 as part of the EU Land Cover and Land Use Statistics (LUCAS) exercise. The 2015 LUCAS soil samples are currently being analysed.
Defra does not routinely monitor national rates of soil loss (erosion), but we are funding research to pilot a national soil erosion monitoring framework for monitoring soil erosion in England and Wales.
Defra also funded a survey of soil compaction levels in grasslands in England and Wales in 2011.
No formal assessment has been made of the sufficiency of the baseline data from which to measure changes in soil quality.
The Government recognises that soil is essential for underpinning a range of benefits, including food production, but also biodiversity, carbon storage and flood protection.
While the future direction of soils policy will be considered as part of the development of the 25 year plans for Food and Farming, and Environment, government is already taking action to improve soil quality.
This includes new rules underpinning cross compliance which anyone claiming Common Agricultural Policy payments must comply with. The rules require a minimum level of soil cover, prevention of erosion and measures to protect the organic matter levels of soil. The new rules take an outcome based approach, instead of the previous paper-based system, thereby focussing on environmental improvements while reducing burdens for farmers. The Government will continue to monitor the implementation of the new rules.
No single body or institution has responsibility for measuring and analysing soils in the UK. Soil testing is carried out by a mix of commercial laboratories and Public Analyst labs. Typically laboratories are accredited and adhere to British Standards on testing procedures. However, there are no regulations governing soil testing procedures themselves.
There are existing soil maps for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which use different soil classifications. There are currently no plans to produce a new UK soil map, and we have not explored options for private sector investment.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Christopher Chope on 2015-11-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 29 October 2015 to Question 12956, how many of the suspicious activity reports received under the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000 have been investigated; and how many prosecutions have resulted from those investigations.
Mr John Hayes
The Department does not hold this information in the format requested.
All Suspicious Activity Reports received are subject to an initial assessment by the UK Financial Investigation Unit (UKFIU) in the National Crime Agency. The UKFIU Terrorist Finance Team identifies and acts upon SAR information relating to the detection and investigation of terrorist finance, whether submitted under the Terrorism Act (TACT) or the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA).
Over the reporting period, the National Crime Agency received 1216 Suspicious Activity Reports under the provisions of the Terrorism Act 2000. These SARs were disseminated to the National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit (NTFIU) and the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) network, to make an assessment of what further action was needed and in order for the information to be available in support of counter-terrorist investigations.
In many cases, a SAR will not merit a specific detailed investigation. However, the information remains searchable and may be used at any time to inform the development of intelligence and operational targeting.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Teverson on 2015-12-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what evidence they have of misuse of the Enterprise Investment Scheme for community energy projects that contributed to their decision to withdraw the scheme for those purposes.
Lord O’Neill of Gatley
The purpose of the tax-advantaged venture capital schemes is to encourage investment into smaller, higher risk companies that would otherwise struggle to access the funding they need to develop and grow.
Changes have been made to the schemes over time to ensure that asset-backed activities, as well as those that benefit from predictable and reliable income streams, do not qualify, since these often represent lower-risk investments that should be able to secure finance without the need for tax relief. For example, different types of energy generation were excluded from the schemes in 2012, 2014 and 2015, due to clear evidence that such investments were particularly low-risk products offering return of capital, and were being explicitly marketed as such.
Community energy projects in receipt of other government support were not excluded at the time of these previous changes. However, since then the government has become aware of significantly increased interest in the use of community energy for low-risk tax planning purposes. The number of community energy schemes registered as community interest companies (CICs) or community benefit societies has increased from about 5 in 2014 to about 200 by October 2015. The marketing material of these investments suggests that the level of investment risk for community energy, including solar, is comparable to that of activities that were previously excluded.
The government announced at the Summer Budget 2015 that it would monitor the use of the venture capital schemes by community energy organisations to ensure that there was continued value for money for the taxpayer and that they were not the subject of misuse. The government subsequently announced the exclusion of subsidised renewable energy generation by community energy organisations on 26 October 2015, taking effect for investments made on or after 30 November 2015, providing a notice period of five weeks. At the same time, the government announced the exclusion of activities making reserve energy generating capacity available, also with effect for investments made on or after 30 November 2015.
The government believes that the notice period given provided a good balance between the provision of notice to potential investors who might wish to take advantage of the tax reliefs provided through the schemes and the financial risk to the Exchequer that a longer notice period would carry.
To further ensure the venture capital schemes remain well-targeted and deliver value for money, the government announced at Autumn Statement 2015 the exclusion of all remaining energy generation activities from the schemes with effect for investments made on or after 6 April 2016. The new exclusions will apply to both non-renewable and renewable sources of energy generation and apply irrespective of whether a subsidy is received or of the nature of the company carrying on the activities.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Paisley on 2015-11-18.
To ask the Prime Minister, what discussions he had with representatives of the Russian government at the recent G20 meeting on Syria.
Mr David Cameron
I refer the hon. Member to the press release published by my Office on 16 November 2015. The press release is available on the gov.uk website.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws on 2015-12-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people have undergone the programme of deradicalisation referred to as the Healthy Identities Intervention since it was accredited; how many people are awaiting access to the programme; which establishments currently offer the programme; and how many programmes are being offered at each establishment, including the number of individuals able to access each course.
Lord Faulks
The Healthy Identity Intervention (HII) has not been accredited by the Correctional Services Advice & Accreditation panel (CSAAP) as it is not compatible with the criteria currently used.
There have been 65 HII completions since its pilot in 2010-11. Sixteen people are currently undertaking HII. There are currently 15 people waiting to begin the intervention. This can be for a number of reasons, including involvement in other offender behaviour programmes, or mental health problems.
Healthy Identity is targeted at those convicted under the terrorism legislation where extremism was their primary motive. Where violence is the primary motive, other Offender Behaviour programmes may be used. Healthy Identity Interventions is not commissioned for specific establishments in the same way as other offending behaviour programmes. HII is available widely across England and Wales prisons and probation services. It is delivered by trained chartered psychologists and experienced probation officers. There are currently 145 trained HII facilitators.