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Tag: 2015

  • Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-11-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of her Department’s miscalculation of the amount of funding available for West Midlands Police on the adequacy of the provision of policing in Birmingham; and what steps she is taking to ensure effective policing in that city.

    Mike Penning

    The allocations provided to forces were indicative and intended to inform the consultation process. No funding to West Midlands Police or any other force was affected by this error.

    The Government is now minded to delay the implementation of new arrangements. Funding allocations for 2016/17 will be determined using existing arrangements and will be set out in the Provisional Police Grant Report in December. It is a matter for Police and Crime Commissioners, working with Chief Officers to determine how to best manage their available resources.

  • Alex Chalk – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Alex Chalk – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Chalk on 2015-12-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what procedures the Child Support Agency (CSA) has to ensure that it takes account of a person’s assets as well as their income when calculating child maintenance payments; and if he will make it his policy to require the CSA to take into account the value of retained profit of any company controlled by the non-resident parent when calculating child maintenance payments from that parent.

    Priti Patel

    Across all three Child Maintenance schemes maintenance is calculated based on a person’s earned income, and does not normally include any consideration of assets.

    Since 1996, clients have been able to request either that the standard maintenance calculation can be ‘departed’ or ‘varied’ (depending on which Child Maintenance scheme their case is under) in certain exceptional circumstances. These include where there is income generated from assets, such as property or dividends, which would not otherwise be taken into account.

    Where a business retains profits for the purposes of ensuring continued existence and / or growth of the business, and provided the amounts retained are not unreasonable under UK taxation legislation, there is no provision to include these amounts in the calculation of a maintenance liability.

  • Ben Bradshaw – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Ben Bradshaw – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Bradshaw on 2015-11-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners released on a Home Detention Curfew in Devon broke their curfew conditions between 2011 and 2014.

    Andrew Selous

    The number of prisoners released on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) in England and Wales has fallen in recent years. This is principally due to the reduction in the number of prisoners eligible for the scheme.

    The Ministry of Justice only collates data on the number of prisoners released on HDC who are then recalled to prison for breach of their curfew conditions and this data is only available for England and Wales as a whole. It would incur disproportionate cost to isolate from this overall data those recalled prisoners who had been released on HDC from prisons in Devon.

    This data is published and can be located at the following link (table A3.5 details HDC recalls):

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/424903/prison-releases-annual-2014.xlsx

    “

  • Lord Storey – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lord Storey – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-12-08.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what role local authorities and school governors have in agreeing annual school budgets.

    Lord Nash

    Maintained schools receive a delegated budget from their local authority. Local authorities are required to maintain a scheme for financing schools that sets out the framework for the financial relationship between them and the schools they maintain. This requires that the school’s formal annual budget plan must be approved by the governors. This approval is undertaken on the basis that the budget is being used for the purposes of the school.

    Under the scheme for financing schools, a local authority’s responsibilities are to review schools’ budget plans; to carry out high level monitoring of school budgets; to agree a deficit reduction programme with schools in deficit; to challenge excess surplus balances held by schools without good reason; to intervene in schools for which there are financial concerns.

  • Margaret Ritchie – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Margaret Ritchie – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ritchie on 2015-11-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on the release of documents relating to Northern Ireland held at Swadlincote under the 30-year rule.

    Mr Ben Wallace

    There have been no discussions with the Secretary of State for Defence on the release of documents at Swadlincote. The Northern Ireland Office has no records held at Swadlincote.

  • Baroness Lister of Burtersett – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Baroness Lister of Burtersett – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Lister of Burtersett on 2015-12-08.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government which countries limit financial support for children by the number of dependent children.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    The national systems for supporting families in and out of work are very different between countries and it is thus difficult to compare one system with another. Many countries do not have means-tested supplements for children.

    The Government believes that the welfare system needs to be fair to taxpayers as well as benefit claimants, which includes ensuring that families on benefits make the same sort of financial decisions about the number of children they can afford to have as families supporting themselves solely through work.

    In 2011 the UK spent more on family benefits than Germany, France or Sweden. The UK spent more than double the OECD average on cash benefits to families according to OBR’s welfare trends report 2015.

  • Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to monitor and control eye surgery.

    Alistair Burt

    There are currently no plans to bring forward new legislative proposals for regulating refractive laser eye surgery.

    Providers of laser eye surgery are required to register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), as this is a regulated activity. All providers of regulated activities under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 must be registered with the CQC and meet the new fundamental standards of safety and quality that came onto force on 1 April this year. The CQC has a range of enforcement actions that it can take if providers do not meet the fundamental standards.

    Doctors performing laser eye surgery in the United Kingdom must also be registered with the General Medical Council (GMC). All registered doctors are expected to be familiar with the GMC’s publication Good medical practice and supporting guidance, which describes what is expected of them. This document makes clear that medical doctors must recognise and work within the limits of their competence

    Further work is underway to improve the delivery, safety and standards for patient information regarding these procedures and this is being led by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.

  • Lord West of Spithead – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Lord West of Spithead – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord West of Spithead on 2015-12-08.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the average age of Tornado GR4-trained navigators in the RAF.

    Earl Howe

    The average age of Tornado GR4 trained navigators in the Royal Air Force is 41 years and three months.

  • Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-11-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Minister for Community and Social Care of 14 October 2015, Official Report, column 464, how many veterans the 10 mental health teams have supported in each year since they were opened.

    Alistair Burt

    From April 2013 to 30 September 2015 the 10 NHS England regional veteran mental health teams have supported a total of 8,425 veterans. This is broken down in the table below.

    2013/14

    2014/15

    2015/16 to September 2015

    2,741

    3,505

    2,179

    The numbers represent the total accessing the 10 veterans focussed services in England. Veterans are also able to make full use of NHS mental health services, for example, in 2013/14, 14,882 self-identified veterans used local Improving Access to Psychological Therapies services.

    Numbers were not collected centrally prior to April 2013.

  • Baroness Masham of Ilton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Baroness Masham of Ilton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Masham of Ilton on 2015-12-08.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to identifying drug treatment outcomes that may indicate progress towards patient recovery.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    A table which shows trend data from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System for individuals completing treatment free of dependence for the years 2009-10 to 2014-15 is attached.

    For the first time in 2014-15, the annual report brought together information on people receiving specialist interventions for drugs and alcohol. Many people experience problems with both substances and receive interventions for both, and drugs and alcohol services are often commissioned together. The figures therefore include the substance group ‘non-opiate and alcohol’, as well as those seeking services for drug-only related dependency, to ensure all individuals leaving treatment drug-free are captured. This new methodology has been applied to the years prior to 2014-15 to ensure comparable figures.

    We have provided both the total numbers leaving treatment successfully free of dependence as well as the numbers that left successfully not using drugs or alcohol at the time of exit (which is a subset of the larger number), as some individuals may, for example, be occasionally drinking when they are discharged but it will have been judged by a clinician to be non-problematic and not dependent use and that therefore they no longer require treatment.

    Public Health England will continue to support local authorities to provide effective and efficient drug treatment services, by providing bespoke data to assist the joint strategic needs assessment and to show the effectiveness of the local treatment system, as well as value for money tools, topical briefings, advice on good practice and on the benefits of investing in alcohol and drug treatment. Across the country, councils have already begun to develop new ways to deliver public health, showing that it is possible to deliver better health for local people and also better value for the taxpayer.

    The evidence-base for the effectiveness of drug treatment is robust, with United Kingdom and international evidence showing that treatment provides value for money, improves public health and reduces crime.

    The Building Recovery strand of the Government’s Drug Strategy recognises the importance of non-medical interventions, such as recovery networks, employment, housing, family support and reduced re-offending, in helping people recover and to participate more fully in society. Every person in structured drug treatment has a personal care plan based on an assessment of their needs, which maps out the steps they will take towards recovery. It covers their drug use, health, social functioning, criminal involvement, housing, employment and any other barrier to recovery.