Tag: 2015

  • Gordon Marsden – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Gordon Marsden – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2015-11-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 3 November 2015 to Question 13325, how many mathematics enhancement programmes his Department offered people in the further education sector in each year from 2010-11 to 2014-15; and how many such programmes he estimates his Department will offer in 2015-16.

    Nick Boles

    The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) began offering bursaries to graduates to train to teach maths in the academic year 2013/14. 61 and 136 people took up such bursaries in 2013/14 and 2014/15, respectively. It is estimated that 167 maths bursaries will be taken up in 2015/16.

    The maths enhancement is a joint BIS/Department for Education supported programme and commenced in the academic year 2013/14. During 2013/14 and 2014/15 over 2,450 existing further education teachers participated in the maths programmes. During 2015/16 we are continuing to support access to a pipeline programme to enhance the maths skills of existing teachers. This is being delivered by the Education and Training Foundation. We have not made an estimate of the number of programmes that will be taken up in 2015/16.

    Emerging findings from the evaluation of the further education (FE) workforce programmes have shown a positive impact on the confidence and effectiveness of FE teachers delivering maths either as a core subject or in vocational context. The evidential basis for intervention in maths teaching was based on the clear need to raise the Maths attainment rates of students in further education; and improve the quality of Maths teaching as identified by Ofsted inspection reports.

  • Lord Rowlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Lord Rowlands – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rowlands on 2015-12-02.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government on what basis, and by which process, the relevant shares of the proposed Apprenticeship Levy will be distributed to the devolved administrations.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    We are working with the devolved administrations to ensure fair and transparent funding and, as far as possible, to develop a system for administering the levy which complements the skills and apprenticeship policies of each of the devolved administrations. We are committed to doing all we can to make the system work for employers wherever they are in the UK.

  • Joanna Cherry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Joanna Cherry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joanna Cherry on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to improve the availability of off-patent drugs for novel uses through non-legislative measures.

    George Freeman

    Clinicians can already prescribe off-patent drugs off-label on clinical grounds if they judge this is the right thing to do to meet the individual clinical needs of their patients.

    The Government is keen to accelerate the adoption of innovative medicines and increase the innovative use of existing medicines where the evidence reports clinical benefits and cost effectiveness to patients. To that end, we are seeking a number of initiatives to provide innovation but whilst supporting the aims of the Private Member’s Bill on this subject, we do not believe the proposed mechanism is either practicable and desirable.

    We are working with NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the General Medical Council and the Medicines and Health products Regulatory Agency to ensure that there is better information available to support clinicians who wish to prescribe off-patent drugs for off-label indications, and to ensure that new evidence is picked up more quickly and reliably and translated into clinical practice and can be fed through into licensing applications.

    A huge amount of work is also going on in the Accelerated Access Review which will support the “pull” of innovation through to clinical practice.

    As part of the debate on the Access to Medical Treatments Bill, we are working with officials in the Department, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and the Health and Social Care Information Centre to see how the power in the Bill, if it were to pass, could address the lack of provision of information on new uses for existing medicines via the power to create a database of innovations in order to support evidence-based prescribing.

  • Emma Lewell-Buck – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Emma Lewell-Buck – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emma Lewell-Buck on 2015-12-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the potential economic effect on Scotland of Buchan Deep supply chain work being awarded to a company that will undertake the work overseas.

    Anna Soubry

    I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 7 December 2015 to Question UIN 18533.

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  • Lord Hylton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Lord Hylton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2015-11-09.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of how many people were on zero-hours contracts in each year since 2010.

    Lord Bridges of Headley

    The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

  • Ian Blackford – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Ian Blackford – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Blackford on 2015-12-02.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of expanding Pension Wise to include consideration of housing wealth as a source of retirement income.

    Harriett Baldwin

    The Government is committed to ensuring that individuals are equipped and empowered to make informed decisions about how to use their pension savings through the Pension Wise service.

    The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) standards for the service state that guidance should provide the consumer with information about long-term care needs, sustainability of income in retirement and life expectancy, to the extent that they are relevant. Pension Wise guidance therefore prompts consumers to think about their retirement objectives and wider financial circumstances when deciding on what to do with their pension pot. As part of this consumers are asked about whether they receive any benefits, other retirement income, outgoings in retirement, and plans to continue working. The guidance is designed to equip consumers to consider questions about their situation as a whole, and directs them to further sources of information as suitable. Where it is clear that consumers need specialist help, they are directed to the appropriate source of guidance and information.

    Pension Wise is constantly assessing and evaluating the service to ensure that user needs are met. As such, it is currently actively considering a number of developments, as part of our continuous service improvement, to make Pension Wise even more useful to consumers, including tailoring session content more closely to individual circumstances.

  • Baroness Tonge – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Baroness Tonge – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2015-11-09.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether their plans to introduce rules to stop local councils from taking boycott or divestment initiatives in relation to Israel are compatible with their guidance on overseas business risk in Israel recognising the illegality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

    Lord Bridges of Headley

    Cabinet office will shortly issue guidance that reminds public authorities of their international obligations when letting public contracts. Foreign policy is not a matter for local authorities. The guidance will make clear that boycotts in public procurement are inappropriate and may be illegal, outside where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions that have been put in place by the Government.

  • Mark Hendrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Mark Hendrick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2015-12-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will take steps to require newspapers and journals to publish on their websites what the questions asked, sample sizes and composition of people in terms of age, sex and ethnicity were for opinion polls cited in their publications.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The Editors’ Code of Practice sets out the rules and standards to which the press can be held to account. The Code is administered by the Editors’ Code of Practice Committee and is evolving all the time to suit changing circumstances. Amendments to the Code can be suggested via the Committee’s website:http://www.editorscode.org.uk/.

    “

  • Lord Harries of Pentregarth – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Harries of Pentregarth – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harries of Pentregarth on 2015-11-09.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether reporters are now allowed to enter West Papua; and if not, what representations they are making to the government of Indonesia to allow access to the press.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    We welcome the Indonesian government’s commitment to improving the situation in the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. This includes President Joko Widodo’s visit in May, when he granted clemency to a number of prisoners and announced the lifting of travel restrictions for foreign journalists. Since May, a number of foreign journalists have successfully visited and reported from Papua and West Papua.

  • Madeleine Moon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Madeleine Moon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Madeleine Moon on 2015-12-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the ratio of students to instructors varies across his Department’s centres which provide force development and adventure training; whether risk assessments have been carried out on the student to instructor ratio in those centres; whether those risk assessments have been changed at any time in the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr Julian Brazier

    Force Development (FD) and Adventurous Training (AT) are governed separately. AT instructor to student ratios for each approved AT activity are laid out in Joint Service Policy (JSP) 419 (Joint Services Adventurous Training), which can be found at the following website:

    www.raf.mod.uk/rafhpa/rafcms/mediafiles/3033F0D5_5056_A318_A81B12353A721C24.pdf

    FD is a term predominantly utilised by the Royal Air Force and is made up of many delivery mechanisms, including AT, collective training and military exercises. The instructor to student ratio varies according to the activity risk assessment, which is carried out for each activity. Where AT is used as a delivery mechanism for FD, instructor to student ratios within JSP419 will be used.

    The policy for AT student to instructor ratios is regularly reviewed and updated.