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Tag: 2015

  • Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to ensure that arms exports to the parties to the conflict in Yemen are compliant with the Arms Trade Treaty and UK domestic law.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    The UK operates one of the most thorough and robust export control and licensing systems in the world. All applications for strategic export control licences for military and dual-use goods are assessed on a case-by-case basis against the Government’s Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria, in a manner consistent with the UK’s international obligations, including under the Arms Trade Treaty.

    The Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria were updated in March 2014 before the UK’s ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty to ensure they were consistent with both the Treaty and the EU Common Position on Arms Exports. A licence will not be issued if doing so would breach the Criteria.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many ambulance calls were responded to by the (a) police and (b) fire service in (i) England, (ii) Greater Manchester and (iii) Denton and Reddish constituency in each of the last five years.

    Jane Ellison

    The information requested is not available in the format requested.

  • Fiona Bruce – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Fiona Bruce – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona Bruce on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Official Report, columns 11-12, whether her Department’s planned proposals on tackling hate speech and extremism will affect Christian ministers’ ability to preach biblical values in non-religious locations.

    Karen Bradley

    Nothing that the Government is doing or planning to do to tackle hate speech and extremism will affect Christian ministers’ ability to preach biblical values in non-religious locations. Our work will protect the freedom to exchange religious ideas – a fundamental part of our thriving democracy – against the extremists and hate preachers who shut down debate and condemn anyone who disagrees with them.

  • Fiona Bruce – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Fiona Bruce – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona Bruce on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how her Department plans to work in partnership with (a) communities and (b) other Government departments on tackling hate crimes and challenging extremism which leads to violence.

    Karen Bradley

    The Government’s Counter-Extremism Strategy was published on 19 October. This sets out how all parts of government will work together to tackle all forms of extremism.

    To defeat extremism, we must work in partnership with communities. The strategy sets out how we will develop a network of civil society groups and individuals who share our commitment to defeat extremism and protect communities.

    The Prime Minister also recently announced that as the Government had promised in 2016 UK Police Forces across England and Wales will record Anti Muslim Hatred alongside other religious hate crime as a specific categorised offence.

    The New Cross-Government Hate Crime Action Plan is currently being developed by the Home Office in partnership with other Government departments, policing colleagues and external stakeholders.

  • Craig Whittaker – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Craig Whittaker – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what account was taken of local transport links in Walsden, Portsmouth and Todmorden in the consultation on the Provision of Court and Tribunal Estate for both victims and those on trial.

    Mr Shailesh Vara

    The consultation proposals included information on approximate travel times for each regional consultation paper.

    No decision has been taken to close any court. The consultation closed on 8 October and we are considering all responses carefully.

  • Bill Wiggin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Bill Wiggin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bill Wiggin on 2015-10-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he plans to take to improve the condition of rural roads.

    Andrew Jones

    I refer my Honourable Friend to my answer dated 22 October 2015, UIN 12071

    (http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-questions-answers/?page=1&max=20&questiontype=AllQuestions&house=commons%2clords&uin=12071).

    “

  • Marie Rimmer – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Marie Rimmer – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Marie Rimmer on 2015-10-21.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of proposed changes to tax credits on child poverty.

    Damian Hinds

    The Government is making changes to Tax Credits which will help put welfare spending on a more sustainable path. The Government wants to move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare society.

    We know that work is the best route out of poverty. The intended impact of these reforms is to incentivise work, ensure work always pays, and then allow people to keep more of what they earn.

  • Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will review the current performance of the NHS 111 service and take steps in order to ensure that more qualified nurses are used to handle calls from the public.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    The Government has seen successes with the NHS 111 service since its launch, with over a million calls offered to the NHS 111 service in August, of which 93.6% were answered within 60 seconds.

    The Government expects all NHS 111 centres to be appropriately staffed to offer people safe care and advice and treatment at all times and has asked NHS England for assurances that the NHS 111 service is doing all it can to help patients. Furthermore the Care Quality Commission has announced it will inspect and rate NHS 111 services by September 2016 to give additional assurances that minimum levels of quality are attained.

    New Commissioning Standards for Integrated Urgent Care were published last week by NHS England. Developed jointly with commissioners and providers, the Commissioning Standards will support the transformation of urgent care services; introducing the clinical hub employing a broader range of clinical skills, direct booking into general practitioner appointments, improved clinical governance and staff development amongst other developments. Commissioners will now complete their plans to achieve the Commissioning Standards. A copy is attached.

    The commissioning of NHS 111 services is led by local Clinical Commissioning Groups and the safety and effectiveness of NHS 111 services are subject to constant review by local commissioners, monitoring performance and investigating complaints and clinical incidents through existing clinical governance arrangements.

  • 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 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many requests under the NHS England Standard Operating Procedures for funding requests for clinically critically urgent treatment outside established policy have been received so far in 2015–16, and how many of those requests have been approved.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    NHS England has advised that it received 31 clinically critically urgent applications in 2015-16 (April 2015 to September 2015) of which 18 were approved.

  • Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what amendments were made to the formula for police funding following the consultation process with individual police forces.

    Lord Bates

    We received over 1,700 responses to our recent public consultation on proposed police funding reforms. The overwhelming view from respondents was supportive of a new formula and the principles we set out. We have carefully analysed the feedback received and, in light of this, are proposing a number of refinements to the model:

    – retain population volume and households with no adults employed and dependent children as core indicators;

    – clarify that the second population characteristic we intend to use is the updated ‘urban adversity’ version of the Acorn 5 indicator which has replaced the old ‘hard pressed’ version (this ensures that the model is in line with CACI Limited’s current Acorn classifications);

    – revise the bar density measure so that it takes account of bar volume as well as bar density, reflecting strong consultation feedback that this better captures scale and the impact of clusters of bars and the night-time economy within a force area;

    – remove ‘Band D equivalent properties’ as a core indicator, reflecting strong consultation feedback that this variable did not adequately capture the ability to raise additional precept income as intended;

    – add an Area Cost Adjustment (ACA) to the model to reflect regional variations in the cost base.

    These proposed refinements to the model produce an adjusted set of weightings across the remaining four core indicators as follows:

    Variable

    Weighting

    Population volume

    30%

    Households with no adults employed and dependent children

    31%

    Urban adversity/Acorn 5

    31%

    Volume and density of bars

    8%

    The Policing Minister wrote to all PCCs and Chiefs on 8 October to provide detail on the proposed refinements and to set out the indicative force-level impact and invite further comments.

    We will then finalise the model in light of further feedback received.