Tag: 2016

  • Charlotte Leslie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Charlotte Leslie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2016-02-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that failed asylum claimants who have spoken out against the government of their country of origin are not deported in such a way as to draw the case to the attention of immigration officials in the destination country.

    James Brokenshire

    We carefully consider all asylum claims on their individual merits and provide protection for those who need it, in accordance with our international obligations under the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This includes an assessment about whether a person who has spoken out against their government is likely to be at risk of persecution or serious harm on return.

    We do not provide any information relating to an asylum claim to the government of a claimant’s country of origin. No one who is at risk of serious harm in their country is expected to return there, but we do expect those who do not need our protection to return home voluntarily.

  • Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-03-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much funding his Department received from the European Social Fund (a) between 2007 and 2014 and (b) from 2014 to the last month for which data is available.

    Nick Boles

    The Skills Funding Agency (and its predecessor, the Learning and Skills Council) is a co-financing organisation for the European Social Fund in England. It received £1,494,936,801.00 between January 2007 and December 2013 and £485,027,046.00 from January 2014 to December 2015, a total of £1,979,963,847.00. The money was used to support skills projects across England.

    For the 2014-2020 Programme in England the Skills Funding Agency has put in place funding agreements with Local Enterprise Partnerships to the value of £725m from the European Social Fund.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-04-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department’s policy of the recommendations by the Maritime Accident Investigation Branch in its review of the sinking of the Cemfjord; what discussions his Department has had with the Maritime Coastguard Agency on implementing those recommendations; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) report into the sinking of the Cemfjord was published on the 21 April. The Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) is carefully considering the recommendations about maritime safety information, ship reporting and routeing, and monitoring.

    None of the recommendations in the MAIB report are addressed specifically to the Department. However, the Department takes these findings, and those from other MAIB reports, into consideration in the development of policy and in its interactions in international forums on these issues.

  • Lord Storey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Lord Storey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2016-05-24.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much the Public Duty Cost Allowances were in (1) 2013–14, (2) 2014–15, and (3) 2015–16.

    Lord Bridges of Headley

    The costs of the Public Duties Cost Allowance are published annually in the Cabinet Office Annual Report and Accounts.

    The cost of the PDCA in 2013-14 was £331,348 and in 2014-15 was £331,818.

    Details of costs for 2015-16 will be included in the 2015-16 Annual Report and Accounts which will be published in due course.

  • Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-07-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on the treatment of strokes of withdrawing access to patent foramen ovale closure and left atrial appendage occlusion during the commissioning through evaluation analysis phase.

    David Mowat

    NHS England’s Commissioning through Evaluation (CtE) programme enables a limited number of patients to access treatments, such as patent foramen ovale closure and left atrial appendage occlusion, which are not routinely funded by the National Health Service. These are usually treatments which show significant promise for the future and enable a small number of patients to access them while new clinical and patient experience data are collected within a formal evaluation programme. This approach ensures that each CtE scheme provides valuable new data, beyond that already available from clinical trials, or where there is no clinical trial data, to inform future commissioning policy decisions.

    During the analysis phase, NHS England’s published policy position for the treatment concerned will continue to apply. For patent foramen ovale closure and left atrial appendage occlusion this will mean that these procedures will not be routinely available within the NHS. However, patients already being treated as part of a CtE scheme will continue to receive appropriate follow-up care.

    Once the CtE evaluation report is available, or if other significant clinical trial information becomes available more quickly, NHS England’s published policy for the treatment concerned will be reviewed and a decision will be made about whether NHS England will or will not make the treatment available within the NHS.

  • Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-10-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many times explosive ordinance officers were deployed to deal with incidents in Northern Ireland between 1 January 2016 and 1 July 2016.

    Mike Penning

    Incidents requiring explosive ordnance disposal experts in Northern Ireland are dealt with solely by military personnel. The information requested on the number of occasions Explosive Ordnance Disposal personnel have responded to incidents in Northern Ireland is published annually in the Report of the Independent Reviewer of the Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007. The statistics will be included in the forthcoming report which covers the period of August 2015 to July 2016.

  • John Redwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    John Redwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Redwood on 2016-01-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many miles of waterway the Environment Agency dredged in the last 12 months.

    Rory Stewart

    The Environment Agency estimates that the length of watercourse where dredging was carried out was approximately 120 miles (200km) in 2014/15.

  • Jo Stevens – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Jo Stevens – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jo Stevens on 2016-02-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many (a) assaults and (b) serious assaults on prison officers were recorded at HMP Cardiff during each of the last three years.

    Andrew Selous

    Statistics for assaults on staff by prison are published on an annual basis by calendar year in the Safety in Custody statistics bulletin annual assaults tables (see table 3.15 at the link below). https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/495430/safety-in-custody-assaults-dec-2014.xls.

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  • Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Andrew Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Smith on 2016-02-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will make an assessment of the effect on poverty reduction in West Papua, Indonesia, of the reported ban on non-governmental organisations working in that area.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    DFID no longer has a bilateral poverty reduction programme in Indonesia. However, as part of UK Government action to mitigate against climate change, we work in partnership with the Indonesian national and provincial governments to help secure community access to forest land in Papua to promote a sustainable green economy, whilst supporting local livelihoods.

  • Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to her financial statement of 16 March 2016, Official Report, column 963, how the £500 million funding will be used to speed up the introduction of a fair national school funding formula.

    Mr Sam Gyimah

    The Chancellor announced at the Budget that £540 million would be provided to the Department for Education to support the school reform agenda. This will supplement the department’s Spending Review settlement.

    We will spend around £500 million over the Spending Review period, over and above the per pupil protection of the core school budget, to accelerate the introduction of a fair national funding formula. All of this funding will be provided to support children’s education.

    The funding means that the government will be able to accelerate gains for schools that are due to see funding increases under the formula, while continuing to offer a minimum funding guarantee for all schools. We are currently consulting on the principles and funding factors that should define the national funding formula for schools. A second consultation, later this year, will address the weighting attached to those factors and transitional arrangements, including the use of this funding.

    A link to the consultation can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/schools-national-funding-formula.

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