Tag: 2016

  • Baroness Randerson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Baroness Randerson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Randerson on 2016-06-29.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have assessed proposals from the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority that more carriages should be added to trains on the InterCity West Coast service to reduce overcrowding.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    Rail services between London and the Midlands are currently provided by the West Midlands and InterCity West Coast franchises. These franchises are due be replaced when they expire in October 2017 and April 2018 respectively. The Department has completed a consultation in respect of the replacement West Midlands franchise, and commenced another in respect of InterCity West Coast in May. The outcomes of those consultations will be used to inform what we ask the operator of the new franchise to provide. This information, including the key challenges and opportunities that the Department has identified for those franchises, will be published in due course.

  • Baroness Smith of Basildon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Baroness Smith of Basildon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Smith of Basildon on 2016-09-09.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they have taken under the national Female Genital Mutilation Prevention Programme.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    The Department’s Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Prevention Programme was launched in 2014 to improve the way in which the National Health Service responds to the health needs of girls and women who have had FGM, and to actively support prevention. As part of the FGM Prevention Programme, working in partnership with NHS England, we have delivered a comprehensive change programme, with practical guidance and materials to support professionals and NHS organisations to understand how best they can tackle FGM. The programme outputs have:

    – Introduced the first ever FGM data collection across the NHS, now published quarterly by NHS Digital as an official statistic;

    – Published specialist FGM safeguarding guidance to help health professionals protect against FGM;

    – Published specialist guidance to help health professionals commission appropriate FGM services;

    – Commenced the early adopter phase for a new national safeguarding system linked to a child’s electronic health record;

    – Awareness-raising roadshows and outreach work across the country have directly reached over 3500 professionals;

    – Published educational films about FGM and updated content on the NHS Choices website.

    – Delivered a patient and public facing FGM prevention advertising campaign using African satellite television, radio and Facebook. This has generated over 650,000 views on social media since its launch in July 2016;

    – Launched comprehensive e-learning on FGM, free of charge to all NHS staff. This was developed by Health Education England, with more than 4000 staff having used this to date;

    – Supported a number of projects with health partners including Royal Colleges, delivering a range of practical measures to improve clinical skills, awareness and preparedness to treat and safeguard women and girls with FGM;

    – Sent all GPs, approximately 8,000 practices, FGM information packs containing resources to enable them to support patients living with FGM; and

    – Worked with the York Health Economics Consortium to cost FGM treatment in the NHS and consider tariff implications. This work is nearing completion.

    In this next phase of the Programme we have launched an ambition to make sure FGM survivors are aware of and have access to the right mental health support. We are also focusing on embedding recent developments across NHS systems.

  • Johnny Mercer – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Johnny Mercer – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Johnny Mercer on 2016-01-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to make the rail line through Dawlish more resilient before the next Network Rail Control Period in 2019.

    Claire Perry

    Network Rail iscurrently implementing a £31million package of schemes to improve the resilience of the Great Western route through the Thames Valley and the West of England.

    Network Rail is also progressing an Exeter to Newton Abbot geo-environmental study exploring options for providing a more resilient rail route for the future. The work will produce a short-list of options for further strengthening of the existing railway from Control period 6 (2019-2024) and beyond.

  • Brendan O’Hara – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Brendan O’Hara – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Brendan O’Hara on 2016-02-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether an assessment was made of the (a) decontamination, (b) environmental and (c) other costs was before each Astral exercise between February 2011 and November 2012; and what the incremental cost was of each of the major elements for managing the post-incident contamination.

    Penny Mordaunt

    The Ministry of Defence maintains a Defence Nuclear Emergency Organisation (NEO) to respond in the unlikely event of an emergency involving the transport of defence nuclear materials. The NEO organises regular exercises to test the effectiveness of its emergency response planning and arrangements. These include the Astral series of exercises, which are designed to be challenging, and thus simulate the extremely unlikely event of a release of radioactive material from the transport containers. No radioactive materials are used or released to the environment during the exercises. The specific exercise objectives do not require assessments or estimates of decontamination, environmental or other post-incident decontamination costs or of radiological dose uptakes. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) undertook the modelling for each Astral exercise between February 2011 and November 2012.

    I am withholding information about the physical state, mass quantity, release fraction and total released radioactivity assumed for these exercises as disclosure would or would be likely to prejudice national security.

  • Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-03-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on individuals or groups involved in smuggling people from mainland Europe to the UK; and what estimate her Department has made of the number of people who are engaged in such activities.

    James Brokenshire

    Europol holds intelligence on more than 40,000 individuals suspected of being involved in migrant smuggling. It would not be appropriate to comment further on ongoing UK operational activity to investigate groups and individuals engaged in smuggling people to the UK from mainland Europe. We will relentlessly pursue those who are engaged in people smuggling. Between 1st April 2015 and 8 March 2016, Immigration Enforcement has achieved 132 disruptions against criminals involved in organised immigration crime.

    Last summer, the Prime Minister announced the creation of the Organised Immigration Crime Taskforce bringing together officers from the National Crime Agency, Border Force, Immigration Enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service to exploit every opportunity at source, in transit countries and in Europe to identify and tackle organised crime groups criminal operations. The Taskforce funding was subsequently expanded in November 2015 to increase resources to 100 dedicated officers until 2020.

  • Sir Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Sir Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sir Nicholas Soames on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to encourage more people to become practice nurses.

    Ben Gummer

    In October 2015 Health Education England (HEE) published the first ever General Practice Nursing Service Education and Career Framework and accompanying HEE Education Commissioning Specification. This framework is founded on the need to develop the capacity and capability of general practice nurses.

    Health Careers, part of HEE, also actively promotes all healthcare careers, including practice nursing. Information about a career in practice nursing is available through its website, literature and helpline. This includes information about the benefits of being a practice nurse, the education and training needed and real-life stories from current practice nurses.

  • Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-05-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many voucher codes have been issued to date under the satellite broadband subsidy scheme; and for what proportion of those codes has installation been completed.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The Basic Broadband Scheme comprises two schemes running in parallel: the main scheme is administered by the Local Authorities and BT using only satellite suppliers; and the second supplementary scheme is administered by BDUK and uses fixed wireless suppliers as well as satellite suppliers. These schemes form part of the Government’s commitment to ensure that every home and business in the UK has access to a broadband service of at least 2 Mbps.

    On the main scheme, there have been 2774 successful applications for codes, with 278 going on to place orders. On the supplementary scheme, there has been 1171 successful applications for codes, with 282 going on to place orders.

  • James Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    James Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by James Davies on 2016-06-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how he plans to implement the General Practice Forward View published by NHS England in April 2016.

    Alistair Burt

    NHS England and Health Education England are developing detailed plans to implement the 80-plus commitments set out in the General Practice Forward View. Key elements that will be launched in coming months will be the new practice resilience programme and the national development programme to support practices release capacity.

  • Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Hylton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-09-08.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what reply they intend to give to the petition of Ms Jennifer Chim Pik Yee of Hong Kong addressed to the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    Ms Chim Pik petitioned Parliament for a debate on human rights relating to assistance that was provided to her in 2004 following a civil dispute in Pakistan. We have explained that there is nothing further that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office can do to assist her.

  • Chris Stephens – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Chris Stephens – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Stephens on 2016-01-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many staff employed by his Department (a) receive working tax credits and (b) work part-time; and what proportion of each such group are women.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The information requested in part (a) is not readily available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

    On 31 December 2015 in the Department for Work and Pensions 35,834 employees work part-time and 88% of this group are women.