The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Lammy on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, how many officials of his Department are (a) on secondment from external companies and (b) engaged as external contractors or consultants; and what the cost is of engaging those staff.
Mr David Jones
The department currently has 5 individuals on secondment from external companies. There has been no costs incurred to date from engaging these staff.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-10-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 12 October 2016 to Question 47328, if she will provide the information requested in the specified format.
George Eustice
As previously stated, further information on Ministerial meetings with organisations is available on Gov.UK, as part of the quarterly transparency information.
Data on meetings with Departmental officials is not centrally recorded. Any further information could only be obtained by incurring disproportionate costs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2016-01-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many (a) acute and (b) non-acute beds there were in each London hospital in each year since 2010.
Jane Ellison
Information on bed availability and occupancy is published every quarter.
The attached table shows the average daily number of available (a) general and acute and (b) maternity, mental health and learning disability beds that were open overnight and open day only and under the care of a consultant in London trusts in each quarter since 2010.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-02-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will discuss freedom of religion with his Iranian counterpart.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
I discuss many issues with my Iranian counterparts. I have repeatedly called on the Iranian Government to end all persecution of individuals on the basis of their faith, and to guarantee the human rights of all Iranians, regardless of belief, and I will continue to do so.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect on NHS (a) services and (b) governance of NHS England’s decision to discontinue the role of national clinical director for neurology services from March 2016; and if he will make a statement.
Jane Ellison
Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s Medical Director, has undertaken a review of the National Clinical Director (NCD) resource designed to focus clinical advisory resources on areas where major programmes of work are currently being taking forward, or areas identified as priorities for improvement. As a result of the review, NHS England has proposed to change the way in which clinical advice is received in speciality areas in the future.
Where there will no longer be a specific NCD role, NHS England will secure expert clinical advice from its clinical networks and through its relationships with professional bodies and by appointing clinical advisors. For neurology it is planned that access to advice will be through clinical leads and members of the NHS England-funded neurology clinical networks, the Neurology Clinical Reference Group and Royal Colleges. It is expected that these new arrangements will be in place from 1 April 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Champion on 2016-03-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what definition her Department uses for BAME.
Mike Penning
The Government has traditionally used a mix of terms to describe the groups we are working with on race equality: Black and Minority Ethnic (BME); Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME), also ethnic minority and minority ethnic.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Nuttall on 2016-04-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2016 to Question 33754, on World War 1, what constitutes the extensive efforts referred to which are made to try and identify any recovered remains.
Mark Lancaster
Efforts to try and identify recovered remains, first concentrate on forensic analysis and examination of personal and regimental artefacts found alongside them. If the Regiment is identified, war diaries are reviewed. In addition, liaisons with archivists, historians and individual Service records are examined to aid investigations. If a small group of fallen soldiers with no known graves are identified for comparison, DNA testing may then take place, if required.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lilian Greenwood on 2016-06-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what his policy is on local authorities creating new municipal bus companies in England.
Andrew Jones
The Bus Services Bill, which had its first reading in the House of Lords on 19th May, sets out the Government’s policy regarding the creation of new municipal bus companies in England. Clause 21 of the Bill proposes to restrict the ability of local authorities in England to establish companies for the purposes of operating local bus services.
Government recognises the quality services that existing municipal bus companies provide for passengers, and these existing companies will not be affected by the provisions in the Bill. However, it is our view that the commissioning and provision of bus services should be kept separate, particularly as the introduction of new partnership and franchising powers in the Bill is likely to lead to more local authority control and influence of local services.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-09-02.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many performance failures have been incurred by contractors under the HM Revenue and Customs Benefits and Credits, Error and Fraud Adding Capacity 444 contract between SYNNEX-Concentrix UK Limited and HM Revenue and Customs.
Mr David Gauke
Since mid-October 2015 there has been 120 instances where Concentrix has not fully met the performance standards set out in the contract out of a total of 1625.
The estimate of commission paid for the HM Revenue and Customs’ contract with SYNNEX-Concentrix relating to error and fraud is £15.8m since the start of the contract to date.
SYNNEX-Concentrix under its contract with HM Revenue and Customs have completed around 308,718 undeclared partner cases, 198,422 work and hours cases and 152,771 child care cases.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jeff Smith on 2016-10-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it the Government’s policy to require local authorities to collect data on the number of children who have experienced abuse and neglect.
Edward Timpson
The Government collects and publishes ‘Characteristics of children in need’ statistics annually. This includes data on the number of children in need where the primary need identified at assessment is abuse or neglect, the number of assessments undertaken by children’s social care services where different types of abuse and neglect are a factor, and the number of children on child protection plans by different categories of abuse and neglect.
The statistics can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-children-in-need.
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