Tag: 2016

Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-09-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that organisations providing humanitarian relief in (a) Madaya, (b) Daraya and (c) Aleppo have unimpeded access to the children in those areas.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The UK continues to call for full and sustained cease fire and humanitarian access to all besieged and hard-to-reach areas across Syria.

The town of Madaya was reached on 25 September by a UN interagency convoy which delivered a range of desperately needed aid. This was the first convoy to reach Madaya since 30 April.

The town of Daraya is now in regime hands and much of the population has been evacuated. The Assad Regime and its backers must ensure the protection of all of Daraya’s inhabitants and that opposition fighters are treated in accordance with international humanitarian law.

The situation in Aleppo is atrocious as a result of increased bombardment by the regime and its backers in recent weeks, as well as a block on all humanitarian supplies. Fresh water supplies have also been cut off. The UK is working urgently with our international partners to pressure the regime and its backers to end the siege of Aleppo.

01/01/2023
David Crausby – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to specialist care for people with muscular dystrophy.

Jane Ellison

Through the Mandate we have asked NHS England to make measurable progress towards making our health service among the best in Europe at supporting people with long-term conditions such as muscular dystrophy, to live healthily and independently, with much better control over the care they receive.

NHS England commissions specialised neurological services at a national level, including for patients with muscular dystrophy. The neurosciences service specifications set out that patients with neuromuscular conditions, such as muscular dystrophy should have access to, including a multidisciplinary team (MDT) to will assess, diagnose and provide support. The MDT team will include neuromuscular consultants, neuromuscular physiotherapists, specialist nurses, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and other care professionals. One of the key service outcomes of the specification is that all patients with long-term neurological conditions have an individualised care plan.

01/01/2023
Jamie Reed – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what the objectives are of the Sellafield workforce reform initiative; and if she will make a statement.

Andrea Leadsom

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has a responsibility to UK tax payers to ensure that Sellafield Ltd has maximum opportunity for improved performance: accelerating hazard reduction and delivering value for money. A new model, part of a suite of changes designed to increase efficiency in the business, is being put in place to help achieve that. The rationale for this model is set out in the Sellafield Model Change (SMC) Outline Business Case.

Details of the change programme are available at http://www.nda.gov.uk/contracts-and-competition/sellafield-model-change-programme/.

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01/01/2023
Joan Ryan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joan Ryan on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2016 to Question 28945, what the statistics referred to in that question were for (a) Barnet Hospital, (b) Chase Farm Hospital and (c) Royal Free Hospital.

Jane Ellison

Data on accident and emergency (A&E) attendances, emergency admissions, and performance against the A&E waiting time standard is not published for individual hospital sites. The data is published at trust level only, and this information is available at the links provided in the response to question 28945.

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01/01/2023

Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the number of (a) men and (b) women who will be in receipt of the state pension in each of the next 10 years; and if he will make a statement.

Justin Tomlinson

The requested information is available from 2015/16 to 2020/21 in the table below.

Forecast number of State Pension recipients (Great Britain and Overseas) by gender: 2015/16 – 2020/21

Recipients of State Pension (thousands)


	Men	Women
2015/16	5,523.1	7,399.0
2016/17	5,648.6	7,274.3
2017/18	5,765.3	7,118.7
2018/19	5,850.8	6,956.5
2019/20	5,822.0	6,844.7
2020/21	5,804.7	6,794.1

Source: Budget 2016 medium term forecasts

Projections beyond 2020/21 will be published in due course.

These numbers include State Pension claimants living in Great Britain or Overseas.

01/01/2023

Lord Judd – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Judd on 2016-05-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether improving the accessibility and clarity of the rules covering family reunion, and ensuring that those rules were more flexibility applied, would prevent perilous journeys being undertaken by children seeking asylum in the UK.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Our family reunion policy is intended to allow immediate family members, who formed part of a family unit before the refugee fled their country, to reunite in the UK with the refugee and rebuild their lives together. Those family members can apply from the country in which they are resident.

01/01/2023
The Lord Bishop of Coventry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Lord Bishop of Coventry on 2016-07-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the human rights situation in Bangladesh, especially in relation to the right to freedom of religion or belief.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Our assessment is that the rise in extremist attacks has increased pressure on religious minorities, including Hindus, in Bangladesh.

The former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), most recently talked to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh about the importance of countering extremism in the margins of the G7 meeting in Japan on 27 May. The former Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), raised this with Foreign Minister Ali on 5 July. The British High Commissioner regularly discusses these issues with Bangladesh government ministers.

01/01/2023
Patrick Grady – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Patrick Grady on 2016-09-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will issue a response to Early Day Motion 400, on applying the results of experiments on animals to human patients, tabled on 5 September 2016.

Joseph Johnson

The Government considers that the carefully regulated use of animals in scientific research remains a vital tool in improving the understanding of how biological systems work and in the development of safe new medicines, treatments and technologies.

At the same time, the Government believes that animals should only be used when there is no practicable alternative and it actively supports and funds the development and dissemination of techniques that replace, reduce and refine the use of animals in research (the 3Rs), in particular through funding for the National Centre for the Replacement Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), and also through ongoing UK-led efforts to encourage greater global uptake of the 3Rs.

Advances in biomedical science and technologies – including stem cell research, in vitro systems that mimic the function of human organs, imaging and new computer modelling techniques – are all providing new opportunities to reduce reliance on the use of animals in research.

As part of this, Innovate UK, the NC3Rs, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Medical Research Council have produced a Non-animal Technologies Roadmap for the UK.

The Roadmap offers an approach for the UK to develop, exploit and deploy new non-animal technologies for long-term economic and societal benefit. Integral to this strategy have been two Innovate UK industry-led competitions which have awarded approximately £7m in grant funding; “Developing non-animal technologies” and “Advancing the development and application of non-animal technologies”.

EU and UK law requires safety testing on animals before human trials for new medicines can begin and animal research still plays an important role in providing vital safety information for potential new medicines.

The Early Day Motion (EDM 400) rightly draws attention to the UK life science sector’s Concordat on openness in animal research which was launched in 2014, and provides new opportunities for transparency and debate in this area.

01/01/2023

David Crausby – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average waiting time for a decision on an asylum application was in each of the last 10 years; and what steps her Department is taking to reduce the waiting time for such decisions.

James Brokenshire

The table below shows the average time, in calendar days, from date of claim to date of decision including the number and percentage of cases that received a decision in six months. Figures for the year 2015 are not available.

Year of Application	Apps	Mean	Median	Decisions in 6 Months	As a % of Apps
2005	26,939	133.90	46	23,671	87.87%
2006	25,020	165.06	52	21,065	84.19%
2007	24,732	191.38	62	19,722	79.74%
2008	27,182	223.65	97	19,944	73.37%
2009	25,759	159.22	71	20,985	81.47%
2010	20,012	82.11	29	18,391	91.90%
2011	21,211	115.89	32	18,131	85.48%
2012	21,315	161.70	30	16,098	75.52%
2013	24,960	181.78	46	15,874	63.60%
2014	26,070	141.32	135	19,287	73.98%

The exercise in the financial year 2014-15 to clear all straightforward cases with a claim date preceding 1 April 2014 led to a rise in the average time for some of the years above most notably 2008.This required the progression of a number of cases far older than 12 months which would have influenced the average decision times on those cases.

The Home Office continues to target resources to drive down the waiting time for decisions and currently strives to give decisions on all straightforward cases within 6 months, a timescale which it has been consistently meeting since April 2014.

01/01/2023

Kerry McCarthy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the cost of the badger cull was in 2015; how much of that cost was for policing that cull; and what proportion of that cost was spent in (a) Somerset, (b) Gloucestershire and (c) Dorset.

George Eustice

Bovine TB is the greatest animal health threat to the UK. Based on current expenditure it will cost the taxpayer £1 billion over the next decade if we do not take rigorous action now. The Government is delivering a comprehensive strategy to eradicate the disease and protect the future of our dairy and beef industries. This includes strengthening cattle testing and movement controls, improving biosecurity, and badger control in areas where TB is rife.

Total Government costs for the 2015 badger culls have not yet been finalised.

Policing costs for 2015, which will be funded by Defra, were as follows:

(a) Avon and Somerset: £555,514

(b) Gloucestershire: £553,005

(c) Dorset: £694,728.

01/01/2023