Tag: 2016

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-12-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the risk of a conflict of interest when members of the Association of Pharmaceutical Specials Manufacturers both provide the reference prices from which to set the NHS tariff prices for specials in the primary care sector and supply those specials to community pharmacists.

Lord Prior of Brampton

Members of the Association of Pharmaceutical Specials Manufacturers do not provide the Department with reference price data for their products. Individual manufacturers provide data on their sales volumes and selling prices to the Department under a memorandum of understanding between manufacturers and the Department. This data is then used to set a reimbursement price which reflects the price at which community pharmacies purchased these products in the quarter before.

01/01/2023
The Lord Bishop of St Albans – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Lord Bishop of St Albans on 2016-01-28.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much tax revenue they have collected directly from fixed-odds betting terminals in each of the years from 2010–11 to 2014–15 inclusive.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

Total Machine Games Duty (MGD) receipts for the years ending 31 March 2015 and 2014 were £562 million and £502 million. Total Amusement Machine Licence Duty receipts for the years ending 31 March 2013, 2012 and 2011 were £151 million £219 million and £219 million.

Receipts from fixed odds betting terminals are not separately identified in the figures published in HMRC’s Tax & Duty bulletin.

01/01/2023

Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-02-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what proportion of her Department’s spending was allocated to (a) Nigerian state organisations, (b) non-governmental organisations and (c) the private sector in the last three years for which figures are available.

Mr Nick Hurd

No UK aid goes directly through Nigerian government systems. Our bilateral aid is delivered through commercial service providers (private sector), international organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The table below provides a breakdown of our payments over financial years 2012-13 to 2014-15.

	2012/13	2013/14	2014/15
Private Sector	£145.724m	£185.146m	£156.147m
International Organisations	£31.905m	£52.343m	£40.505m
NGOs	£22.401m	£28.498m	£27.667m

01/01/2023

Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to ensure that defendants do not break bail conditions due to contact with people that those conditions do not allow when travelling to court.

Mike Penning

We have a range of special measures in place to support vulnerable witnesses and victims when they are giving evidence. These include the option of giving evidence from a remote location away from the court via live link, which significantly limits the risk of a witness coming into contact with a defendant or their supporters. This will mean victims of crime can give evidence from somewhere they feel safe.

The Ministry of Justice also funds the delivery of the court-based Witness Service, delivered by Citizens Advice at all criminal courts in England and Wales. The Service has developed an enhanced package of support to vulnerable and intimidated witnesses (including victims). This enhanced level of support includes both support at court and pre-trial support and an outreach service offering home visits or meetings, in advance of trial, at Citizens Advice offices or another neutral and appropriate location, and meeting the witness outside the court and accompanying them inside. This enhanced service is being rolled out nationally and will be available in all areas by end of April 2016.

The court can impose any bail condition necessary to ensure that a defendant does not interfere with a witness. If a bail condition is broken, this will have consequences for the offender, including the possibility of a remand into custody.

01/01/2023
Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-04-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department collects on the health outcomes of autistic people who do not have a learning disability or mental health condition.

Alistair Burt

General practitioners already maintain a register of people with learning disabilities which may include patients on their lists who also have autism where this has been diagnosed. The Royal College of General Practitioners’ Autism Initiative, which is part funded by the Department, is currently looking at the idea of an autism indicator in general practice. This work is at an early stage.

NHS England has been working with the Health and Social Care Information Centre to develop the Mental Health Services Data Set. This mandatory data set will include provision for the diagnosis of autism to be recorded. The data will be published and available for everyone to use to support and develop services based on health outcomes.

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

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joan Ryan on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect on patient confidentiality of the decision by NHS Royal Free Foundation Trust to grant DeepMind access to NHS patient records; and if he will make a statement.

George Freeman

Individual organisations providing National Health Service care are the data controllers for the information that they hold, and are responsible for ensuring that there is a legal basis for sharing confidential patient information with a third party.

Individual organisations must ensure that where patient consent is the basis for information sharing that patients are fully informed about the purposes for which personal information might be processed and with whom they might share information. Where a NHS organisation has contracted a third party to process personal information on its behalf to support the provision of direct care to patients the individual organisation must ensure that it has contractual safeguards in place to prevent the third party from using the data for purposes other than those determined by the NHS organisation.

NHS organisations should not share confidential patient information where the patient has objected – except in cases where there is a legal requirement to share data or an overriding public interest.

01/01/2023
Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-07-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the imposition of sanctions and penalties on countries that host visits by those indicted for genocide or crimes against humanity such as Omar al Bashir, President of Sudan; and what discussions they have had with other signatories to the creation of the International Criminal Court about that issue.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has an established procedure for dealing with instances of non-cooperation and reports regularly to the UN Security Council on this matter. We continue to follow closely developments in the ICC, including the level of States’ cooperation with the Court, and will consider further measures as appropriate.

01/01/2023
Matthew Offord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of UK nationals who have travelled overseas to engage in terrorist activity.

Mr Ben Wallace

The Government takes the threat posed by UK nationals who travel overseas to engage in terrorist activity extremely seriously. We are particularly concerned about those who travel to Syria and Iraq to fight; around 850 linked individuals have travelled to engage in the conflict since it began, and just under half of those have returned.

People seeking to travel to engage in terrorist activity should be in no doubt we will take the strongest possible action to protect our national security.

01/01/2023
Lord Patten – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2015-12-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many manufacturing companies in the UK employing more than 500 people are foreign-owned; and what is their assessment of the implications of such ownership for the development of indigenous management.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Draft Answer

There are 320 manufacturing enterprises in the UK with more than 500 employees that are foreign owned (i.e. have over 50% foreign control). This is 61% of manufacturing companies with over 500 employees. The UK welcomes foreign direct investment and enjoys the benefits of jobs and skills that it brings and UK manufacturing continues to be globally attractive and competitive. However, the Government is not aware of any evidence which indicates that foreign-owned companies treat UK management any differently to British-owned companies.

We are taking a number of steps to increase indigenous management skills and capability. Apprenticeships standards are now available or being developed in senior level and management occupations. These include degree level qualifications and cover such areas as Manufacturing Engineer, Chartered Manager and Project Manager.

The apprenticeships levy will come into effect from April 2017. It will apply to all UK employers with a pay bill in excess of £3 million and incentivise them to train their apprentices in the technical and professional skills their businesses need, including quality management and leadership.

The Government is also supporting work being undertaken by senior industry leaders to examine ways to increase manufacturing productivity in the UK, which is part of the business-led action referenced in the Government’s Productivity Plan published in July 2015. This work will look at how indigenous performance could be improved in areas such as leadership, management and employee engagement, and will also consider what steps could be taken to develop a stronger culture that embraces innovation and new technologies such as digitisation. We will consider the findings when they are produced by industry later in 2016.

01/01/2023
Poulter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Poulter on 2016-01-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department has taken to promote improvement in standards of mental health globally.

Mr Nick Hurd

DFID’s principal approach is to strengthen health services, improving coverage, access and quality so that services better address all major causes of ill health including mental health. We also support research, together with specific work on mental health in some countries.

01/01/2023