The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-10-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, whether his Department has begun the formal negotiation process for any new trade deals; and if he will make a statement.
Mark Garnier
I refer the hon. Member to the answer my hon. Friend, the Minister of State for International Trade (Greg Hands), gave on 21 October to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), UIN 49161.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-01-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many parents have moved to direct pay since the introduction of the 2012 child maintenance scheme.
Priti Patel
As at the end of August 2015, 82,600 cases were paying via Direct Pay.
More details can be found on page 6 of the Child Maintenance Scheme quarterly summary of statistics which can be accessed online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/2012-statutory-child-maintenance-scheme-aug-2013-to-aug-2015-experimental.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Doocey on 2016-02-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment the National Crime Agency has made of the methods used by criminals in the UK to re-traffic Vietnamese child victims out of foster care.
Lord Bates
The National Crime Agency is responsible for the assessment of threats, including methods of trafficking by criminals. Information on this is not centrally recorded on the National Referral Mechanism (NRM). Data included in NRM referral forms concentrates on detail specifically required to prove the three constituent elements of human trafficking. This would not necessarily include the detail required to assess methodology used to re-traffick victims and as such does not form part of assessment reporting. The independent evaluation of the trial by the University of Bedfordshire collected data on the number of all potentially trafficked children referred to the trial, along with their characteristics including age, gender and geographical location, as well as the number of children that were recorded as missing. However the evaluation did not collect data on the number of children in the trial that were re-trafficked and it is not possible to determine how many of those children who went missing were subsequently re-trafficked.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wes Streeting on 2016-03-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much the UK was paid under the European Health Insurance Card scheme for the treatment of UK-registered patients in European Economic Area countries in each of the last five years.
Alistair Burt
The United Kingdom European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) means that people living in the UK are able to travel to the European Economic Area (EEA) safe in the knowledge that they will be able to receive free or reduced cost healthcare should they need it.
EEA countries reimburse the UK for the cost of the National Health Service providing treatment to EEA EHIC holders, just as the UK reimburses other EEA countries for the cost of them providing healthcare to UK EHIC holders.
The Department does not hold information on how many people have used their UK EHIC to obtain state provided healthcare in another EEA country in any 12 month period. This is because data on UK EHIC usage is recorded by individual treatment episode rather than the card holder.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-03-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the oral Answer of 12 January 2016, Official Report, column 697, what assessment he has made of whether evidence of the reported airstrike in Yemen on a market place in the Hajjah Governorate provides grounds for determining that international humanitarian law has been broken.
Mr Philip Hammond
We are aware of allegations regarding a strike on a market on north-western Yemen in Hajjah Governate on 15 March. The MoD monitors incidents of alleged International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations, including this incident, using all available information. The UK has encouraged Saudi Arabia to investigate allegations of breaches of IHL. The Saudi Arabian Government announced on 29 February that they are forming an independent committee to examine military activity in civilian areas in order to minimise possible civilian casualties; assess the Coalition’s rules of engagement; assess accidents, verification and targeting procedures and advise how they can be improved; and provide a clear, full and objective report for each investigation made including conclusions, lessons learnt and recommendations for future actions.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Earl Attlee on 2016-05-03.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many patents have been applied for by the Ministry of Defence or its agencies in the last 10 years.
Earl Howe
The Ministry of Defence and its agencies filed 875 patent applications from 2006 to 2016. This includes patent applications filed in both the UK and abroad.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-06-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many Civil Service employees of his Department were based in Coventry in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Joseph Johnson
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has 6 civil servants currently based in Coventry. Prior to that, some BIS employees were working on a multi-site basis. To establish which employees had worked in the Coventry office and the proportion of time they had spent in the Coventry office, over each of the past 5 years, would incur disproportionate costs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Temple-Morris on 2016-09-12.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to allow publicly owned museums and art galleries to impose charges for entry.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
The Government is committed to maintaining free admission to the permanent collections of major museums and galleries, as set out in the 2015 manifesto, and government funding to national museums is provided with this condition. DCMS-sponsored museums can and do charge for temporary exhibitions and special events. Charging at other publicly owned museums is the responsibility of the organisations that operate them, for example local councils.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-10-19.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what safeguards the Government plans to put in place to protect customers from fraud and cyber security risks if they use new products and services in an open banking environment.
Simon Kirby
Improving the resilience of the finance sector to risks such as cyber security is a priority for the Government. HM Treasury works closely with the financial regulators to drive this improvement; it is their responsibility to supervise banks’ operations. The Financial Conduct Authority has a specific objective on consumer protection.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published the final report of its market investigation into retail banking on 9 August 2016. As part of this the CMA requires the nine largest UK banks to develop and adopt an open banking standard for application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow access to customer account information, as set out in the revised Payment Services Directive (PSDII) which will come into force in January 2018. These nine banks are required to deliver open data APIs by Q1 2017, and deliver the full open API banking standard by early 2018. Data protection and cyber security are key considerations in PSDII, and the Government will be consulting on the transposition of this directive shortly.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Field on 2016-01-12.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prosecutions for human trafficking resulted in a conviction between 1 August 2015 and 1 January 2016; and how many orders made for victim compensation as a result of such convictions resulted in payments (a) by convicted traffickers and (b) at a cost to the public purse.
Mike Penning
Statistics for prosecutions and convictions for 2015, including those for offences defined as human trafficking, are planned for publication in May 2016.
Overall court proceedings data for offences defined as human trafficking in England and Wales from 2004 to 2014 are published here.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2014
The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority cannot provide data on the compensation it has awarded to victims of a particular crime type. This is because it awards compensation in line with the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme tariff of injuries rather than the type of incident that led to those injuries.
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