Tag: 2016

  • Baroness Jones of Whitchurch – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Baroness Jones of Whitchurch – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch on 2016-03-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of the National Food Crime Unit’s annual budget is allocated to investigating serious crimes.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    The National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) is initially focusing on establishing the scale and nature of food crime in the United Kingdom at a strategic level through developing intelligence sharing relationships across the law enforcement community and with the food industry. This will also enable the Unit to instigate investigative interventions by law enforcement partners and local authorities to identify and disrupt specific instances of food crime. The NFCU’s budget is directed towards fulfilling this primary intelligence function.

    Intelligence analysts within the Unit have just completed the first ever Food Crime Annual Strategic Assessment (FCASA), which will be published soon. The FCASA sets out the Unit’s developing understanding of food crime in the UK and will drive its work to ensure resources are focused where the threat to consumers and other interests is the greatest.

    At the end of this year, the Food Standards Agency will review progress on food crime, in line with Professor Elliott’s recommendations following the horsemeat incident. This review will inform decision-making about the Unit’s future form and function.

  • Steve Rotheram – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Steve Rotheram – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve Rotheram on 2016-04-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department has taken to support research into mesothelioma.

    George Freeman

    The Government agrees that more mesothelioma research is needed and has taken measures to stimulate an increase in the level of research activity.

    Patients, carers, clinicians and funders have worked in partnership to identify what the priorities in research are. Following a survey and a workshop, the top 10 mesothelioma research priorities were announced in December 2014. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) published a final report from the Priority Setting Partnership in July 2015. In advance of the identification of research questions by this partnership, the NIHR highlighted to the research community that it wanted to encourage research applications in mesothelioma.

    The NIHR subsequently invited researchers to apply for mesothelioma research funding, in particular to address the research questions identified through the partnership. Eight NIHR programmes participated in this themed call. Fifteen individual applications were received, of which two have been approved for funding.

    In addition, the NIHR Research Design Service continues to be able to help prospective applicants develop competitive research proposals. This service is well-established and has

    10 regional bases across England. It supports researchers to develop and design high-quality proposals for submission to NIHR itself and also to other national, peer-reviewed funding competitions for applied health or social care research.

    The National Cancer Research Institute is facilitating ongoing dialogue between relevant research funders on the topic of mesothelioma, to discuss what the barriers to research are and what is needed to stimulate research in the field.

    The Chancellor’s Budget Report committed £5 million of LIBOR fines over the next four years for the National Mesothelioma Centre.

    The Department has received recent representations relating to funding of mesothelioma research from the Asbestos Victims Support Groups’ Forum UK and from several hon. Members on behalf of constituents.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Written Statement of 26 May 2016, on BIS consultation, HCWS30, what proportion of his Department’s £350 million projected savings by 2020 he expects to be achieved as a result of the decision to centralise policy functions in London.

    Joseph Johnson

    Delivering the scale of change required to reduce our operating expenditure by £350m requires the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to fundamentally transform the way it delivers services, works with partners, and makes policy. To help deliver this substantial saving we will be reducing our locations from around 80 sites to 7 business centres, one of which will be the combined policy centre and headquarters in London. The decision to establish this policy centre forms part of this much larger reform programme. The Department estimates that establishing a policy centre will generate savings of at least £7.5m per year by 2019-20, and it will also better enable the Department to operate a more flexible, agile and easily re-deployable policy function which will continue to deliver BIS’ priorities as it reduces in size over the course of the Parliament.

  • Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many child refugees have been assisted to enter the UK in the past year (a) in total and (b) who have come from Calais to join family living in the UK.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    In the year ending June 2016, 49% (1,308) of those resettled under the Syrian Vulnerable Person’s Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) were under 18 years old. In April 2016 the Home Office announced a new scheme to resettle vulnerable children from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We have worked closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to design this scheme.

    Since the beginning of this year, over 120 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Europe have been accepted for transfer to the UK, over 70 of which are from France.

  • Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-10-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on funding for dementia research.

    Joseph Johnson

    The Government is committed to maintain and enhance the strength of our research base. This is why we have protected the science resource budget in real terms from its 2015/16 level of £4.7 billion for the rest of the parliament, as well as committing to invest in new scientific infrastructure on a record scale – £6.9 billion over the period 2015-2021, including £150 million for the Dementia Research Institute.

    The Treasury decision to underwrite the grants of competitively bid for EU research funding will give British participants and their EU partners the assurance and certainty needed to plan ahead for projects that can run over many years. We are committed to ensure that the UK continues to be a world leader in international science, including research on dementia.

  • Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh on 2016-01-04.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions his Department has had with organisations representing small businesses on plans for introducing quarterly tax returns.

    Mr David Gauke

    The Government has no plans to introduce quarterly tax returns for business. The Government is introducing simple, secure and personalised digital tax accounts, removing the need for annual tax returns. Updating HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) through software or apps will deliver a light-touch process, much less burdensome and time-consuming than it is today.

    The Government will consult on the details of these proposals throughout 2016 and will publish a Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) in the usual way. This will include an estimate of the impacts on business. The Government routinely publish TIINs for tax policy changes when the policy detail for those changes is finalised or near-finalised.

    HMRC has discussed these reforms with a range of professional bodies and advisory groups representing small businesses and the self-employed. HMRC has also engaged extensively with a range of professional bodies and other stakeholders representing the accountancy profession.

    On 14 December 2015, HMRC set out details of its plans at its annual stakeholder conference, which was attended by a large number of different organisations representing small businesses.

  • Kevin Brennan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Kevin Brennan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

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

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effect of the proposed public sector exit payments cap on public sector employers’ flexibility to restructure their workforce.

    Greg Hands

    The Government maintains that £95,000 is a significant amount of money for anyone to be receiving for an exit, while the large majority of exit payments are already significantly below the level of the cap. Voluntary redundancy and workforce restructuring is not contingent upon access to six-figure exit payments. As such, we do not expect the cap to have a widespread impact on the take-up of voluntary redundancy, and believe the cap will enable public sector employers to retain the tools to effectively make organisational changes to their workforce whilst offering those made redundant generous provisions for loss of employment.

    The consultation on the public sector exit payment cap ran from 31 July to 27 August 2015, and received over 4000 responses. These responses included representations from public sector organisations. The Government will publish draft regulations and invite comment on them in due course.

  • Charlotte Leslie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Charlotte Leslie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many (a) Arabic speakers with an operational level (C1) examination pass and (b) Mandarin Cantonese speakers were employed by his Department in (i) 2001 and (ii) 2010.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    I refer my rt hon. Friend to my answer of 10 February 2016 (PQ 25484).

  • Lord Myners – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Myners – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-03-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will review the possible consequences for financial stability of the consolidation of central clearing houses.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    European Regulation No 648/2012 (EMIR) establishes a strict supervisory framework for CCPs, which in the UK are regulated by the Bank of England.

    EMIR’s requirements – which continue to apply in the event of a merger or change of control of a CCP – include that a CCP must be sufficiently well-resourced to withstand extreme market events, including the simultaneous default of its two largest clearing members.

    In the event of a qualifying change of control the Bank of England must under EMIR also assess the suitability of the proposed acquirer and financial soundness of the proposed acquisition.

    Copies of the Bank of England’s 2016 report on supervision of financial market infrastructures were laid before Parliament on 4 March and are available in the House library.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-04-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 20 April 2016 to Question 33976, what assessment his Department has made of the potential change to (a) benefits and (b) risks to the status of the UK Ship Register within the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    Work is in progress by the department to explore whether changing the status of the UK Ship Register would help ensure its future competitiveness. The work is in its early stages, but will assess both the benefits and risks of the available options.