The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-02-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when he plans to announce details of the new Access Fund.
Mr Robert Goodwill
On 15 February 2016, we announced that the new Access fund would be launched later in 2016 for delivery in 2017/18, and would be preceded by a £20m Sustainable Travel Transition Year for 2016/17.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-03-08.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will make further supplies of British arms and ammunition to Saudi Arabia conditional on the ending of attacks on civilians in Yemen.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The British Government takes its arms export responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust arms export control regimes in the world. All export licence applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria, taking account of all relevant factors at the time of the application. A licence will not be issued for any country, including Saudi Arabia, if to do so would be inconsistent with any provision of the mandatory Criteria.
The conflict in Yemen is being monitored closely, and relevant information gathered from that monitoring is taken into account as part of the careful risk assessment for the licensing of exports to Saudi Arabia. The Government is satisfied that extant licences for Saudi Arabia are compliant with the UK’s export licensing criteria.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-04-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what the annual cost is of rent, rates and maintenance for his Department’s office at (a) St Paul’s Place, Sheffield and (b) 1 Victoria Street, London.
Joseph Johnson
The annual cost of rent, rates and maintenance at St Paul’s Place, Sheffield is £891,694 and at 1 Victoria Street, London is £21,363,694.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-05-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding has been received from the European Social Fund via the National Offender Management Service Co-Financing Organisation to help set up and finance The Employers’ Forum for Reducing Re-offending.
Andrew Selous
Money received from the European Social Fund (ESF) by the NOMS Co-financing Programme is published in the NOMS Annual Report and Accounts. No ESF funding has been used to finance employer roadshows at Sudbury, Drake Hall and Wayland prisons. Neither has any ESF money been awarded direct to HM Young Offender Institutions Werrington, Feltham or Cookham Wood.
It is a condition of any award of core ESF funding to the NOMS Co-financing programme that it has to be spent on front line services for offenders (excluding the administration budget. Because of this, a separate application was made under the Technical Assistance grant to fund, among other things, the setting up and running of the Employers’ Forum for Reducing Re-offending (EFRR). The aim of the Technical Assistance grant is to fund services that will support the objectives of the main programme – employability of offenders. The amount spent from the ESF Technical Assistance fund on the EFRR from 2010 to 2015 was £280,403.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-07-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the effect of local sustainability and transformation plans on geographical variations in stroke care.
George Freeman
Health economies have come together to develop Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) for their footprints until 2020/21. As with the current arrangements for planning and delivery, there are layers of plans which can sit below STPs, with shared links and dependencies. STPs do not replace the existing system architecture or provide details on all individual clinical areas. Rather STPs act as an umbrella, holding underneath them a number of different specific plans to address key local issues. As such, for conditions such as Stroke, it is not expected that STPs will provide great levels of detail regarding all the Stroke related activity occurring across the Footprint.
Visibility will be provided through other mechanisms such as audits. Stroke data is collected by the national audit from all trusts and reported at both trust and clinical commissioning group (CCG) level. The Royal College of Physicians which runs the audit has not done an analysis to compare services between rural and urban CCGs. However the data is available in the public domain for researchers should they wish to do so.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Hamwee on 2016-10-03.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps, if any, they are taking to provide assistance to British citizens, particularly British children, in La Linière refugee camp outside Dunkirk.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The Government is not aware of any British citizens, including children, residing in the La Linière migrant camp.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Law on 2016-01-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the implications for his policies are of the finding of the National Audit Office in its recent report, Contracted-out health and disability assessments, HC 609, of 5 January 2016, that his Department is spending more on fit-for-work assessments than it is saving since reforming health and disability assessments.
Priti Patel
The purpose of the Work Capability Assessment is to assess fairly and accurately entitlement to benefit, not to generate savings.
We have commissioned independent reviews which have all concluded that the assessment regimes for health related benefits remain fit for purpose.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-02-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they did not respond to correspondence sent by the UN Panel of Experts, as listed in UN Security Council Report S/2015/131; and whether they have investigated the actions of Princess Yachts International in the light of the sighting of the Princess 95MY yacht in North Korea in 2013.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The Government fully cooperated with the Panel of Experts on this matter. Following a request to the Government for assistance, the Panel were put in direct contact with Princess Yachts International to follow up on their investigations.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison McGovern on 2016-03-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of recent changes to benefits on levels of child poverty.
Priti Patel
The intended impact of the tax and benefit reforms introduced in the Summer Budget and Autumn Statement is to incentivise work, ensure work always pays, and to allow people to keep more of what they earn.
The Government is committed to working to eliminate child poverty and improving life chances for children.
Our new Life Chances measures will drive continued action on work and education, which will make the biggest difference to disadvantaged children, now and in the future.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2016-04-13.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether the Joint Intelligence Committee has revised its estimate of the number of non-extremist opposition fighters in Syria since 2 December 2015.
Mr Oliver Letwin
The JIC regularly assess the numbers involved in fighting in Syria and their loyalties. The JIC has concluded that non-extremist opposition numbers have held up despite recent pressure. Numbers in groups fighting Daesh are likely to have increased.