The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diane Abbott on 2016-03-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department’s expenditure on the Bloodhound Supersonic Car project in South Africa on reducing poverty in that country.
James Duddridge
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has incurred no expenditure on the development of the Bloodhound Supersonic Car.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lisa Cameron on 2016-03-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) female and (b) other students are encouraged to take modules in entrepreneurship and business mentoring.
Mr Sam Gyimah
The government is committed to improving the extent and quality of the careers guidance and inspiration that all young people receive. This should begin with activities to enable children in primary school to explore the world of work. Primary Futures is an example of an initiative that helps primary age children to see a clear link and purpose between their learning and their futures.
The Department for Education has funded The Careers & Enterprise Company to take a lead role in transforming the provision of careers, enterprise and employer engagement experiences for young people aged 12 to 18 in England. This work includes ensuring that all students have access to high quality careers and enterprise provision, including interactions with employers. The Company helps employers, schools and colleges and other organisations to navigate their way through the existing landscape and find appropriate careers and enterprise organisations to partner with. An example of a successful initiative is the three-year industry-led Your Life campaign, which was launched by the Government in 2014. This aims to inspire young people, particularly girls, to study A level maths and physics as a gateway to an exciting and wide-ranging career.
Entrepreneurship education is an important component of high quality careers provision. The careers statutory guidance requires schools in England to offer pupils the opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills and have access to advice on options available post-16 including entrepreneurship.
We are giving more young people access to a mentor to help raise aspirations, improve focus and attainment and help prepare them for the next stage in their lives. The Prime Minister announced on 14 March 2016 that the government will commit £12 million over this parliament for an investment fund to build capacity in the system to recruit and train a new generation of high-quality mentors, focussing on teenagers most at risk of under-achieving or dropping out of education. This will be supported by a national advertising campaign.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mendelsohn on 2016-05-03.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to legislate to change non-binding shareholder votes in relation to executive pay in public companies to binding votes if they pass the 50 per cent threshold.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Prorogation. Ministers will correspond directly with the noble Lord.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno on 2016-06-15.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of asylum applications were accepted over the past 12 months.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
In the year ending March 2016, there were 33,713 initial decisions on asylum applications from main applicants and dependants. Of these decisions, 37% (12,410) were grants of asylum or an alternative form of protection.
The Home Office publishes quarterly figures on asylum applications and initial decisions within the Immigration Statistics release. A copy of the latest release, Immigration Statistics January to March 2016, is available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-january-to-march-2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 2016-09-12.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to remove restrictions on local authorities raising council tax to meet the needs of their communities.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
The Government is committed to working with local authorities to protect hard-working council tax payers from excessive increases. In the Spending Review, the Government announced a new adult social care precept worth 2 per cent for authorities with responsibility for adult social care for the remainder of the Parliament, subject to the approval of the House of Commons. This new precept was in addition to a ‘core’ council tax referendum principle of 2 per cent, which would be reviewed annually. The Government has set out its proposals for council tax referendum principles for 2017-18 in the Local Government Finance Settlement Technical Consultation, released on 15 September 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Austin on 2016-10-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what progress her Department has made on reducing costs for consumers in making financial claims.
Sir Oliver Heald
Information on the number of people who have lost more than 25 per cent of their financial claims compensation to the claims management company (CMC) handling their claim is not held centrally.
Our priority is to protect consumers who choose to use CMCs. We have consulted on proposals to cap the level of fees that CMCs providing financial claims services can charge consumers. These proposals aim to help consumers get more of the compensation due to them. We are carefully considering the consultation responses and the Government will publish its response in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Phil Boswell on 2016-01-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the value is of the personal independence payment assessment contract with ATOS; what the main key performance indicators (KPIs) are under that contract; and what the (a) financial and (b) other penalties are for failure to meet KPIs.
Justin Tomlinson
The Department has two Personal Independence Payment (PIP) contracts with Atos, each covering a geographical area. North of England & Scotland (Lot 1) has a value of £206,703,507. London & South of England (Lot 3) has a value of £183,894,556.
There are a number of Service Levels (Key Performance Indicators are not used in PIP contracts) which Atos are required to deliver to meet the Department’s service requirements. These are detailed in the attached Annex 1. In addition, a number of interim Service Levels have been introduced to address specific performance targets.
In the event Atos fail to achieve a key service level, contracts provide for Service Credits to be applied. Service Credits are a contractual remedy applied to Atos to recognise the loss of service received and to ensure any performance issues are rectified quickly.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Addington on 2016-02-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to enact in full the recommendations from the Department for Education’s independent expert group, led by Stephen Munday CBE.
Lord Nash
Ministers of the Department for Education are awaiting the report from Stephen Munday’s independent expert group on the content of initial teacher training, which is expected this spring. The Government will consider the group’s recommendations carefully and determine how they should be taken forward.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine McKinnell on 2016-03-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Answer of 21 September 2015 to Question HL2285, what progress Public Health England has made on making the Systemic Anticancer Therapy dataset publicly available; what the timetable is for that dataset being fully accessible; and whether he plans that the dataset will be used to collect data on patient outcomes for treatment funded through the new Cancer Drugs Fund.
George Freeman
Public Health England (PHE) is working to making data collected as part of the Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) dataset available through its Office for Data Release function by summer 2016. The absolute priority of PHE is to maintain patient confidentiality and therefore data will only be released to external parties in a format that does not compromise patient confidentiality either directly or by inference.
NHS England is currently working closely with PHE on a proposition which will enable the SACT dataset to be used to collect data on patient outcomes for treatment funded through the new Cancer Drugs Fund.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is working closely with NHS England to support the new way of working for the Cancer Drugs Fund from 1 April 2016 and the NICE Technology Appraisal process and methods will be considered by the NICE Board at their next meeting on 16 March 2016. We do not have any information on whether the dataset used by PHE will be used to collect data on patient outcomes for treatment funded through the new Cancer Drugs Fund.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Gethins on 2016-03-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the levels of toxic heavy metals, cadmium and mercury, in the sea on the brains and organs of pilot whales in 2012.
George Eustice
Scientists working for Defra have not made any assessment of the levels of cadmium and mercury in the brains and organs of pilot whales in 2012.
However, I am aware that the University of Aberdeen carried out assessments of this kind on pilot whales stranded on Scottish beaches in the same year.