The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-01-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 21 January 2016 to Question 22791, what criteria are used by Work Coaches to assess a claimant’s financial capability.
Priti Patel
Work Coaches have the autonomy to tailor their discussions to meet the claimant’s needs and to determine the level of support and advice they require.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-02-23.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Prior of Brampton on 11 February (HL5909, HL5910 and HL5960) and 12 February (HL5909), what specific licence conditions have been required by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) in accordance with its Code of Practice in order to resolve any potential or perceived conflict between the demand for sufficient numbers of zygotes to perform genome editing successfully and the usual practice of transferring embryos to the uterus following assessment of their potential to develop further after at least two to three days; what reasons the person responsible provided when requesting that reference to surplus embryos should be removed from the research project title; and whether they will now place in the Library of the House copies of the patient information and consent forms submitted to the HFEA by the person responsible in order to perform genome editing in human embryos by means of CRISPR-Cas9.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) publishes on its website the inspection report relating to a licence renewal application and the minutes of the Licence Committee’s decision. It does not publish other information associated with a licence application.
The Licence Committee considering the application to which the noble Lord refers was satisfied that the requirements of General Directions 0008 were met, with the exception of evidence of ethics approval, which must be submitted to the HFEA before any licensed research can begin.
The HFEA has advised that licence conditions R18-R27 and T97 address any potential conflict between the use of embryos in research and the use of embryos in the provision of treatment services. The person responsible did not give a reason on the application form for requesting that reference to surplus embryos should be removed from the research project title, nor are they required to do so. The removal of ‘surplus’ from the title does not reflect a change in the way embryos will be donated to the research.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department provides for local authorities to share best practice on children’s social work.
Edward Timpson
Supporting innovation and creating the right environment to drive excellence and radically transform the lives of children and their families are essential to delivering our vision for children’s social care between now and 2020.
The Department’s £100 million Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme, established in 2013, supports 53 projects to develop, test and spread more effective ways of supporting children and families who need help from children’s social care services. The Department has invested around £7 million to evaluate the projects and these studies will provide findings for local authorities over the next year as well as making a significant contribution to establishing an evidence base for driving change.
Supporting the sector to share best practice is at the heart of our What Works Centre (WWC) and Partners in Practice (PiP) initiatives. WWC will build an evidence base to show the best practice available to help social workers and other practitioners to better support children and families. PiPs represent a genuine partnership between national and local government to support long term improvement through exploring greater freedoms in the design and delivery of services; evidence about new structural models and innovations; and modelling best practice, sharing learning and supporting the wider sector.
In addition, the Chief Social Worker for Children and Families provides support to the profession and offers independent expert advice to Ministers on social work reform.
The Department also commissions research and evaluation studies that local authorities can draw on to inform and improve their practice. A recent example is the research review of Parents’ Capacity to Change (Ward et al 2014).
All studies are published on the Department’s research pages on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/research#publications
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Blenkinsop on 2016-04-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the cost to the public purse was of the promotional film for the Northern Powerhouse project, Gunning for growth.
Mr Mark Francois
The Northern Powerhouse is GREAT investment film, paid for by GREAT, was created to promote investment into all parts of the Northern Powerhouse. It has already been shown in Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, Asia and Australasia. It was produced by Leeds agency Motiv Productions at a one off cost of just over £20,000.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Reynolds on 2016-05-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients discharged from assessment and treatment units were re-admitted to such units in each of the last five years.
Alistair Burt
The data on patients discharged from assessment and treatment units and re-admitted to a hospital setting or an assessment and treatment unit in each of the last five years is not available.
Health and Social Care Information Centre has been collecting data through the Learning Disability Assuring Transformation data collection since February 2015. Between March 2015 and February 2016, 1,835 patients were admitted to inpatient settings, of these, 250 patients were re-admitted within a year, including 75 patients who were re-admitted in the last 30 days.¹ Data on discharge has also been collected since February 2015 but readmission and discharge data are not linked and therefore may not relate to the same person.
Note:
¹ To note for those readmitted, Health and Social Care Information Centre can only consider the data they have from February 2015 onwards. Therefore if a patient was discharged in January 2015 and then readmitted in March 2015 they would not be counted as a readmission. The readmission figures may currently be under counting; however this will improve over time as the data set grows.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Earl of Listowel on 2016-07-11.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of Discretionary Housing Payments made in each local authority area in England in 2015–16 were paid to care leavers up to the age of 25.
Lord Freud
The information requested is not available.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that medicines distributed within the UK on European Medicines Agency licence continue to be distributed once the UK leaves the EU.
David Mowat
The Government is very aware of the need to ensure that medicines already on the United Kingdom market, and which were licensed through the European Medicines Agency’s centralised procedure, remain approved for use across the UK after our exit from the European Union. This is not an issue which needs to form part of any negotiation, but will be within the UK’s own competence.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-01-26.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the number of hours a week worked by (1) teachers, and (2) school leaders.
Lord Nash
Removing unnecessary workload for teachers is a priority for this Government. On 6 February 2015, we published the response to our Workload Challenge alongside the findings in an independent research report. In response, a comprehensive programme was put in place to help address the complex issues raised. This included a commitment to continue to track teachers’ workload by carrying out a large scale survey every two years. This will start in spring 2016. Three review groups are also in progress to address the causes of unnecessary workload in relation to three of the biggest issues emerging from the Workload Challenge, namely: marking, planning, resources and data management. The groups will report to the Secretary of State in the spring of 2016 with principles for teaching practice and recommendations for the Department, schools and headteachers on how to eliminate unnecessary workload.
Information on hours worked by teachers was collected in the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Study.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town on 2016-02-23.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many charities in receipt of government grant funding were found to have engaged in activity intended to influence or attempt to influence Parliament, government, or the European Commission, or attempt to influence legislative or regulatory action, in each of the past three years.
Lord Bridges of Headley
This information is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2016-03-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reasons waste reduction, improved resource efficiency and increasing recycling rates were not included in her Department’s Single Department Plan: 2015 to 2020, published on 19 January 2016.
Rory Stewart
Waste and resource management are important priorities for the Government. That is why reducing waste is one of the key aims in our departmental strategy that was published last month. Furthermore, our 25 Year Environment Plan will consider waste and resource management alongside other issues.