Tag: 2016

  • Chris Green – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Chris Green – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Green on 2016-01-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to work with schools and teacher training providers to (a) increase the number of science and mathematics teachers and (b) to ensure that such teachers work in the schools where they are most needed.

    Nick Gibb

    We recognise that increasing the number of science and mathematics teachers, particularly in some parts of the country, given the career choices available to graduates of these subjects is a challenge. We are taking a number of steps to increase their numbers further.

    We are implementing a package of up to £67 million to transform mathematics and physics teaching in England. This will provide subject knowledge training to 15,000 non-specialist serving teachers and recruit up to 2,500 additional mathematics and physics teachers. The package includes programmes to encourage the brightest A level students and undergraduates into teaching; salaried part-time and abridged courses for career changers; a salaried route for post-doctoral maths and physics researchers; and support for qualified teachers wishing to return to the profession.

    We have increased bursaries for science and mathematics trainee teachers; including £30,000 for physics trainees with first-class degrees. We are also offering prestigious scholarships, worth up to £30,000 for physics, and £25,000 for mathematics, chemistry and computing trainees, in partnership with the professional bodies for these subjects.

    Through the School Direct route, which is specifically targeted at career changers and allows them to earn a salary whilst they train to teach, we are providing enhanced grant funding of £25,000 (up to £29,900 in inner London) to schools that pay the trainee an enhanced salary of at least £21,000 (£25,000 in inner London).

    Our marketing campaign, Your Future | Their Future, includes targeted subject specific science and mathematics advertising through a range of media. Those who wish to teach secondary science or mathematics are eligible for our enhanced Premier Plus service, which provides support from a dedicated adviser to guide them through the application process. Those applicants who would benefit from it can also access funded courses to boost or refresh their subject knowledge to a level that will allow them to teach the subject.

    To ensure that these teachers work in the schools where they are most needed, we have expanded school-led initial teacher training (ITT) by introducing School Direct and accrediting more school-centred initial teacher training providers. School-led ITT gives schools the leading role in responding to recruitment needs in their local area, including for science and mathematics teachers. We have also supported the growth of Teach First, a prestigious teacher training route which places trainees in some of the most deprived and challenging areas of the country. As a result of these reforms, 2015/16 is the first year in which more than half of postgraduate ITT is school-led, with 51% of trainees on a school-led route.

    The National College for Teaching and Leadership has also recently changed its approach to allocating ITT places, giving individual schools and universities the freedom to recruit as many science and mathematics trainees as they need, up to the national target for each subject.

    We have also recently launched the National Teaching Service (NTS). This will help schools that are finding it difficult to retain and recruit the teachers they need, such as in rural, coastal or deprived areas. We will first test aspects of the model through a pilot of 100 NTS teachers/middle leaders starting in secondary and primary schools in the North West from September 2016. Thereafter the national programme will be rolled out to other parts of the country so that by 2020 there will be 1,500 outstanding NTS teachers and middle leaders in schools that need them.

  • Graham Allen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Graham Allen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Allen on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the proportion of five-year olds eligible for free school meals with severe or extensive tooth decay.

    Jane Ellison

    Public Health England (PHE) has produced guidance to support local authorities in their responsibility to improve dental health and reduce inequalities among children in their area. PHE has also developed guidance for dental teams on preventing dental disease in their patients. Advice has recently been published by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence.

    The Department will be launching the Childhood Obesity Strategy in the summer. It will look at everything that contributes to a child becoming overweight and obese, including sugar which is a cause of tooth decay.

    Overall, children’s access to National Health Service dentistry remains consistently high, with the number of children seen in the 24 months to December 2015 by an NHS dentist standing at 8.1 million or 69.5% of the population. 104,000 more children saw an NHS dentist in England in the 24 month period ending 31 December 2015, compared with the same period ending 31 December 2014.

  • Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-03-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 9 March 2016 to Question 29390, what definition of principle of distinction his Department uses to assess whether an incident counts as a violation of international humanitarian law.

    Penny Mordaunt

    International Humanitarian Law is founded in customary international law but now extensively codified in international agreements, most notably the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols. The UK’s interpretation of the principles of proportionality, military necessity, humanity and distinction is set out in the Ministry of Defence’s Joint Service Publication (JSP) 383, the Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict, which is available online (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jsp-383).

  • Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2016-04-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people who applied for UK citizenship in the year ending June 2015 (a) applied for exemption from the language requirements and (b) were granted such an exemption.

    James Brokenshire

    The Secretary of State may waive the Knowledge of Language and Life in the UK requirement for British citizenship on the basis of a person’s age, physical or mental condition.

    A person will normally be exempted from this requirement if they provide evidence from an appropriate medical practitioner that their condition is so severe that it prevents them from being able to learn English or prepare for or sit an English test or the Life in the UK test. Each application is considered on its own merits.

    Information cannot be obtained from UKVI data systems to show how many exemption requests were made and granted. This information could only be obtained from looking at individual records at disproportionate cost.

  • Alex Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alex Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2016-05-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many reports of criminal offences against residents of properties used to house asylum seekers have been recorded in each of the last 12 months.

    James Brokenshire

    The Home Office and its accommodation providers encourage accommodated asylum seekers to inform us of any criminal or anti-social activity against them so that appropriate action can be taken to ensure their safety. Information concerning the reports of criminal offences is not recorded on centrally collated statistical databases and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost by examination of case records.

  • Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-07-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Answer of 23 November 2015 to Question 16254, if he will estimate the number of GP appointments for minor ailments which could have been treated at home or with advice from a pharmacist in (a) England, (b) each former strategic health authority area and (c) each clinical commissioning group in each year since 2006.

    David Mowat

    NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review Phase 1 report (November 2013) estimated that 20% of general practitioner consultations relate to minor ailments which could largely be dealt with by self-care and support from community pharmacies.

    The General Practice Forward View, published on 21 April 2016, states that current investment of £31 million to pilot 470 clinical pharmacists in over 700 practices is to be supplemented by new central investment of £112 million to extend the programme by a pharmacist per 30,000 population for all practices not in the initial pilot – leading to a further 1,500 pharmacists in general practice by 2020.

    Figures for each former strategic health authority and each clinical commissioning group in each year since 2006 are not held centrally.

  • Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Trade

    Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Trade

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2016-10-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what steps his Department is taking to promote trade between the UK and (a) Australia and (b) New Zealand.

    Greg Hands

    The department has identified opportunities and resourced campaigns to access high value sectors including defence, consumer & retail and financial services across the region.

  • Emily Thornberry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Emily Thornberry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will undertake a distributional analysis of the effect of recent changes to the work allowances within universal credit.

    Priti Patel

    We have no plans to publish further distributional analysis. Changes to work allowances are one part of a package of changes to the tax and welfare systems at the Summer Budget and Autumn Statement, which are intended to move Britain from a low wage, high welfare economy to a high wage, lower welfare economy.

  • David Warburton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    David Warburton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Warburton on 2016-01-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what progress the Government has made on putting in place a blue belt to protect marine habitats and species in the UK’s Overseas Territories.

    James Duddridge

    The UK Government has announced plans to designate a no-take Marine Protected Area throughout Pitcairn waters, and with the Ascension Island Government has agreed to close 50% of their waters from fishing activities whilst establishing a well-managed fishery in the remaining offshore waters. Work is also underway to identify any gaps in marine conservation across the remaining OTs, which will assist Territories in delivering additional marine protection through a range of marine management tools, where necessary. We will work closely with the Environment Audit Committee in this regard.

  • Diane Abbott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Diane Abbott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diane Abbott on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the implications of the findings of the report by Europol, Migrant Smuggling in the EU, published in February 2016, for her policies on tackling smuggling through the criminal justice system.

    James Brokenshire

    The Government’s system-wide approach to tackling Organised Immigration Crime is based on information and intelligence from a wide variety of sources. The Government takes Organised Immigration Crime very seriously – we are working to smash the criminal gangs that are fuelling this terrible trade in people. In June 2015 the Prime Minister announced the creation of the Organised Immigration Crime Taskforce bringing together officers from the NCA, Border Force, Immigration Enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service. The Taskforce was subsequently expanded in November 2015 to more than 100 officers, and has had its funding extended until 2020. The Government values the intelligence-led approach to tackling Organised Immigration Crime Europol helps to facilitate, including through Joint Operational Team Mare, and welcomes the launch by Europol on 22 February 2016 of the new European Migrant Smuggling Centre which will proactively support EU Member States in dismantling criminal networks involved in organised migrant smuggling. The UK has been at the forefront of calls in the EU for a robust approach to tackling Organised Immigration Crime.