Tag: 2016

Caroline Lucas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2015-12-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 13 July 2015 to Question 5609, how many HM Revenue and Customs investigations that commenced on or after 1 October 2013 resulted in the issuing of Notice of Underpayment (NOU) of the National Minimum Wage to the employer; how many of those employers receiving an NOU were exempt from his Department’s revised naming and shaming scheme on the basis that the total arrears were less than £100; how many of those employers successfully appealed against being named or shamed; and how many of those employers have been publicly named or shamed under that scheme.

Nick Boles

Since October 2013, HMRC has commenced 1004 investigations into National Minimum Wage (NMW) compliance that resulted in the issuing of a Notice of Underpayment (NoU). Of those:

– 165 employers were exempt from the NMW naming scheme on the basis that the total arrears were less than £100;

– 27 have made successful representations under the scheme and have not been named; and.

– 398 employers have been named under the scheme.

Employers are not named at the point when an NoU is issued. Under the National Minimum Wage regulations, employers have 28 days to appeal against an NoU. They then have a further 14 days to make representations to BIS against being named. We are currently considering the next batch of cases and expect to name more employers shortly.

01/01/2023

Lord Jopling – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Jopling on 2016-01-27.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 8 June 2015 (HL105), what trunk road improvement schemes there have been in the last five years, and for each of those, what was (1) the original target cost, and (2) the estimated completed cost.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The table below provides details of the major scheme on trunk roads opened in the last five financial years (from April 2011 to the present), together with the original target cost and latest outturn forecast (to the end of December 2015, and subject to closure of final accounts):

Scheme Name	Date Opened	Original Target Cost (£m)	*Outturn Forecast (£m)**
A3 Hindhead	Jul-11	362.5m	371.9m
A1 Dishforth to Leeming	Mar-12	327.5m	312.0m
A46 Newark to Widmerpool	Mar-12	382.9m	379.3m
A23 Handcross to Warninglid	Oct-14	76.9m	77.9m
A11 Fiveways to Thetford	Dec-14	104.7m	99.6m
A14 Kettering Bypass	Apr-15	41.9m	37.5m
A453 Widening	Jul-15	149.7m	164.5m
	*Totals*	1,446.1m	1,442.7m

01/01/2023

Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-02-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of people appealing their ineligibility for the enhanced rate of mobility under personal independent payment have been successful in their appeals.

Mr Shailesh Vara

The First-tier Tribunal – Social Security and Child Support administered by HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS), hears appeals against Department for Work and Pensions’ decisions on a range of benefits including Personal Independence Payment.

The information about the number and success rates of SSCS appeals by benefit type, including PIP, is published in the Tribunal and Gender Recognition Certificate Statistics Quarterly at the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunals-and-gender-recognition-certificate-statistics-quarterly-july-to-september-2015

The specific information requested is not held centrally.

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01/01/2023
Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2016 to Question 30768, what the expected date was for finishing the transition to universal credit after completion of the reset in May 2013.

Priti Patel

The Department reset the Universal Credit Programme and set a new timetable. This was developed for the Strategic Outline Business Case and was then finalised as part of the Outline Business Case and Spending Review 15 process in late 2015. Parliament was kept regularly informed throughout the development of the timetable.

01/01/2023
Richard Fuller – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Fuller on 2016-04-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the cost of moving Bedford County Court from Shire Hall, St Paul’s Square, Bedford, to the Employment Tribunal building in Howard Street, Bedford.

Mr Shailesh Vara

The enabling works of moving Bedford County Court to the Employment Tribunal building will be subject to a tendering process. The disclosure of any estimate of costs is therefore commercially confidential.

01/01/2023
Heidi Alexander – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Heidi Alexander on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department exceeded its expenditure limit in 2015-16.

Alistair Burt

Confirmation of the spending outturn against all expenditure limits will be provided in the Department of Health’s Annual Report and Accounts 2015-16, due to be published in July 2016.

01/01/2023
Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-07-18.

To ask the Attorney General, on how many occasions the Law Officers referred a criminal sentence to the Court for Appeal for review on the grounds that it was unduly harsh in the last 12 months.

Robert Buckland

Whilst the Attorney General’s Office can ask the Court of Appeal to review a sentence which is considered to be unduly lenient, the Law Officers have no power to intervene when a sentence is too harsh. Therefore there have been no referrals to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that a sentence was unduly harsh.

01/01/2023
Grahame Morris – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Grahame Morris on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will assess the balance of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme surplus-sharing arrangements.

Jesse Norman

The existing surplus-sharing arrangements have worked well to date. The presence of the Guarantee has given the Trustees, who are responsible for managing the Scheme and are independent of Government, the freedom to invest in a way that has generated surpluses and, as a consequence, bonuses to members.

01/01/2023
Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2015-12-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many press and public relations staff are employed by (a) his Department, (b) Ofcom, (c) Royal Parks, (d) Arts Council England, (e) Sport England, (f) UK sport, (g) Visit Britain, (h) Visit England and (i) the Equality and Human Rights Commission; and how many of those employees are paid more than (i) £50,000 and (ii) £100,000; and what the total expenditure was on press and public relations by each of those orqanisations in the most recent for which figures are available.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The DCMS communications team is responsible for all public facing, digital and internal communications; this includes both managing day-to-day media enquiries and implementing proactive communications campaigns. Across Government communications teams, we saved £330 million for taxpayers last year compared with 2009 to 2010, by making our campaigns more cost effective, and reduced our communications spending by a total of £1 billion since 2010.

The total expenditure on press and public relations for the financial year 2014/15 was £10,917,270.42. This figure includes staff costs and the costs for high profile publicity campaigns on Broadband Voucher and GO Superfast (broadband).

DCMS currently employs 18.8 full time equivalents in communications – one of the smallest teams in Whitehall covering a departmental policy brief that has expanded in this Parliament. Of these, 7 are paid over £50,000 – but none more than £100,000.

Other Bodies

The sponsorship for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission transferred to the Department for Education from 30 September 2015.

Press and PR functions are a matter for the Chief Executives of each of the bodies in question. They will write to the Honourable Member with this information, and copies of their letters will be placed in the libraries of both Houses

01/01/2023
Lord Mawhinney – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawhinney on 2016-01-27.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of which medical institutions in the UK are in the forefront of research into, and treatment of, Lyme disease.

Lord Prior of Brampton

It is not practical to eradicate Lyme disease in the United Kingdom through treatment of human cases, therefore no cost estimate has been made. The disease is endemic in much of the small mammal and bird population in the UK, and is spread to humans by the bite of infected ticks which have fed on these animals. The number of human cases can be reduced by raising public awareness of how to avoid tick bites, and by environmental measures in public places to reduce the long grass and scrub which harbour ticks.

The number of laboratory confirmed cases of Lyme disease in England and Wales varies annually, in 2013 there were 878 and in 2014 there were 730, but the majority of diagnoses are made clinically by general practitioners and those figures are not recorded. Patients with late or complicated Lyme disease may be diagnosed in a variety of specialist clinics, and the numbers are not recorded. Based on the clinical information supplied with the laboratory request, only a small proportion of the annual number of cases fall into this category.

The Health Protection Research Unit of the University of Liverpool in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) has funding from the National Institute of Health Research for research into Lyme disease, covering diagnostics and biomarkers and public awareness. PHE is working on clinically linked studies for diagnostics with the Czech Republic, as no single centre in the UK has sufficient patients for a suitable study; funding for this work is not yet in place. PHE undertakes limited studies on ticks and Lyme disease in the UK. The Research Councils fund some additional work on ticks and the environment.

01/01/2023