Tag: 2016

Angela Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Smith on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, which private sector companies (a) provided financial resources, (b) submitted evidence and (c) provided any in-kind support during the development of the new Eatwell Guide.

Jane Ellison

No private sector companies provided financial resources or in-kind support during the development of the Eatwell Guide.

An external reference group was convened to provide advice to Public Health England (PHE) on the approaches to developing the model. Representatives from health, voluntary sector and industry (including trade and levy organisations), were members and provided routes of engagement.

Outside of reference group involvement, 25 individuals/organisations provided unofficial written comments directly to PHE; two of which were private sector companies.

January 1, 2023
Nigel Dodds – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Dodds on 2016-06-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what estimate she has made of cost to the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland of the EU referendum.

Mr Ben Wallace

The European Union Referendum (Counting Officers’ and Regional Counting Officers’ Charges) Regulations 2016 sets out a Maximum Recoverable Amount for Northern Ireland of £3,292,686. The cost of the referendum will be charged to the Consolidated Fund.

January 1, 2023
Justin Tomlinson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Tomlinson on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to reward local authorities that invest in renewable energy creation.

Jesse Norman

The Government provides support for renewable electricity generation through the Feed-in Tariff scheme – which is available to individuals, businesses, communities, schools and local authorities.

The Government provides support for renewable heating through the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). The RHI is open to all buildings – including local authorities, commercial, industrial, public sector, not for profit and domestic properties and also supports injection of biomethane into the gas grid.

January 1, 2023

Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of children were (a) White British, (b) White British eligible for free school meals, (c) White Non-British, (d) White Non-British eligible for free school meals, (e) Black, (f) Black eligible for free school meals, (g) Indian, (h) Indian eligible for free school meals, (i) Chinese ethnicity, (j) Chinese ethnicity eligible for free school meals, (k) other Asian, (l) other Asia eligible for free school meals, (m) any other ethnicity and (n) any other ethnicity eligible for free school meals received a place in a grammar school in each of the last five years.

Nick Gibb

Proportion of Year 7 pupils in Selective schools by selected ethnic groups, gender & FSM eligibility

All pupils	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016
White British	3.7%	3.7%	3.9%	3.9%	3.8%
White British – Eligible for FSM	0.6%	0.5%	0.6%	0.6%	0.7%
White non-British	3.1%	3.1%	3.4%	3.2%	3.3%
White non-British – Eligible for FSM	0.2%	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.9%
Black	2.5%	2.9%	3.2%	3.1%	3.6%
Black – Eligible for FSM	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.5%	0.8%
Indian	12.6%	12.9%	14.0%	15.5%	15.7%
Indian – Eligible for FSM	2.5%	2.1%	2.2%	3.0%	2.8%
Chinese	19.4%	19.3%	21.0%	18.0%	18.2%
Chinese – Eligible for FSM	10.2%	9.0%	12.0%	8.8%	5.2%
Other Asian	5.5%	5.6%	5.9%	5.9%	6.0%
Other Asian – Eligible for FSM	1.6%	1.1%	1.4%	1.4%	1.5%

January 1, 2023

Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-01-07.

To ask the Attorney General, pursuant to the Answer of 5 January 2016 to Question 20564, how many people were charged with jury (a) intimidation and (b) tampering in each of the last five years.

Robert Buckland

Section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 creates two offences:

S.51(1) creates an offence directed at acts against a person who assists in an investigation of an offence or who is a witness or potential witness or juror or potential juror whilst an investigation or trial is in progress

S.51(2) creates an offence directed at acts against a person who assisted in an investigation of an offence or who was a witness or juror after an investigation or trial has been concluded.

The records held by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) identify the number of offences in which a prosecution commenced and reached a first hearing in the magistrates’ courts, rather than the number of defendants prosecuted. A single defendant may be prosecuted for multiple offences.

The number of offences charged under s.51(1) and s.51(2) are as follows:

		2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014	2014-2015
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 51(1)	Intimidate a witness / juror	3,275	2,630	2,148	2,066	2,202
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 51(2)	Do an act which harmed a witness / juror	102	166	99	72	109
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 51(2)	Threaten a witness / juror	240	172	118	122	129

The proportion of CPS cases that result in a guilty plea has increased from 67.2% in 10/11 to 74.5% in 14/15 which means that there are fewer cases that are likely to be subject to the sorts of acts covered by s.51(1) during the course of the prosecution.

Also, s.51(1) covers intimidation of juror or potential jurors. The number of crown court trials have also been reducing over the period in question by 9.5%, again resulting in fewer cases where S.51(1) offences are likely to apply.

January 1, 2023

Gordon Henderson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Henderson on 2016-02-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to support smaller building firms in building high-quality new homes.

Brandon Lewis

We have put in place a number of initiatives to help smaller builders to build more homes and grow their businesses including the Housing Growth Fund and Builders’ Finance Fund. A new £1 billion short-term housing development fund, announced at Autumn Statement, will be launched in the Spring.

January 1, 2023
Lord Hamilton of Epsom – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hamilton of Epsom on 2016-02-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the judgment of the European Court of Justice in Rottmann v Freistaat Bayern (Case C-135/08) that a decision by an EU member state to deprive a person of national citizenship cannot result automatically from the fact that the person in question acquired that status by deception, in particular in the light of Section A of the Decision of the Heads of State or Government, meeting within the European Council, concerning issues raised by Denmark regarding the Treaty on European Union (Official Journal C348/1, 31/12/92).

Lord Bates

The European Court of Justice confirmed in the case of Rottmann that it was required to take into account the Edinburgh Decision of 1992 when interpreting the EU Treaties. On the facts of the case, the Court found that the decision to deprive the applicant of German nationality had to comply with the EU principle of proportionality. The Court considered that this conclusion was consistent with the Edinburgh Decision.

In its application of this judgment, the UK Court of Appeal confirmed in the case of G1 that Member States retain competence over the acquisition and loss of citizenship and the principle in Rottmann only applies if EU law is engaged on the particular facts of each case.

January 1, 2023
Douglas Carswell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the time taken to process Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

Karen Bradley

In the vast majority of cases, disclosure certificates are issued in a timely manner. Performance data relating to February 2016 indicates that average processing time for Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) applications was 15 days. It is important that checks undertaken are thorough and a proportion of the applications received by the DBS need to be referred to one or more police forces as part of the enhanced disclosure process.

The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner. A small number of forces have experienced difficulties in meeting the service level agreements in place between the DBS and each force. Whilst no assessment has been made of the impact of timeliness on unemployed customers, it is recognised that delays may create problems for some people. The DBS is working closely with those forces whose performance does not meet turnaround time targets. We will not compromise when it comes to the safety of children and vulnerable adults.

The number of applications to the DBS from people living in the Clacton constituency that have taken more than 60 days to process in the last 12 months is listed in the table below.

Month

Number of certificates issued by DBS to applicants in Clacton constituency

Applications that took longer than 60 days

March 2015– February 2016

5,707

322

January 1, 2023
Lord Lexden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the The Lord Chairman of Committees

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lexden on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Chairman of Committees what are the implications of the vote in the House of Commons on 20 April in favour of retaining vellum for the printing of record copies of public Acts of Parliament.

Lord Laming

The House Committee considered this matter at its meeting on 3 May. The Committee agreed that, in response to the letter from the Clerk of the House of Commons about the debate, I should write to the Chairman of the House of Commons Administration Committee in the following terms:

“I am writing further to the backbench debate on printing record copies of public Acts of Parliament on vellum. I have consulted the House of Lords House Committee in preparing this reply.

As you know, this House agreed in 1999 to move to printing Acts of Parliament on archival paper instead of vellum. We are persuaded that printing on archival paper is a more appropriate use of public funds, and that the case for continuing to print on vellum is not made.

If, in the light of the debate, the House of Commons wishes to arrange a contract for printing record copies of public Acts on vellum then the House of Lords Administration will gladly share experience of managing the legacy contract to assist you in making any such arrangements. I am sure you will appreciate that this House does not wish to contribute financially to any future printing on vellum. It is also important that we ensure the longevity of any public Acts, as the Clerk of the Parliaments must certify a record copy of them.

Perhaps at our next regular meeting it would be possible for us to discuss some of the points made in the debate. I am, as ever, grateful to you for all your help in this matter.”

I wrote accordingly on 4 May.

January 1, 2023

Deidre Brock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Deidre Brock on 2016-06-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the coastguard search and rescue capability for the Firth of Forth is.

Mr Robert Goodwill

HM Coastguard search and rescue capability consists of the tasking and coordination of rescue resources, the volunteer Coastguard Rescue Service (CRS) and the provision of Search and Rescue Helicopters.

Tasking and Coordination of Rescue Assets

HM Coastguards ‘National Network’ enables the National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC) and 9 Coastguard Operations Centres (CGOC) to coordinate any incident anywhere around the UK coast. Workload is therefore managed on a national basis enabling national capability and resource to be available to any incident, for example in the Firth of Forth, on the basis of the nature of the incident.

Volunteer Coastguard Rescue Service

There are 4 volunteer Coastguard Rescue Teams (CRT) covering the Firth of Forth with the following operational capabilities.

CRT	Water Safety and Rescue	Land Search	Mud Rescue	Rope Rescue	First Aid
Leven	✓	✓		✓	✓
Kinghorn	✓	✓		✓	✓
South Queensferry	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Fisherrow	✓	✓		✓	✓
North Berwick	✓	✓		✓	✓

Additionally there are 5 full time Maritime Coastguard Agency employees who are responsible for the management, training and oversight of these teams.

Search and Rescue Helicopters

The Search and Rescue Helicopters based at Inverness and Prestwick provide capability for the Firth of Forth. However, it should be noted that the speed and range of the aircraft located at the four HM Coastguard bases in Scotland means that HM Coastguard has the ability to surge up to five SAR helicopters to a single incident in Scotland, should it be necessary to do so.

January 1, 2023