Tag: 2016

  • Daniel Kawczynski – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Daniel Kawczynski – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Kawczynski on 2016-02-24.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what his policy is on the maintenance of entrepreneurial relief over the course of this Parliament.

    Mr David Gauke

    The Government is committed to supporting UK businesses and entrepreneurs’ relief is an important way of doing this. It is widely used and valued.

    The Government keeps all tax reliefs under review to ensure they continue to fulfil their policy objectives. At Autumn Statement 2015, the Chancellor announced that he will consider bringing forward legislation to amend the changes made by Finance Act 2015 to entrepreneurs’ relief, in order to support businesses by ensuring that the relief is available on certain genuine commercial transactions.

  • Flick Drummond – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Flick Drummond – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Flick Drummond on 2016-03-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to promote the participation of women in the Syrian peace negotiations.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    The UK is committed to peace talks between the Syrian parties, under UN auspices in Geneva and continues to work closely with the International Syria Support Group. The UK encouraged the UN Special Envoy for Syria and the Syrian opposition to include women in the negotiations. The UN established a Women’s Advisory Board and the opposition’s negotiating team includes women.

  • Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer on 2016-04-28.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take further action to encourage local authorities to accelerate the rate at which they require households to separate food waste from domestic rubbish.

    Lord Gardiner of Kimble

    The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has recently published an updated household food waste collections guide. The guide is aimed at local authorities planning to introduce a new food waste collection scheme. It also provides advice to local authorities who wish to increase participation in their existing schemes. WRAP is also looking at whether greater consistency in how waste is collected has the potential to improve recycling rates.

    The “Food Waste Recycling Action Plan”, soon to be published by WRAP, aims to bring together industry and local authorities to increase the supply and quality of household and commercial food waste to the food waste recycling industry.

  • Lord Freyberg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Freyberg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Freyberg on 2016-06-13.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 4 February (HL5344), how many of the 1,286 genomes processed by 4 February came from (1) the rare disease programmes, and (2) elsewhere in the cancer programme; and how many of those genomes from (1) the rare disease programmes and (2) the cancer programme have now been interpreted clinically, either by GEL or the General Medical Council.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    Genomics England (GeL) has confirmed that all 1,286 of the genomes quoted in my Written Answer of 4 February related to the cancer programme. GeL has also confirmed that at that time 5,102 rare disease genomes had been sequenced.

    GeL is in the process of developing rare disease and cancer reports and is discussing these with clinical sites. Significant work has gone into building a pipeline to process genomic and clinical data at scale. This requires collection of complete datasets and a complex design process to minimise manual interaction with the process to improve accuracy.

    The work on the pipeline is not planned to have been completed and thoroughly tested until later this year, but early results are already flowing through it and GeL has returned 39 reports to pilot sites. This number will increase steadily over the coming year as experience is gained.

  • Caroline Lucas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Caroline Lucas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2016-09-02.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he plans to respond to the concluding observations and recommendations of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the UK’s sixth periodic report in relation to fiscal policy, corporate tax, inheritance tax and domestic and global tax abuse; and if he will make a statement.

    Jane Ellison

    In paragraph 73 of the UN recommendations, the UN requested that the UK submits its next period report under the Covenant (inclusive of a response to all the recommendations from this year’s examination) by 30 June 2021; it would therefore not be appropriate to pre-empt this report by anticipating what we, or indeed a future UK Government in 2021, might say.

    The government is committed to a competitive and fair tax system and to tackling tax evasion and avoidance by multinational companies. The UK has played a leading role in the development and implementation of the G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, which is aimed at ensuring that tax is paid on profits in the country in which they are generated. On tax evasion, the UK has also led on the development of the new global standard for the automatic exchange of information between countries on offshore accounts. All of the UK’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have signed up to this new Common Reporting Standard and will begin exchanging information with the UK this month.

  • Gareth Thomas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Gareth Thomas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Thomas on 2016-10-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effect of demographic changes in the last ten years on the demand for local authority services, and if he will make a statement.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    The Spending Review took account of the demographic pressures facing local authorities and set out a sustainable basis for local authorities to discharge their functions over this parliament.

    The Department is also conducting the Fair Funding Review which is a thorough assessment of the relative needs and resources of local authorities. The treatment of demographic changes is a key part of this. The Review will determine the funding baselines for individual local authorities under 100% business rates retention.

  • The Lord Bishop of St Albans – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The Lord Bishop of St Albans – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Lord Bishop of St Albans on 2016-01-11.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to collect data on the number of underage girls who marry overseas and subsequently return to the UK.

    Lord Bates

    The UK is a world-leader in the fight to stamp out the brutal practice of forced marriage, with our Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) leading efforts to combat it both at home and abroad.

    In 2014, the FMU gave advice or support related to a possible forced marriage in 1,267 cases. Of those cases, 11% involved victims below 16 years (where the age was known), and 77% involved an overseas element (meaning the victim was at risk of, or had been taken, overseas). To provide a further breakdown of this information would incur a disproportionate cost.

    FMU data is published on an annual basis, and figures for 2015 are due for publication shortly.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-02-03.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 3 February 2016 to Question 24171, whether the change in funding for the Illegal Money Lending Team will result in a change in its levels of funding in real terms.

    Harriett Baldwin

    The Government is finalising funding arrangements for the enforcement of illegal money lending. These arrangements will ensure that the enforcement teams have the funding that they need to protect consumers from illegal loan sharks.

  • Tristram Hunt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Tristram Hunt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential contribution of community land trusts to increasing the supply of affordable housing in the UK.

    Brandon Lewis

    The Department does not assess the potential contribution that individual classes of organisation, including Community Land Trusts, can make to the delivery of affordable housing. However, we recognise the role they can play in delivering locally led and innovative housing development and we are confident they will make a valuable contribution to the 400,000 affordable housing starts we have committed to deliver by 2021.

  • Lord Moynihan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Moynihan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Moynihan on 2016-03-23.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 9 July 2015 (HL Deb, col 243), what action the City of London Police and Action Fraud have taken to enforce the ticket touting controls set out in the Consumer Rights Act 2015; and what action is being taken in cases where the law is being broken.

    Lord Keen of Elie

    The City of London Police is working closely with the Society of Ticketing Agents and Retailers and is actively part of a number of initiatives they are taking to raise standards within the ticketing industry. They are also engaging directly with organisers of major ticketing events in an attempt to stop ticketing touts obtaining tickets on a large scale and proactively search for new websites set up to sell tickets which are in high demand. The City of London Police is also actively engaged with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in their review of secondary ticketing platforms.

    All ticketing fraud reports received through Action Fraud, where viable lines of enquiry can be identified and links between cases can be seen, are disseminated by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau to the local police force for investigation.