Tag: 2016

Natalie McGarry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Natalie McGarry on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps she has taken to increase the participation of people living with disabilities in (a) sports and (c) the arts.

Tracey Crouch

Government recognises the importance of sport and physical activity to disabled people who take part at both grassroots and the elite level. Our new sport strategy, ‘Sporting Future: A New Strategy for an Active Nation’, published in December 2015, emphasises the importance of getting people active, particularly those groups currently under-represented, including disabled people.

Between 2011 and 2017 Sport England is investing over £170 million to get more disabled people playing sport. It published its own strategy for England,Towards an Active Nation on 19 May, which sets out how it intends to deliver against the government’s sport strategy. This includes a specific focus on disabled people who are less likely to regularly take part in physical activity.

We believe that everyone should have access to arts and culture – having a disability should not be a barrier to enjoying Britain’s awe-inspiring cultural treasures. That is why we are working with venues and organisations representing disabled people to identify barriers to access. Arts Council England has also made a significant change in its approach to diversity by launching The Creative Case for Diversity, which asks the organisations it funds to make themselves and their work more reflective of the communities they serve. As part of Arts Council’s investment in diversity and The Creative Case, four new strategic funds for diversity were announced in December 2015, totaling £8.6 million. This included a new £2.6 million Change Makers fund to build long-term relationships between National Portfolio Organisations and aspiring arts leaders from the BME and deaf and disabled communities, and Unlimited, which will support the development of a range of new work by deaf and disabled artists.

01/01/2023
Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the implications for his Department’s policies of the recent National Evaluation of the Troubled Families Programme report.

Mr Marcus Jones

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research Impact Study was just one of 6 reports comprising the independent evaluation of the first Troubled Families Programme. The evaluation found that the programme had many positive achievements. These include:
- Families feeling more confident and optimistic about being able to cope in the future
- Joining up local services for families by encouraging a single keyworker approach to work with the whole family on all of its problems
- Raising the quality and capacity of local data systems
- Better joint working with partners such as Jobcentre Plus
The data shows that nearly 120,000 of the families on this programme saw their lives improve – more children attending school, youth crime and anti-social behaviour significantly cut and, in more than 18,000 families, an adult holding down a job. The evaluation does not dispute this fact.

Unsurprisingly, the ambitious and innovative impact study which used national administrative datasets to track changes in families circumstances over comparatively short time periods, was unable to specifically attribute positive outcomes achieved in employment, youth crime or school attendance to the Troubled Families Programme.

This was because at that time the level of change achieved was not significantly different from that seen in a group of families not on the programme with whom comparisons were made. This is not the same, however, as saying that the evaluation shows family outcomes did not improve, as some have wrongly inferred.

Of course, we will continue to review all evidence of how the programme is working, to learn from it and see if there’s more we can do to help families facing such multiple problems. In fact, we have already adapted the new programme in a number of ways, including extending the length of time over which family outcomes will be tracked – from 12 months to 5 years.
01/01/2023
Jim McMahon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim McMahon on 2016-01-12.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what his policy is on the future funding of illegal money lending teams.

Harriett Baldwin

The Government is exploring a number of options to ensure that the England and Wales Illegal Money Lending Teams have the funding they need to ensure that consumers continue to be protected from illegal loan sharks and is confident of transitional arrangements being agreed.

01/01/2023
Gavin Newlands – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2016-02-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how his Department regulates the activities of debt collection agencies during the period that they are under contract with his Department.

Joseph Johnson

Should any direct contracts be let with debt recovery agencies, the scope and extent of any activity would be agreed as part of the contract negotiation and a process of routine monitoring put in place.

01/01/2023
Jim Fitzpatrick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Fitzpatrick on 2016-03-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether a Minister of his Department will be representing the UK at the UN’s second Global Summit on Road Safety to discuss the inclusion of targets to reduce crash deaths worldwide as a new sustainable development goal.

Andrew Jones

The UN’s Second Global High Level Conference on Road Safety has already taken place.

01/01/2023
Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will estimate the number of (a) UK firms based in Scotland that trade with other EU member states and (b) people employed by those firms.

Anna Soubry

HMRC Regional Trade Statistics on the number of firms trading with the EU are publically available through the UKTradeInfo website.

HM Treasury has published estimates of the number of UK jobs linked to EU exports broken down by region. These are available through the GOV.UK website.

01/01/2023

Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-05-03.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2016 to Question 32849, which 90 countries will provide automatic offshore account and trust data to the UK; which responsible authorities in the UK will be able to access that data; and whether the 90 countries referred to will also be able to access automatic offshore account and trust data held by the UK.

Mr David Gauke

The UK expects to receive information from the following jurisdictions under the automatic exchange of information agreements it has, or will soon have, in place.

Albania	Colombia	Hong Kong	Marshall Islands	Seychelles
Andorra	Cook Islands	Hungary	Mauritius	Singapore
Anguilla	Costa Rica	Iceland	Mexico	Sint Maarten
Antigua & Barbuda	Croatia	India	Monaco	Slovak Republic
Argentina	Curacao	Indonesia	Montserrat	Slovenia
Aruba	Cyprus	Ireland	Netherlands	South Africa
Austria	Czech Republic	Isle of Man	New Zealand	Spain
Bahamas	Denmark	Israel	Niue	Sweden
Barbados	Dominica	Italy	Norway	Switzerland
Belgium	Estonia	Japan	Poland	Trinidad & Tobago
Belize	Faroe Islands	Jersey	Portugal	Turkey
Bermuda	Finland	Korea	Qatar	Turks & Caicos Islands
Brazil	France	Kuwait	Romania	United Arab Emirates
British Virgin Islands	Germany	Latvia	Russian Federation	Uruguay
Brunei Darassulam	Ghana	Liechtenstein	St Kitts & Nevis	United States*
Bulgaria	Gibraltar	Lithuania	St Lucia
Canada	Greece	Luxembourg	St Vincent & the Grenadines
Cayman Islands	Greenland	Macao	Samoa
Chile	Grenada	Malaysia	San Marino
China	Guernsey	Malta	Saudi Arabia

*The United States has committed to move to full reciprocation of data exchange under the Inter-Governmental Agreement of 12 September 2012. The domestic legislation required in the US for this to happen has not yet been put in place and we have no indication of when this will happen. Until then the UK will continue to receive limited information collected by the Internal Revenue Service under existing regulations –this pertains to interest bearing financial accounts, but not trusts.

The use of the information received is governed by the international agreements under which it is exchanged. As these are international agreements concerned with taxation matters, the information is restricted in its use to the administration, assessment, and collection of taxes covered by the agreement in question for each jurisdiction. As these are functions of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), only HMRC can use the information without further recourse to the sending jurisdiction and the primary use must be the functions of HMRC. Sharing the information found to be relevant to other Government Agencies with those other Agencies is only permitted where the international agreement allows it, and the sending jurisdiction gives express permission that it can be so shared by HMRC. HMRC will always seek to share the information where relevant and possible, and it is our policy to ensure that new agreements and amendments to existing agreements allow such sharing.

The UK expects that most of the automatic exchange agreements with the jurisdictions listed above will be reciprocal. However, not all jurisdictions require information from the UK and in those cases the UK will receive information but send nothing the other way.

01/01/2023

Kevan Jones – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevan Jones on 2016-06-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, where the engines for the P-8 Poseidon aircraft to be procured by the UK will be manufactured.

Mr Philip Dunne

As the main investment decision on the UK’s Maritime Patrol Aircraft programme has not yet been taken by Ministers, no contracts have yet been placed for the procurement of a UK fleet of P-8 Poseidon aircraft. It is therefore not possible to confirm where the engines in such a fleet would be manufactured.

01/01/2023
Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Trade

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, with reference to the Answer of 17 March 2016 to Question 30754, how many arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia have been revoked in each year since 2009-10.

Mark Garnier

Data relating to export licences issued, refused or revoked for all destinations is published as official statistics on the GOV.UK website.

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 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 26 May 2016 to Question 37452 to the hon. Member for Bristol West, on museums and galleries, which museums wholly reliant on local authority funding have closed in each year since 2009-10.

Matt Hancock

The Government is committed to ensuring that arts and cultural experiences, including those offered by museums and galleries, are available to everyone and not just the privileged few. Government provides support to local museums through Arts Council England (ACE), including a £10m Resilience Fund supporting museums at risk to explore new funding models and become more sustainable. Earlier this month, ACE announced the 2018-2022 investment round of £409m per year, which includes a £37m/year increase to focus on improving the amount spent outside London and on integrating museums into the arts portfolio.

The modern model of museums funding is that there are very few museums entirely reliant on local authority funding. Where museums are run by local authorities, decisions on service provision are for those local authorities to take.

01/01/2023