Tag: 2016

  • Lord Warner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Warner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Warner on 2016-02-29.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Smith Commission’s recommendation that there should be no detriment as a result of UK Government or Scottish Government policy decisions after devolution would be breached if the Scottish Government repeatedly spent monies passed to them for NHS services in accordance with the Barnett formula on other unrelated services.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    The mechanical application of the Barnett Formula ensures that the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly receive a population share of changes in UK government funding on the services for which they have devolved responsibility. In accordance with the principles of devolution and the devolution Acts themselves, it is for the devolved administrations to decide how to allocate their funding (from the block grant or taxes/borrowing) to public services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; and it is for the devolved legislatures to hold them to account. The Scottish Government’s new fiscal framework does not alter this.

  • Gareth Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Gareth Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Johnson on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the capacity and the availability of seating for passengers on peak services on High Speed 1 trains between Ebbsfleet and London St Pancras.

    Claire Perry

    No such assessment has been made by the Department but franchisees have an obligation to minimise overcrowding. Therefore it is the Train Operating Company running the service that is responsible for what rolling stock it allocates to which service, both in type and in quantity.

  • Karl McCartney – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Karl McCartney – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl McCartney on 2016-04-27.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what representations he has received on the potential merits of reducing the insurance premium tax paid by drivers between the ages of 17 and 25 who have telematics car insurance policies.

    Harriett Baldwin

    HM Treasury receives representations on a wide variety of issues. We keep all taxes under review.

  • David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2016-06-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what service standard he expects of Capita for response times for correspondence from hon. Members relating to personal independence payments.

    Justin Tomlinson

    Capita aims to respond to correspondence within 20 working days but this is not a contractual service level agreement

  • Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-09-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many (a) consultants and (b) seconded staff (i) are working and (ii) have been recruited to work at his Department in the last three years; and from which (A) companies, (B) departments and (C) other organisations such staff were recruited or seconded.

    Sir Alan Duncan

    A) Consultants

    The data that the FCO holds on consultancy projects is tracked by project rather than by individual. Consultants are not always appointed as individuals, rather the project in question is delivered via a company, which allocates the work to experts according to requirements. It is not therefore possible to provide, at proportionate cost, data on the number of consultants recruited to work at the FCO in the last three years. We can however confirm that the FCO has spent the following on consultancy projects in the last three years:

    Financial Year 2015/16 – £1.1m
    Financial Year 2014/15 – £1.6m
    Financial Year 2013/14 – £1.5m

    The FCO’s consultancy expenditure is primarily for specialist advice that supports our diplomacy and where ‘in-house’ expertise is not available, such as de-mining surveys.

    B) Secondments

    With regards to staff on loan from other Government Departments and those seconded from the private sector, the numbers are as follows, based on the year the loan started:

    In 2016 (to date) 147 Civil Servants, 1 public servant, and 1 secondee from the private sector have joined the FCO on loan.

    In 2015, 161 Civil Servants, and 3 public servants joined the FCO on loan. There were no secondments from the private sector.

    In 2014, 149 Civil Servants, 1 public servant and 1 secondee from the private sector joined the FCO on loan.

    Due to the small numbers of loans from individual organisations, it is not possible to give a breakdown of all the organisations from which they were loaned, without risking identification of individuals in breach of data protection rules. However the largest numbers of officers loaned to the FCO in all three years came from:

    2016 2015 2014
    DFID 21 25 11
    Home Office 20 20 20
    Cabinet Office 10 9 20
    HM Treasury 11 11 10
    MOD 13 14 12
    BIS 14 12 14
    DECC 12 4 10
    MOJ 6 14 9

    Fewer than five individuals a year were loaned from any other department. The public servants loaned to the FCO were all Parliamentary staff or Police Officers.

  • Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union

    Diana Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-10-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, whether the Great Repeal Bill will incorporate all existing EU (a) regulations, (b) Directives and (c) Decisions into UK law.

    Mr David Jones

    The Government will bring forward legislation in the next session that, when enacted, will repeal the European Communities Act 1972 on the day we leave the EU, ending the authority of EU law and returning power to the UK. The Bill will give consumers, workers and businesses as much certainty as possible by maintaining law wherever practicable and desirable.

    The Bill will convert current EU law (including regulations and directives) into domestic law, while allowing for amendments to take account of the future negotiated UK-EU relationship. The Government will then, in slower time, consider the domestic law changes which will be needed to give effect to new policies developed post EU exit.

  • Clive Efford – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Clive Efford – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Clive Efford on 2016-01-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2016 to Question 20989, what information his Department holds on how many cases of murder of (a) human rights defenders, (b) trades unionists and (c) political activists there have been in the last three years in Colombia for which someone has been brought to trial.

    Mr Hugo Swire

    Although we do not compile statistics on these cases, the British Government receives regular updates from non-government organisations (NGOs) such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Peace Brigades International, highlighting the reported cases outlined by the Honourable Member. For example, Somos Defensores’ 2015 report on the number of murders and threats made against human rights defenders: http://somosdefensores.org/attachments/article/134/los-nadie-informe-semestral-siaddhh2015.pdf

  • Viscount Ridley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Viscount Ridley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Viscount Ridley on 2016-02-03.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the finding of the report An Unholy Mess, published by the Fair Admissions Campaign and the British Humanist Association last year, that a significant number of religiously selective schools have not conducted proper consultations on their admission arrangements, and in many cases have not published any information about their arrangements.

    Lord Nash

    Many of the findings of the report by the Fair Admissions Campaign and British Humanist Association echo those reported by the Chief Schools Adjudicator in her Annual Report for the 2013/14 school year.

    Admission authorities for all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious designation, are required to comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code and other admissions law.

    Where an objection is made to the Schools Adjudicator, if the arrangements are found to be unfair or fail to comply with the Code, the admission authority must make changes to ensure their arrangements are compliant. Where an admission authority fails to implement decisions of the adjudicator, the Secretary of State may direct the admission authority to do so.

    We continue to keep the Code under review, and, where we consider any changes are necessary to make the admissions system work more effectively for parents, these will be subject to a full public consultation.

  • Gordon Marsden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Gordon Marsden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-02-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, when his Department plans to publish a response to his Department’s consultation, A dual mandate for adult vocational education, which closed in June 2015.

    Nick Boles

    The Dual Mandate for adult vocational education was published by the previous Government. Since the election of the new Government there have been a number of significant developments including: the commitment to 3 million apprenticeship starts between 2015 and 2020; the announcement of a levy to fund apprenticeships; the new Institute of Apprenticeships; the commission to Lord Sainsbury to review routes to employment; devolution of adult education funding and responsibilities to combined authorities; commitment to Institutes of Technology; the launch of area reviews; a spending review which has protected adult education from further cuts.

    Taken together these amount to a sea change in the Government approach to Professional and Technical Education and associated landscape. We have used the responses to the Dual Mandate to shape our thinking and will continue to do so.

  • Craig Whittaker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Craig Whittaker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential economic benefits to the Calder Valley of accelerating the upgrade of the M62 to a four-lane smart motorway between junctions 20 and 25.

    Andrew Jones

    The recent Budget announced that funding had been brought forward to enable Highways England to accelerate the smart motorway investment for the M62 Junction 10 to 12 scheme by two years, and to accelerate delivery of the M62 Junction 20 to 25 smart motorway.

    Design development work on these schemes is at the very earliest stage, and as such the analysis of the full economic potential of this investment is still being developed as part of the business case.