The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-06-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many civil servants in his Department are paid through limited companies.
Mark Lancaster
No civil servants employed by the Ministry of Defence are paid through limited companies.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to implement the actions identified for it in the Government’s Ending Violence against Women and Girls Strategy 2016-2020, published in March 2016; and when a member of staff from her Department last attended a Violence against Women and Girls Stakeholder Meeting chaired by the Home Office.
Rory Stewart
DFID has made significant progress in scaling up efforts to address violence against women and girls, nearly doubling our programming, from 64 programmes in 2012 to 127 in 2016, and working with partners across all sectors. Our £36 million programme to end Child, Early and Forced Marriage is helping thousands of girls escape losing any choice or control over their future. We have committed £8 million to support AmplifyChange, an initiative to support civil society activists to end child marriage and address a broader range of gender issues. In 2015 we provided £2.25 million of support to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and Girls which provides grants to organisations across the world to tackle gender-based violence.
ICAI published its review of DFID’s efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls on Tuesday 17 May 2016. This review gave DFID’s performance a ‘Green’ rating, the highest achievable. The UK and DFID’s new Secretary of State will continue to lead the global effort to improve the lives of women and girls.
The last Home Office chaired Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Stakeholder Meeting took place on July 11 2016. No officials from other departments were invited to this meeting. However, one of the action points arising from this meeting was to invite other departments in future. An official from DFID’s VAWG Team will attend the next meeting.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Eaton on 2016-10-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation in the recent report from the charity Sense, Realising Aspirations for All, to break the link between welfare benefits and access to employment by making support voluntary and available to all disabled people, regardless of the benefits they claim.
Lord Freud
We welcome the Sense report, Realising Aspirations for All and its findings. We want all disabled and people with a long term health condition to fulfil their potential and achieve their aspirations.
We will soon publish a Green Paper on work and health and conduct a consultation to understand how every individual can have the opportunity to work and share in the economic and health benefits that work brings, regardless of their health condition or disability. We will continue to engage with Sense and other key stakeholders as part of the Green Paper consultation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Callum McCaig on 2016-01-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment her Department has made of whether the policies outlined in her speech at the Institution of Civil Engineers on 18 November 2015 will ensure the UK meets the fourth Carbon Budget.
Andrea Leadsom
My Rt. hon Friend,the Secretary of State announced in November, this Government is committed to taking pragmatic action to meet the fourth carbon budget whilst ensuring that energy is secure and bills remain low. Measures announced in her speech – including the intention to replace unabated coal with new gas, nuclear and renewables; increased competition; concerted action on heat; and support for innovation – are all in line with this commitment.
Our new emissions reduction plan will be published towards the end of 2016 and will set out our proposals in full.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2016-01-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether the target for new recruits to the Royal Navy Reserve has been met in each of the last 10 years.
Mr Julian Brazier
The Maritime Reserve (MR) is a vital component of the Naval Service’s capability and consists of the Royal Naval Reserve and Royal Marines Reserve.
Centrally held data for the MR recruitment targets does not go back 10 years. Since the Future Reserve 2020 Programme was established in July 2012 the MR have achieved their targets each year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Simon Hart on 2016-02-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the target timescale is for people leaving prison from application to receipt for universal credit; and how many and what proportion of applications take longer than that timescale.
Priti Patel
Prisoners are supported and advised whilst in prison on which benefits they can claim and how to make a claim and we are developing arrangements to enable them to make advance claims to Universal Credit.
Appropriate support measures for prison leavers with mental health issues will be considered following the initial claim interview.
Universal Credit is assessed and paid calendar monthly in arrears. Prison leavers will receive payment within the timescale of 5 weeks from the date of claim.
Prison leavers who are in financial need can apply for an advance payment of up to 50% of their total Universal Credit award following their initial interview.
The information requested in relation to the timescales for applications is not readily available for publication. To quality assure this information according to the standards of the UK Statistics Authority would incur disproportionate costs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ruth Smeeth on 2016-03-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 22 March 2016 to Question 31677, what the penalties are for an employer who has issued a Certificate of Sponsorship but does not adhere to the stated job description and salary.
Mike Penning
Guidance for sponsors specifies that UKVI will revoke the licence of a sponsor who has issued a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) but has not adhered to the specified job description and/or salary. However, prior to the consideration of revocation action, UKVI will suspend the licence and allow the sponsor the opportunity to make representations against the matter(s) identified. UKVI does have residual discretion to apply a lesser sanctions depending on the severity of the matter(s) and the mitigating circumstances presented by the sponsor; these sanctions include downgrading the licence rating and issuing a time limited action plan or reducing the sponsor’s CoS allocation or setting the allocation to zero.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Goudie on 2016-04-21.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government to which battalions Burmese Army soldiers who have received training from the UK belong.
Earl Howe
I refer the noble Baroness to the answer I gave on 10 March 2016 to Question number HL6693, which states that we retain the names and current units of Burmese Army soldiers who receive educational training from the UK. The Burmese Army soldiers who currently attend this training are drawn from the headquarters of the Burmese Army, and are not on battalion duties.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Yasmin Qureshi on 2016-06-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase the number of qualified early years teachers in nurseries.
Mr Sam Gyimah
The department delivers early years initial teacher training places through the National College for Teaching and Leadership. There are four training routes available: undergraduate, assessment only, graduate entry and graduate employment based. To encourage take up, the Department funds course fees, pays bursaries to eligible trainees on the graduate entry route and provides financial support to employers for those trainees on the graduate employment based route.
As part of our thinking on the early years workforce strategy we will be considering how best to continue to grow the graduate workforce, including supporting improved career progression.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jo Stevens on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what additional resources were made available to prisons to accommodate the increased number of people recalled to custody following the introduction of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014.
Mr Sam Gyimah
The Offender Rehabilitation Act was a key piece of legislation under the Transforming Rehabilitation Programme that extended statutory rehabilitation to offenders who served short sentences. Time spent on licence is an integral part of a custodial sentence. It is right that all offenders under probation supervision are subject to strict monitoring. In some cases offenders are recalled if their behaviour is causing concern to prevent a further offence from being committed.
In order to enable prisons to deliver the requirements of the act the National Offender Management Service reviewed resources within each prison establishment Offender Management Units that received remand prisoners. Following this review additional roles were introduced across prison establishments to support the increased casework processes.