Tag: 2016

  • Joan Ryan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Joan Ryan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Joan Ryan on 2016-10-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment she has made of the effect of projects that foster co-operation and co-existence have had on the prospects of securing lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

    Rory Stewart

    Projects that foster cooperation and coexistence can help to build understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, and maintain a constituency of support for peace. The Secretary of State is currently assessing options for providing further support to coexistence programmes.

  • David Amess – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    David Amess – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Amess on 2016-01-06.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many IT contractors were employed by HM Revenue and Customs on a self-employed basis in 2015.

    Mr David Gauke

    There were no IT contractors employed on a self-employed basis in 2015.

  • Lord Kinnock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Lord Kinnock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kinnock on 2016-02-01.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the duration of (1) in-work, and (2) out-of-work, benefits paid to all recent EU migrants in households supported by the benefits system as at March 2013.

    Lord Freud

    I refer the noble Lord to the answer given by my Rt. Hon. Friend the Minister for Employment (Ms. Esther McVey) in the House of Commons on 20 November 2014 to Question number 211618 as below:

    While the Government checks the immigration status of benefit claimants to ensure the benefit is paid properly and to prevent fraud, traditionally that information has not been collected as part of the payment administrative systems.

    However, the Government is looking at ways to reform the current administrative system under Universal Credit so that it will systematically record nationality and immigration status of migrants who make a claim.

    The Government has made a radical series of changes over the last year to restrict the access by non-UK citizens from the European Economic Area to UK benefits and tax credits. This is in order to protect the UK’s benefit system and discourage people who have no established connection with the UK from moving here, unless they have a job or a genuine prospect of work, or have savings to support themselves until they do.

  • Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Ashworth on 2016-02-25.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much his Department has paid to staff in overtime in each of the last 24 months.

    Matthew Hancock

    As part of this Government’s transparency agenda, all Departments are required to publish monthly workforce statistics that includes overtime costs. This information is available from the Cabinet Office website at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/payroll-costs-and-non-consolidated-pay-data

    “

  • Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-03-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2016 to Question 31008, how many officials of his Department worked full-time on strategies to tackle homelessness in each of the last five years.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    Over the years, this Department always ensured that policy areas, including homelessness, were suitably resourced in order to provide the best possible response to deal with changing priorities.

  • Lord Patten – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Patten – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

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

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the impact on British shipping of the decision by the President of Egypt to give control of the expansion of the Suez Canal to the Egyptian armed forces.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    We are not aware of any impact on British shipping in relation to the Egyptian armed forces’ involvement with the Suez Canal. The New Suez Canal Project, completed in August 2015, has shortened the transit time and has increased the number of ships which the Canal can handle on a daily basis. The Egyptian armed forces continue to provide security for the Canal and support the activity of the Suez Canal Authority as they did before the expansion of the Canal.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Paul Blomfield – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Written Statement of 26 May 2016, on BIS consultation, HCWS30, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of split-site working and recruiting on a flexible location basis for policy officials.

    Joseph Johnson

    The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is implementing its BIS2020 strategy in order to become simpler, cheaper and better. This includes moving to a central policy headquarters based in London.

    An assessment was made of the merits of split site working and of recruiting on a flexible basis through the consideration of alternative options (including maintaining the current model across split sites). This assessment took place throughout the consultation process and prior to the Executive Board’s decision.

    BIS will continue to have many more people based outside London than inside.

  • Richard Bacon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Richard Bacon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Bacon on 2016-09-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust has paid Cerner in the last 10 years.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    The Department has not, over the last 10 years, made payments to Cerner for National Health Service systems. The Department does not hold information centrally about contracts that are held by NHS Trusts locally.

  • Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-10-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether public consultations or surveys were undertaken in the former Department for Energy and Climate Change to ascertain whether people trusted and understood the data-sharing element of the Warm Home Discount Scheme in the run-up to implementing that scheme.

    Jesse Norman

    The Warm Home Discount consultation, published in December 2011, included questions on data sharing.

    Prior to the Warm Home Discount, the Energy Rebate Scheme, which ran for one year, used data-matching (of DWP and energy suppliers’ data) to identify a group of pensioners likely to be vulnerable to fuel poverty, so that their electricity supplier could award a one-off rebate to their electricity bill. This earlier scheme ran for one year.

    DWP Social Researchers carried out a small-scale qualitative evaluation of the scheme, involving telephone interviews with customers to investigate reactions to their personal data being used in this way – this includeding issues around privacy, security and data sharing, and the broader concept of data use in Government.

    The findings of the research and consultation responses can be found here:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-warm-home-discount-scheme

    “

  • Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-01-06.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many people have challenged HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in court following the issue of an Accelerated Payment Notice (APN) for their alleged role in a tax avoidance scheme since the APN system came into force; and in such cases (a) on how many occasions the courts have found against HMRC and (b) what the total value is of tax paid back with interest to people who have won.

    Mr David Gauke

    There has been one substantive hearing of a Judicial Review challenging Accelerated Payment notices (APN) which had in the region of 150 claimants. The case was decided in HM Revenue and Customs’ favour. Some of the claimants have since appealed to the Court of Appeal. Their appeal is due to be heard in December 2016.