Tag: 2016

Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Trade

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, if his Department will conduct a review into the export of UK arms to Saudi Arabia; and if he will make a statement.

Mark Garnier

Her Majesty’s Government is satisfied that we are not in breach of our international obligations. A licence will not be issued, to Saudi Arabia or any other destination, if to do so would be inconsistent with any provision of the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria. The position is kept under constant review as each licence application is considered carefully on a case-by-case basis but there are no plans to commission a further review of the export of UK arms to Saudi Arabia.

01/01/2023
Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-01-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether new guidance has been issued to her Department on drafting responses to written parliamentary questions.

Nick Gibb

The Department for Education regularly refreshes its internal guidance on drafting responses to written parliamentary questions to ensure that it is up to date.

01/01/2023
Greg Knight – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department has taken to ascertain the reason for a large number of whales becoming stranded on the east coast of the UK in 2016; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

Mass stranding events of whales are rare and ascertaining what causes them can be difficult. This is why Defra, in conjunction with the Devolved Administrations of Scotland and Wales, funds the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP). Although it is still too early to draw any conclusions on what may have caused the recent mass strandings of sperm whales in the North Sea, the CSIP will be working with stranding networks in Germany and the Netherlands over the coming months to try to identify the potential cause.

01/01/2023
Julian Sturdy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Sturdy on 2016-03-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has held with pharmacy patients on the closure of community pharmacies.

Alistair Burt

Community pharmacy is a vital part of the National Health Service and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020/21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of services or public access to them. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

The Government’s vision is for a more efficient, modern system that will free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services to the benefit of patients and the public.

Our proposals are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. A consequence may be the closure of some pharmacies but that is not our aim. We are not able to assess which pharmacies may close or the number of people who may lose their jobs, because we do not know the financial viability of individual businesses or the extent to which they derive income from services commissioned locally by the NHS or local authorities or have non-NHS related income.

We are consulting the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and others, including patient and public representatives on our proposals. An impact assessment will be completed to inform final decisions and published in due course.

01/01/2023
Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the capital and revenue costs of free schools in Kirklees that (a) have been provided to date, (b) are to be provided in 2016-17 and (c) are projected to be provided between 2017 and 2020.

Edward Timpson

The Department for Education’s accounts show that the total capital spend on free schools up to the end of 2013-14 was £1.029bn; the accounts for following years will be published in due course. The capital costs of individual projects are published once contracts are finalised and are no longer commercially sensitive. They are published, along with the costs of sixteen projects in London and one project in Kirklees, on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-funding-for-open-free-schools

The total pre- and post-opening revenue expenditure for free school projects that opened in 2011 to 2013 is also published on GOV.UK at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-expenditure-for-free-schools

We plan to publish updated revenue expenditure for free schools that were opened in 2014 and 2015 within the next few weeks. This data will be updated annually each Autumn.

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01/01/2023

Julie Cooper – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-05-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many students studying allied health professions in Lancashire are in receipt of an NHS bursary.

Ben Gummer

The total cost of NHS bursaries paid to medical, nursing and midwifery and allied health professional (AHP) students in financial years 2010-11 to 2014-15, the latest year for which figures are available, is shown in the following table.

	2010-11 £000	2011-12 £000	2012-13 £000	2013-14 £000	2014-15 £000
Medical	19,826	19,530	20,573	21,001	20,909
Nursing and Midwifery	399,366	385,371	349,453	320,586	301,307
Allied Health Professions	50,296	50,275	52,759	55,697	58,129

Source: NHS Business Services Authority

Notes:

The figures include all bursary elements (Basic Award, allowances and one-off payments) paid directly to students or to 3^rd party providers of services for disabled students. Excludes tuition fees paid directly to Higher Education Institutions to meet the tuition fee liability of students studying medicine.

During the financial year of 2014-15 there were a total of 90 students studying an AHP course at the University of Central Lancashire who were in receipt of an NHS bursary. It is not possible to separately identify the number of bursary recipients at other AHP course providers in Lancashire, as these are campus based, with information captured as part of the figures for the main site, all of which fall outside of Lancashire. These figures are therefore excluded.

During the financial year 2014-15 there were a total of 773 students studying social work at the University of Central Lancashire and at Lancaster University who were in receipt of a social work bursary.

01/01/2023

Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Ashworth on 2016-06-14.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what processes are in place for strengthening partnerships between law enforcement agencies in the UK and elsewhere in order to tackle international corruption.

Matthew Hancock

UK law enforcement agencies already have strong collaborative partnerships with many overseas authorities which are valuable in supporting and developing their investigations into international corruption. The London Anti-Corruption Summit in May galvanised further efforts to improve international cooperation.

At the Summit, the PM announced that the UK will host a new International Anti-Corruption Coordination Centre (IACCC) to help law enforcement investigators work together effectively across multiple jurisdictions, ending the impunity often associated with grand corruption. We are working with international partners towards making the IACCC operational by April 2017.

The UK also committed to supporting the creation of a Centre of Excellence for Financial Intelligence Units to support the sharing of information with other countries. This will help to improve the effectiveness of the international response to international money-laundering. We are also working with other countries to establish a Global Forum for Asset Recovery.

Initiatives to enhance transparency over beneficial ownership information will also support international law enforcement cooperation in tackling international corruption. This includes the initiative on the automatic exchange of beneficial ownership information between jurisdictions, as well as the UK’s new public register of persons of significant control, (which goes live this month) and the agreements reached with relevant Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies to grant UK law enforcement access to beneficial ownership information there.

01/01/2023
Norman Lamb – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-09-09.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make it his policy to provide additional funding of £350 million per week to the NHS after the UK has left the EU.

Mr David Gauke

HM Treasury and the Government as a whole are determined to make a success of leaving the EU.

The Government has committed to the NHS receiving £10 billion more per year by 2020-21, than it did in 2014-15. This is £2 billion more than the NHS asked for in its own 5 Year Forward View.

01/01/2023

Julie Cooper – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-01-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many solar power companies there were in (a) Lancashire, (b) the North West and (c) Britain in (i) 2010, (ii) 2011, (iii) 2012, (iv) 2013, (v) 2014 and (vi) 2015.

Andrea Leadsom

DECC does not hold information on the number of solar power companies. However, data on the number of solar photovoltaic installations (including households) by UK region, are available for 2010 to 2014. This is given in the table below. DECC does not hold information by UK county. Data for 2015 for the UK as a whole will be available on 28 January 2016, and by region in September 2016.

	End-2010	End-2011	End-2012	End-2013	End-2014
North-West England	1,404	17,723	33,208	41,960	54,583
Britain (England, Scotland and Wales)	25,684	221,000	374,778	465,678	574,582

Source: Regional Renewables Statistics, 2003-2014, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/regional-renewable-statistics

Data by Local Authority (for 2014 only) are available on the same link. Monthly solar installations data for the UK as a whole are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/solar-photovoltaics-deployment

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01/01/2023

Ian Blackford – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Blackford on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions his Department plans to hold with colleagues in the Scottish Government on the environmental proposal for ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Cromarty firth.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Port of Cromarty Firth Oil Transfer Licence (OTL) application, which ran from 10 December 2015 to 8 February 2016 was sent to Scottish Government officials directly through Marine Scotland, and to the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), and the Highland Council, in order to seek their views.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) is the Competent Authority that assesses all applications for OTLs, and the MCA has regular contact with the Scottish Government and their appropriate officials on a number of issues, including ship-to-ship licencing. The MCA has worked closely with them on previous OTL applications and the development of the policy itself.

With the public consultation having just ended, the assessment phase will begin and the MCA looks forward to continuing this cooperation in relation to the Cromarty Firth proposal, prior to any decision being made.

01/01/2023