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Tag: 2016

  • Lord McAvoy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord McAvoy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord McAvoy on 2016-01-28.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will publish the minutes and papers of the last seven meetings of the Joint Exchequer Committee.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    The UK and Scottish governments publish a joint communique after each meeting of the Joint Exchequer Committee, it outlines what was discussed at the meeting. The negotiations are ongoing and require a private space in which discussions can make progress.

    The UK government has no plans to publish any further minutes or papers from the Joint Exchequer Committee.

  • David T. C. Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    David T. C. Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David T. C. Davies on 2016-02-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers claiming to be under the age of 18 have been charged with a criminal offence in the last year; and what proportion of such asylum seekers were subsequently found to have fraudulently claimed to be under the age of 18.

    James Brokenshire

    The Home Office does not maintain a central record of the requested information and could only provide it at disproportionate cost.

  • Rupa Huq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Rupa Huq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rupa Huq on 2016-03-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to section 5.9 of the Migration Advisory Committee’s review of Tier 2 visas, published in December 2015, whether he plans to introduce an Immigration Skills Charge for employers for all Tier 2 visa workers of £1,000 per year per worker.

    Joseph Johnson

    Following consideration of the Migration Advisory Committee’s recommendations on migration and other evidence, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Immigration has made a written statement on Tier 2 migration including the Immigration Skills Charge.

    The full statement can be viewed at: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-03-24/HCWS660/.

    “

  • 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 2016-04-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of 20 April 2016, Official Report, column 995, whether Daesh has committed crimes that should be referred to the International Criminal Court.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    The Government has condemned repeatedly Daesh’s atrocities against both minorities, and the majority Muslim populations of Iraq and Syria. There is a growing body of evidence that terrible crimes have been committed by Daesh. The UK is supporting efforts to gather and preserve that evidence.

    The International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor set out some of the complicated issues involved in the ICC investigating Daesh in her statement of 8 April 2015. The Rome Statute provides for "situations" rather than organisations to be referred to the ICC. Therefore, referral would cover all potential crimes within a specified geographic area, rather than a specific organisation.

    As neither Iraq nor Syria is a State Party to the Rome Statute, the ICC has no territorial jurisdiction over crimes committed on their soil.

    In order for Daesh’s crimes in Iraq and Syria to be investigated by the ICC, Iraq and Syria would have to declare their acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction, or the UN Security Council would have to refer the situation in those countries to the Court.

  • Teresa Pearce – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Teresa Pearce – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Teresa Pearce on 2016-05-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many diagnoses of (a) Lyme disease and (b) chronic Lyme disease have been made in each of the last five years.

    Jane Ellison

    The existing National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance supports primary care doctors in managing Lyme disease but to further strengthen the evidence base we have commissioned NICE to develop guidelines for the recognition and treatment of Lyme disease; this is expected in June 2018.

    Public Health England (PHE) provides information on Lyme disease and tick awareness to the medical profession and the public, holds regular medical training days, and works with Lyme Disease Action to support the needs and interests of patients.

    NHS Choices also publishes information on its website to raise awareness of Lyme disease and encourage timely medical consultation because early diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease is the best way of limiting complications from infection.

    The number of human cases can be reduced by raising public awareness of how to avoid tick bites, and by environmental measures in public places to reduce the long grass and scrub which harbor ticks. PHE works with interested local authorities to raise tick awareness, and has produced joint public information with local authorities in areas such as the New Forest with a significant incidence of Lyme disease.

    The number of laboratory confirmed cases of Lyme disease in England and Wales varies annually, in 2013 there were 878 and in 2014 there were 730, but the majority of diagnoses are made clinically by general practitioners and those figures are not recorded.

    Patients with late or complicated Lyme disease may be diagnosed in a variety of specialist clinics, and the numbers are not recorded. Based on the clinical information supplied with the laboratory request, only a small proportion of the annual number of cases fall into this category.

    There is no clear definition for chronic Lyme disease, and no general acceptance of what the term means, so no data is available.

  • Lord Freyberg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Freyberg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Freyberg on 2016-07-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that patients suffering with radioactive iodine-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer are not denied treatment due to the timeframes applied by NHS England for access to the new Cancer Drugs Fund.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    NHS England has advised that systemic therapy is available for patients with radioiodine-refractory thyroid cancer through the continued funding of sorafenib for this indication via the Cancer Drugs Fund. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has been asked to develop technology appraisal guidance on the use of sorafenib and lenvatinib for this indication.

  • Shabana Mahmood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Shabana Mahmood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-10-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much time has been allocated for the public consultation on the sustainability and transformation plans for Birmingham and Solihull and the Black Country and West Birmingham; and if he will ensure that the feedback from this public consultation will be published.

    David Mowat

    NHS England, with other national health and care bodies, released guidance to the local areas developing Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs) entitled ‘Engaging local people’ in September 2016 which can be found on their website. Local proposals for health and care transformation are not expected to have gone through formal local National Health Service or other organisations’ board approval and/or formal public engagement or consultation at this early stage. We expect that areas will publish a version of their STPs between late October and the end of the year. We would also expect that most areas will undertake public engagement during this period, building on the engagement they have already done to shape thinking. Every area will be working to a different timeframe, based on its own circumstances and how well-progressed its plan is.

  • Lord Roberts of Llandudno – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Roberts of Llandudno – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno on 2015-12-21.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bates on 8 December (HL4116), how many personal interviews with adults applying for a passport for the first time were conducted in each calendar year from 2007 to 2015 inclusive.

    Lord Bates

    The table below shows the number of interviews conducted in each calendar year since 2007. The lower figures for 2007 reflect the pilot and roll out of the new interview process for all first-time passport applicants and the figures for 2015 are up to week ending 20 December.

    Year

    Number of Interviews

    2007

    18,160

    2008

    293,337

    2009

    261,593

    2010

    296,434

    2011

    269,587

    2012

    273,680

    2013

    283,284

    2014

    253,156

    2015

    221,759
  • Lord Greaves – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Greaves – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2016-01-28.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to distribute the £20 million funding for English lessons for women speakers of other languages; which bodies will be responsible for delivering the new provision; on what basis it will be allocated; how much will be made available in each year of this Parliament, and what kind of learning provision the money will be used for.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    Our new English language training offer, worth £20 million over this Parliament, will be informed by the findings of Louise Casey’s Review of Integration and the learning from the six community-based projects we have funded as part of our current integration programme. In particular, we will work with Louise Casey to identify the most isolated communities in England and on the detail of how the programme will be delivered, to ensure it is targeted at those women who need it most. We are working towards as early a launch date as possible for the programme in 2016-17.

  • Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 10 February 2016 to Question 26908, what steps he is taking to improve the recording of knife finds in prisons to ensure that the data is easy to use and analyse.

    Andrew Selous

    Finds of certain prohibited items in prisons, including knives, are recorded on the NOMS Incident Reporting System (IRS).

    Until October 2015, any weapon in prison would be recorded under a miscellaneous incident type, and therefore would not provide consistent and complete information on weapon finds. In October 2015 we introduced a new incident type ‘Find’ on IRS, including a new category for ‘Weapons’, which means that separate data on weapons is now recorded.