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Tag: 2016

  • Steve McCabe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Steve McCabe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of staff employed by his Department are non-UK nationals.

    Ben Gummer

    All Government Departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules. Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.

    More broadly, the Government will be consulting in due course on how we work with business to ensure that workers in this country have the skills that they need to get a job. But there are no proposals to publish lists of the number or proportion of foreign workers.

  • Lord Laird – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Laird – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2015-12-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the decision of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in the case of children A and B in relation to Prism, heard on 10 December.

    Lord Bates

    The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) and any decision it makes are entirely independent of Government. The Home Office was not a named respondent in the case and we have made no assessment of the Tribunal’s decision.

  • Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-01-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients have been infected with HIV and hepatitis C through treatment with NHS-supplied blood or blood products; how much his Department has paid to patients so infected with those diseases to date; and if he will make a statement.

    Jane Ellison

    Published data estimates that around 4,700 people with bleeding disorders (such as haemophilia) and around 28,000 other people were exposed to hepatitis C in the United Kingdom. This information is from the UK Haemophilia Doctors’ Organisation 2011 annual report. Around 1,200 people with bleeding disorders and 100 other individuals were infected with HIV through treatment with National Health Service-supplied blood products or blood transfusions in the UK. Many of those infected with HIV were also infected with hepatitis C.

    To date over £390 million has been paid out in the UK through the schemes, since they were set up in 1988.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department plans to implement the policy announced on 27 March 2015 by the previous Government on funding to increase the uptake for electric two-wheeled vehicles.

    Andrew Jones

    The Government remains committed to supporting the UK’s zero emission motorcycle industry. We have been working with stakeholders on the details of a scheme and will make a further announcement in due course.

  • Paula Sherriff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Paula Sherriff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paula Sherriff on 2016-03-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the numbers of children born with recurrent respiratory papillomatosis from mothers who have not been protected from genital warts through the HPV vaccination programme in each year since that programme began; and what assessment he has made of the implications for his policy of trends in those numbers.

    Jane Ellison

    The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme for girls was introduced in 2008, primarily to prevent cervical cancer. Initially, the bivalent vaccine Cervarix® was used that provides protection against two HPV types, HPV 16 and 18. Since September 2012, the quadrivalent vaccine Gardasil® has been used that provides protection against those two HPV types and also against two additional types, HPV 6 and 11 which cause genital warts.

    The number of cases of recurrent respiratory papillomatosis that have occurred in children born to females who were vaccinated with bivalent vaccine as part of the HPV immunisation programme during 2008-2012 is unknown and has not been estimated. An assessment of the implications of this condition on vaccination policy has not been made.

    Public Health England (PHE) has previously published estimates on the numbers of cancers and anogenital warts which would be prevented in males and females with a female only HPV vaccination programme. Within this work it was assumed that the use of the quadrivalent vaccine would reduce the incidence of new cases of recurrent respiratory papillomatosis at the same rate as the reduction in anogenital warts due to HPV 6 and 11, i.e. by 95% (over time). These PHE estimates assumed no reduction in genital warts (or recurrent respiratory papillomatosis) with the use of the bivalent vaccine. However, some reduction in genital warts have since been seen associated with use of the bivalent vaccine and it is therefore possible that some (smaller) reductions in recurrent respiratory papillomatosis may result from bivalent vaccine use.

  • Jenny Chapman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Jenny Chapman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jenny Chapman on 2016-04-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effect of her Department’s school food standards on milk consumption in primary schools.

    Mr Sam Gyimah

    We have had one piece of correspondence on milk from a school in recent months. The Department does not collect data on the consumption of milk. The revised School Food Standards are effective from 1 January 2015 and designed to be easier to read and implement. A full public consultation on the School Food Standards regulations was held between 6 March and 16 April 2014. All schools were subsequently notified of the guidance through our termly communications with schools. The standards and guidance are available on gov.uk at:

    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1603/contents/made

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england

    http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/School-Food-Standards-Guidance-FINAL-140911-V2C.pdf

    “

  • Jeremy Lefroy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Jeremy Lefroy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jeremy Lefroy on 2016-05-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many traffic surveys and counts his Department has conducted in Stafford constituency since 2010.

    Andrew Jones

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has conducted the following numbers of manual traffic counts within the area covered by Stafford constituency in each year since 2010.

    2010 9 counts

    2011 9 counts

    2012 10 counts

    2013 11 counts

    2014 5 counts

    2015 5 counts

    These counts are carried out for the purpose of producing DfT’s statistics on traffic. They are conducted by observing traffic at designated locations and consequently have no impact on the traffic flows.

  • Anna Turley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Anna Turley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2016-07-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will bring forward plans to consolidate existing legislation on online abuse and malicious communication.

    Sir Oliver Heald

    Legislation that can be used to prosecute online abuse and related offences includes the Protection from Harassment Act 1997; the Malicious Communications Act 1988; and the Communications Act 2003. The Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 made changes to the relevant offences in these last two Acts which aim to ensure that people who commit them are prosecuted and properly punished.

    The Government believes that current legislation is sufficient and does not intend to consolidate existing legislation relating to online abuse and malicious communication.

  • Frank Field – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Frank Field – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2016-10-07.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, by when his Department plans to report its funding on a proposed breathing space mechanism for problem debt.

    Simon Kirby

    The Government is exploring whether some form of “breathing space” would be a useful and viable addition to the range of formal and informal debt solutions available to consumers and creditors. Officials in HM Treasury and the Insolvency Service have been asked to discuss this issue with stakeholders and the Government will report back this autumn.

  • Lord Black of Brentwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Lord Black of Brentwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Black of Brentwood on 2015-12-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what funding they are making available under the UK Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund to combat the illegal tiger trade and tiger farming.

    Lord Gardiner of Kimble

    In December 2013, Defra and the Department for International Development announced a £10 million fund over the period from 2014/15 to 2017/18 to help developing countries tackle the illegal wildlife trade, to be administered by Defra. In March 2015, the Secretary of State for International Development announced that an additional £3 million would be made available for this purpose. Most of this funding is distributed through the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund.

    Nineteen successful projects from the first round of the UK Government’s Challenge Fund were announced in December 2014. These included a number of projects that aimed to reduce the demand for illegal wildlife products in Asia, build capacity and strengthen law enforcement to combat wildlife trafficking. Challenge Funding directly benefitting tigers includes a £210,000 contribution towards a project strengthening institutional frameworks to combat wildlife trafficking in Indonesia, which is also supporting local communities mitigate human-tiger conflict. The Fund has also contributed over £59,000 to a project producing educational children’s videos in Vietnam, one of which is on tigers, to help reduce the demand for illegal wildlife products.

    A second round of the Challenge Fund opened in August 2015. We expect to announce the successful projects from the second round early this year.