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Tag: 2016

  • Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2016-05-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what his policy is on the future availability of protected sporting events on free-to-air television; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The Ofcom Code on Listed Events ensures that key sporting events are made available for free-to-air channels. Our sport strategy, Sporting Future: A new strategy for an active nation, published December 2015, made clear that the Government does not propose to review this list.

  • Dawn Butler – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Dawn Butler – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dawn Butler on 2016-07-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what support the Government is providing to micro-insurance schemes in developing countries for the protection of livelihoods from the effects of climate change.

    Rory Stewart

    DFID’s work on climate resilience includes a number of weather-related microinsurance initiatives and a major research programme on scaling up microinsurance in the agricultural sector.

  • Jonathan Lord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Jonathan Lord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Lord on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect of noise from Heathrow Airport on people living in the Woking constituency; and if he will make an assessment of the potential effect of an increase in such noise as a result of the construction of a third runway.

    Mr John Hayes

    The Airports Commission shortlisted three airport expansion schemes, two at Heathrow and one at Gatwick. The Government accepted the Commission’s shortlist in December 2015 and is considering all of the evidence, including on noise, very carefully before reaching a view on its preferred scheme.

  • Sadiq Khan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Sadiq Khan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2016-01-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average time was from a patient being declared fit to leave hospital to their discharge in (a) England, (b) London and (c) each health trust in London in (i) the last calendar month for which figures are available and (ii) that month in each year from 2010 to 2014.

    Alistair Burt

    This information is not available in the format requested.

    Official statistics for NHS trusts in England are published by NHS England on the number of patients delayed on the last Thursday of each month and the total delayed days during the month for all patients delayed throughout the month. The latest publication of this data was for delays occurring in October 2015 and was published on 10 December 2015.

    It is not possible to calculate a montly average or the longest waits from these data. Health is a devolved matter in Wales.

  • Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2016-01-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the cost to the public purse was of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council acting as final court of appeal for Commonwealth relations in 2015.

    Mr Hugo Swire

    The administration of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council administration has been the responsibility of the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) and its costs are integrated with those for running the UKSC. Accordingly it is not possible to identify precisely those costs which are attributable to the JCPC.

    In 2014 – 2015, however, which is the latest financial year for which figures are available, the JCPC accounted for approximately 33% of the number of cases heard by both courts and 29% of the number of sitting days in both courts. On the basis of the average of both options the JCPC can notionally be regarded as consuming 31% of the total gross expenditure of both courts. In 2014 – 2015 this was £12.44 million, which means the JCPC’s share of this is notionally £3.85 million. Costs are offset by the £316,000 raised from fees charged to JCPC litigants.

  • Caroline Flint – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Caroline Flint – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Flint on 2016-02-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of his Department’s invoices for goods and services supplied by (a) private companies and (b) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are completed on time; and what proportion of the (i) number and (ii) value of contracts between his Department and private companies are held by SMEs.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    The Ministry of Defence (MOD) aims to pay 80% of its invoices within five working days and payment performance is published on gov.uk at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-defence/about/procurement#ministry-of-defence-payment-performance. This shows that during the first three quarters of 2015-16, the MOD paid around 97% of its invoices within five days and 99.9% within 30 days. A comprehensive breakdown of the proportion of invoice payments made to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to private companies is not held.

    Information on MOD contracting with SMEs is also published online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mod-industry-trade-and-contracts-2015. This shows that in 2014-15, the MOD placed around 440 new contracts directly with SMEs, with a collective value of around £320 million.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-03-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps his Department is taking to improve defence capacity building.

    Michael Fallon

    We engage in capacity building activities with a wide range of international partners, covering a broad spectrum of topics including Humanitarian and Disaster Relief; Countering Violent Extremism; Peace Support Operations and countering illicit trafficking.

    We committed in the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 to increase our capacity building with partners, and have since then expanded our activity in a number of ways.

    For example, we have launched a new three year Counter-IED capacity building programme with Pakistan. We have also joined the US-German Trans-Atlantic Capability Enhancement and Training (TACET) initiative, under which we will deploy Short Term Training Teams to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. In Ukraine, where we have already trained over 2,000 members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, we are aiming to provide additional support to Ukrainian Defence reform including practical interventions in areas such as strategic communication and modernisation of procurement and logistics systems. In Nigeria we continue to expand our resident British Military Advisory and Training Team, and have committed to more than doubling the number of UK military personnel who deploy on short term training tasks to 300 in 2016. We have also significantly increased the support we provide to the Jordanian Army to help them improve border security.

  • Kate Hoey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Kate Hoey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of Disclosure and Barring Service checks took (a) longer than eight weeks, (b) 12 weeks or more and (c) six months or more in each of the last three years; and if she will make a statement.

    Karen Bradley

    The Disclosure and Barring Service is a non-departmental public body which provides access to appropriate criminal record information for employers through its disclosure service for England and Wales. It also makes independent barring decisions about people who have harmed, or where there is considered to be a risk of harm to, a child or vulnerable person within the workplace. Given the sensitive nature of this work and the reliance on police forces to provide locally held intelligence, it would not be appropriate to introduce competition.

    Whilst no assessment has been made of the affect of timeliness on the number of job opportunities which may have been lost, the impact which delays may have on applicants is recognised. The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner and is working closely with those forces whose performance does not meet turnaround time targets. In very exceptional cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant, the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the relevant police force.

    The average end to end time taken to complete a DBS check, including the time taken by police forces, is listed in following table.

    Financial Year

    Average calendar days for a disclosure to be processed

    13/14

    11.5

    14/15

    14.4

    15/16

    14.5

    The proportion of checks which took longer than (a) eight weeks (b) 12 weeks and (c) six months is listed in the following table.

    Financial Year

    Disclosures which took longer than 8 weeks

    Disclosures which took longer than 12 weeks

    Disclosures which took longer than 6 Months

    % of Disclosures

    % of Disclosures

    % of Disclosures

    13/14

    2.6%

    0.8%

    0.0%

    14/15

    4.9%

    2.1%

    0.1%

    15/16

    5.2%

    3.5%

    0.3%

    “

  • Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2016-05-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when his Department plans to publish the draft BBC Charter.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The government is in the process of drafting the Royal Charter and we expect to publish a draft version in the coming months.

  • Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Danny Kinahan on 2016-07-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with the Consumer Council on UK ferry operators and their pricing structures.

    Mr John Hayes

    I have held no such recent discussions. The level of charges on ferries across the Irish Sea is a commercial matter for the companies concerned, subject to normal competition law.