The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2016-09-08.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether any ministerial extended offices have been set up since 13 July 2016.
Ben Gummer
No new Extended Ministerial Offices have been established since 13 July. We will report in due course in an appropriate Civil Service update on the experience of their operation to date.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Austin on 2016-01-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to prevent children from purchasing knives and other weapons online.
Karen Bradley
The Government continues to work with the police and partners to ensure we reduce violence and knife crime, and in the year ending June 2015, knife crime recorded by the police was 17% lower than 2010. We are aware of concerns about zombie knives and we are currently considering representations including the letter of 13 January from the Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for the West Midlands and on 21 January from the prospective mayoral candidate for London Zac Goldsmith. A reply will be sent shortly and we will offer to meet with the PCC.
We are currently considering what action to take against the prevalence of zombie knives on our streets. We are talking to retailers, including Amazon, about the action they can take. There are strict laws on the sale of knives to under 18s and on how knives can be marketed. We are concerned about any knives being carried in public especially if used to threaten and inflict violence. It is a criminal offence to possess a knife in public without good reason, and if a person is convicted a second time they now face a minimum mandatory custodial sentence following the introduction of this change by the Government in July 2015.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine West on 2016-02-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to improve the teaching of Personal Social Health and Economic education and Sex and Relationships Education in schools that Ofsted has identified as requiring improvement when teaching those subjects.
Edward Timpson
The Government believes that all children should have the opportunity to receive a high quality and appropriate sex and relationship education (SRE). SRE is compulsory in all maintained secondary schools and many primary schools also teach it in an age-appropriate way. The Government also expects academies and free schools to deliver SRE as part of their provision of a broad and balanced curriculum.
Any state-funded school teaching SRE must have regard to the Secretary of State’s SRE guidance (2000). The Department has received requests about updating the existing SRE guidance which we will carefully consider.
Initial Teacher Training (ITT) is currently determined by the Teachers’ Standards, which all trainee teachers must be able to demonstrate by the end of their training. The Standards set out the key principles of good subject pedagogy and the importance of subject knowledge development across the curriculum. Schools and headteachers are best placed to determine which staff learning activities will be most beneficial for their schools and we expect them to lead the personal development of their teachers to improve the quality of all round teaching.
The Department supports schools’ efforts to improve PSHE teaching by drawing schools’ attention to a range of high quality PSHE education teaching resources, including quality resources, lesson plans, a programme of study, factsheets and case studies. These resources are kite-marked by the PSHE Association to ensure that schools can trust the materials they use and improve their teaching.
Ofsted does not inspect individual curriculum subjects. However, aspects of PSHE education and SRE will inform its judgment on personal development, behaviour and welfare. Inspectors must also consider the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils. Schools have responsibility for acting upon the inspection reports they receive and any weaknesses will be considered when the school is next inspected.
We expect schools to ensure that young people, whatever their developing sexuality or identity, feel that SRE education is relevant to them and sensitive to their needs. The statutory SRE guidance is clear that schools should teach about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Sexually transmitted infections are also covered as part of the national curriculum for science at key stage 3.
We welcome the supplementary SRE guidance ‘SRE for the 21st Century’ produced by Brook, the PSHE Association and the Sex Education Forum, which includes guidance on ensuring that SRE is inclusive. All children and young people, regardless of background or identity, are entitled to quality SRE that helps them build confidence and stay healthy.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine McKinnell on 2016-03-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department’s consultation on out-of school education settings, launched on 26 November 2015, how many consultation responses were received (a) in favour of and (b) opposing the consultation proposals; and by which date she expects her Department to publish its response to that consultation.
Edward Timpson
The Government wants children to be educated in a safe environment without exposure to hateful and extremist views that undermine British values. The call for evidence on out-of-school education settings was launched on 26 November 2015 and ran for six and a half weeks closing on 11 January 2016
Around 3,000 people completed the published response form, either online or manually. The Department for Education received a significant number of further representations to the consultation by email and post. All responses and representations are being logged, analysed and verified
In line with Cabinet Office guidance, we will be publishing a response to the consultation in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of what constitutes a safe level of exposure of electromagnetic fields from mobile telephone use for (a) the population as a whole and (b) young people.
Jane Ellison
Government policy is that exposures to electromagnetic fields from mobile phones should comply with the guidelines on limiting exposures from the International Commission on Non-ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). Public Health England keeps the evidence relevant to this policy under review and published a comprehensive review of the evidence prepared by its independent Advisory Group on Non-ionising Radiation in 2012. Acute and long-term effects of high frequency exposure from the use of mobile phones have been studied extensively without showing any conclusive evidence of adverse health effects. The ICNIRP website can be found at:
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Amess on 2016-05-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 21 April 2016 to Question 34094, if he will provide examples of what his Department might consider an adequate justification for clinical commissioning groups not investing in mental health services as planned.
Alistair Burt
The Mental Health Taskforce report was published on 15 February 2016. The taskforce marks a big step towards our ambition of parity of esteem for mental and physical health. The spending of clinical commissioning group (CCG) resources on mental health as indicated in proportionate increases to general CCG spending is a priority for the Department.
Mental Health Parity of Esteem is a key plan metric for NHS England and any commissioners not planning to achieve this are being scrutinised locally at regional level and centrally at director level. NHS England’s central and regional teams are working with local commissioners to assure that spend on mental health services increases in line with the growth in each organisations programme allocation other than in exceptional circumstances.
In assessing whether a case is exceptional, consideration is made of the level of medium term investment in mental health services by individual commissioners and instances where individual commissioners are working with other commissioners to increase spend for the wider health economy. But any such instances will require clear evidence that will be scrutinised as part of the assurance process.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Healey on 2016-06-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what discussions he has had with local authorities on the definition of higher value for the purposes of sales of higher value council homes under the Housing and Planning Act 2016.
Brandon Lewis
There has been extensive engagement with local authorities about the policy on higher value vacant local authority housing, which has included discussion about the definition of higher value. All local authorities that hold a Housing Revenue Account have been invited to at least one of the following events:
– a ministerial meeting with local authority members and officers;
– a local authority Chief Executive discussion with the Permanent Secretary;
– a round table discussion between officials of local authorities and DCLG.
Additionally, a working group comprising local authorities and other stakeholders has provided technical advice on the policy.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-09-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the change in the time taken to process minor planning applications between 2010 and 2015; and if he will make a statement on the reasons for the change.
Gavin Barwell
The Technical consultation on the implementation of planning changes, published in February 2016, set out our proposals for expanding the approach to improving planning performance in the processing of planning applications. We are considering responses received.
We want to raise performance, so we are extending the designation regime – which has improved processing time on major planning applications – to minor planning applications.
The attached table shows the performance in time taken to process major and minor planning applications.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-01-14.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority can confirm that a stated aim of the proposed research to perform genome editing in human embryos by researchers at the Francis Crick Institute has been to better understand why miscarriages occur in some pregnancies; if so, whether they can disclose which specific assay the researchers concerned have proposed using to determine whether embryos subjected to gene editing might be either able or unable to implant in a womb; and if not, why not.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, as amended, permits the editing of genes in human embryos for research purposes only. It is illegal under the Act to place such embryos in a woman. There are no plans to change this.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has advised that its licence committee considered an application to use CRISPR-Cas9 (a genome editing technique) in one of their licensed research projects on 14 January 2016. The outcome of the committee’s consideration and a description of the research will be made public as soon as the minutes have been agreed and the applicant has been informed.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-02-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners complained about an attack by rats in the last five years.
Andrew Selous
This information is not held centrally.