Tag: 2016

  • Baroness Kramer – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Baroness Kramer – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kramer on 2016-01-25.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much is being spent on (1) billboards and poster sites, (2) television and radio advertising, (3) digital advertising, and (4) other forms of advertising, for the National Living Wage campaign.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The total budget allocated for the National Living Wage advertising campaign is £4.95 million. The campaign will run until the end of April and we expect to come in under budget.

    A breakdown of the anticipated costs for the campaign advertising can be found in the table below:

    Poster advertising £751,612.69

    TV and video on demand (VOD) £1,730,387.70

    Social media advertising £354,000

    Digital display advertising and Pay per click (PPC) £520,000

    Newspaper/magazine advertising £250,000

    Radio £299,826

    The Government’s new National Living Wage is a step up for working people, so it is important workers know their rights and that employers pay the new £7.20 from April 1 this year. Britain deserves a pay rise and as a One Nation Government we are making sure it gets one. The campaign will tell people about their entitlements and is targeted at employers, and workers currently earning the National Minimum Wage.

  • David Lammy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    David Lammy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Lammy on 2016-02-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many requests were made to her Department for a change of conditions of leave lifting the condition of no recourse to public funds in financial years (a) 2011-12, (b) 2012-13, (c) 2013-14 and (d) 2014-15.

    James Brokenshire

    The data requested is not available for each of the years requested and can only be provided from December 2014. The number of submitted applications for a change of conditions to allow recourse to public funds between December 2014 and 30 September 2015 is as follows:

    Period

    Number of Applications

    December 2014 – March 2015

    930

    April 2015 – September 2015

    1660

    This response represents the closest reply that can be provided within the constraints of our data reporting system.

    The data provided is considered Management Information and is subject to change. It has not been assured to the standard of National Statistics.

  • Sarah Champion – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Sarah Champion – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Champion on 2016-03-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will ring-fence long term funding for specialist domestic violence charities.

    Karen Bradley

    The Government published a new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Strategy on 8 March setting out an ambitious programme to make tackling VAWG everybody’s business, ensure victims and survivors get the support they need and inspire confidence in the Criminal Justice System to bring more perpetrators to justice as well as doing more to rehabilitate offenders.

    The strategy committed £80 million between 2016 and 2020 to protect women and girls from violence. This increased funding will help to deliver our goal to work with local commissioners to deliver a secure future for rape support centres, refuges and FGM and Forced Marriage Units, whilst driving a major change across all services which promotes early intervention and prevention including through specialist domestic violence charities.

  • 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, what recent assessment he has made of the fairness of conduct of elections in Serbia.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    Elections took place in Serbia on 24 April. The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) deployed a 22 person election monitoring mission and we and other countries fielded additional observers. We await final reports and ODIHR’s full and thorough assessment of the fairness and conduct of yesterday’s elections.

  • Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-05-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many UK nationals have been on the staff of the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU in each year since 2010; and what proportion of such staff in each such year were of administrator grade.

    Mr David Lidington

    The General Secretariat of the Council of the EU does not publish statistics on numbers of permanent staff by nationality. According to our own internal records, the total numbers of UK nationals employed by the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU, including secondees, in each year since 2010 are:

    2010: 159 (98 at AD)
    2011: 100 (50 at AD)
    2012: 99 (52 at AD)
    2013: 91 (56 at AD)
    2014: 87 (55 at AD)
    2015: 93 (56 at AD)

    The latest figure available is for May 2016 and is 101 (62 at AD).

  • Baroness Tonge – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Baroness Tonge – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2016-07-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they are supporting the government of Rwanda in its work to provide civil and political rights for its citizens.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    Rwanda has made impressive gains in securing economic and social rights; we want to see these continue. We support the Government of Rwanda’s Vision 2020 development programme which sets out their commitment to “the rule of law and the protection of human rights”.

    We speak candidly with Rwanda, publicly and privately, and have been clear that Rwanda needs to do more to make these aspirations a reality. For example, we submitted recommendations on media freedoms and political space during the Universal Periodic Review on Rwanda. The Department for International Development’s work in Rwanda is underpinned by an agreement on four Partnership Principles, which include respect for human rights and promoting good governance. Our regular private discussions with the Government of Rwanda are reinforced at Ministerial level, including during visits to Kigali by the former Minister of State at the Department for International Development, my Rt Hon Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfied (Grant Shapps), in September and the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) in December last year.

    We are also delivering training in partnership with the Rwandan National Police on a range of topics from public order management to gender based violence. This training supports the security forces to carry out their role of protecting the population in a human rights compliant manner.

  • Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-10-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of changes in pharmacy funding on waiting times for NHS prescriptions.

    David Mowat

    The Government’s proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond, on which we have consulted, are being considered against the public sector equality duty, the family test and the relevant duties of my Rt. hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health, under the National Health Service Act 2006.

    Our assessments include consideration of the potential impacts on the adequate provision of NHS pharmaceutical services, including the supply of medicines, access to NHS pharmaceutical services, supplementary hours, non-commissioned services, individuals with protected characteristics, impacts on other NHS services, health inequalities, individuals with restricted mobility and access to healthcare for deprived communities.

    An impact assessment will be completed to inform final decisions and published in due course.

    Our proposals are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. We believe these efficiencies can be made within community pharmacy 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. We are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared with others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

    We want a clinically focussed community pharmacy service that is better integrated with primary care and public health in line with the Five Year Forward View. This will help relieve the pressure on general practitioners and accident and emergency departments, ensure better use of medicines and better patient outcomes, and contribute to delivering seven day health and care services.

    The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England, Dr Keith Ridge has commissioned an independent review of community pharmacy clinical services. The review is being led by Richard Murray, Director of Policy at The King’s Fund. The final recommendations will be considered as part of the development of clinical and cost effective patient care by pharmacists and their teams.

    NHS England is also setting up a Pharmacy Integration Fund to support the development of clinical pharmacy practice in a wider range of primary care settings, resulting in a more integrated and effective NHS primary care patient pathway.

    The rollout of the additional 1,500 clinical pharmacists announced by NHS England will help to ease current pressures in general practice by working with patients who have long term conditions and others with multiple medications. Having a pharmacist on site will mean that patients who receive care from their general practice will be able to benefit from the expertise in medicines that these pharmacists provide.

  • Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lester of Herne Hill on 2015-12-21.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 17 December (HL4279), whether they plan to collect information about overseas funding of the preaching and teaching of Wahhabism in mosques and Muslim education bodies.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    HM Government’s Counter Extremism Strategy and counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, set out our approach to tackling the full range of factors that allow extremist and terrorist groups to grow and flourish. These include directly challenging ideologies, including those which have a theological basis. The review into funding of extremism in the UK will include funding that comes from overseas.

  • Lord Touhig – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Lord Touhig – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

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

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much is spent annually on training reservists in (1) the army, (2) the Royal Navy, and (3) the Royal Air Force.

    Earl Howe

    The requested information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  • 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, how many incidents at height in respect of each method of access there have been in each prison in each month since May 2010.

    Andrew Selous

    I refer the Hon Member to the answer for PQ 20749. The table attached provides a further breakdown of the data provided in that PQ.

    The vast majority of incidents at height are minor in nature and resolved quickly and professionally without injury, damage or disruption to the running of the prison. Many are short in duration, lasting less than 15 minutes and the majority occur when prisoners go onto netting on prison wings. Each incident is investigated fully to ensure lessons are learnt and best practice in managing incidents is shared across NOMS.

    These figures show that the Prime Minister and Justice Secretary are right and our prisons badly need reform. We are making progress: we have made it illegal to smuggle new psychoactive substances (NPS) into prisons and have trained over 300 sniffer dogs to detect NPS and are trialling the use of body worn cameras with front-line staff. But the only way to reduce disorder and violence in our prisons is to give those who work in prisons the tools necessary to better reform and rehabilitate offenders.