Tag: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 23 November (HL3659), why no national assessment has been made of the effect of hospital trusts charging disabled people to park their cars, and whether they have made any regional or local assessments about that issue.

Lord Prior of Brampton

NHS trusts have the power to charge for car parking under paragraph 20 of Schedule 4 of the National Health Service Act 2006. Foundation Trusts (FTs) have similar general powers under section 43(3) of the NHS Act 2006. Individual NHS organisations decide locally whether or not to institute charges and they also carry out any assessment of the impact of such charges.

As part of an assessment, trusts consider a range of factors, including the availability of parking spaces, the existence of alternative transport options and the cost of providing car parking. Such matters vary from place to place and therefore cannot be centrally assessed.

In addition, as public bodies, NHS organisations must ensure they are compliant with the public sector equality duty at Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010. The conduct of equality assessments is a local matter and the outcomes are not collected centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2016-10-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Fair Tax Mark for businesses.

Lord Young of Cookham

The Government has recently legislated for the publication of tax strategy by the largest businesses; promoting board accountability for tax, and encouraging transparency on approach to tax planning. In this context, the Government welcomes all business moves to improve transparency over their own tax affairs.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that tunnelling engineering skills in the UK are not lost.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

.

In 2012, the Government published “Tunnelling: A Capability Analysis” which identified the tunnelling skills essential to deliver key projects, including Crossrail, HS2 and the Thames Tideway Tunnel.

To help meet this demand and maintain the UK’s skills base, the National Construction College delivers training at a purpose-built facility: the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy in East London.

In September, the Government published the National Infrastructure Plan for Skills, to ensure the UK has the right skills base to deliver and maintain world-class infrastructure. This report sets out the scale of the challenge and is just the first step. The Government is now consulting with stakeholders across industry, academia and training providers to build a series of detailed actions to address the skills challenge.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2016-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government in which countries UK aid is being used to fund private healthcare provision.

Lord Bates

The UK supports developing countries across Africa and Asia to make faster progress towards universal health coverage, with a focus on ensuring that poor people can use the health services they need without the risk of financial hardship associated with direct out-of-pocket payments. Poor people often rely on non-state service providers for much of their health care. The UK therefore supports private providers where this offers the best value for money in reaching the poor with good quality services.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prisoners are presently held at HMP Holloway.

Lord Faulks

As published on the MOJs website, on Friday 30 October 2015 there were 544 prisoners held in HM Prison and Young Offender Institution Holloway.

A figure for Friday 27 November 2015 will be published on the 11 December 2015 on the Ministry of Justice website.

Individual prison population and capacity information for every prison in England and Wales, as well as the total population and useable operational capacity of the prison estate is published monthly on the Ministry of Justice website.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2016-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the role of private healthcare providers in delivering government aid programmes.

Lord Bates

In most low income countries the non-state sector delivers a substantial share of healthcare, with poorer people often relying on informal providers. This is usually in response to insufficient, poor quality or inaccessible state provision.

However, informal and unregulated private providers can sometime provide low quality health services and commodities, and out-of-pocket payments can contribute to further impoverishing low income groups. Ensuring that services are accessible and affordable to the poor usually requires government or external funding arrangements.

The UK Government uses its aid programmes to support the strengthening of mixed public and private health systems to deliver quality, accessible and affordable healthcare to the poor and uses thorough monitoring and evaluation processes to ensure that results are achieved and lessons learned.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2015-12-08.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what effect the UK’s opting out of the Prüm Decision has had on solving crime.

Lord Bates

The Government opted out of the Prüm decisions in December 2014 because we were not then in a position to implement it and could have been subject to substantial fines from the European Court of Justice for our non-implementation had we stayed in. On 26 November the Government issued Command Paper 9149 which recommended rejoining Prüm and set out a clear timeframe for implementation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2015-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the obstacles people will encounter when searching for company statements on supply chains, which are required to be produced by all companies that have a turnover of £36 million or more.

Lord Bates

The Government wants to ensure that ‘slavery and human trafficking statements’ are accessible and easy to find. That is why the Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires organisations to place a link to their statement in a prominent place on their website. This should ensure that people do not encounter undue obstacles when searching for company statements.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2015-10-20.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that businesses with a turnover of £36 million or more are ready to comply with the obligations of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Transparency in Supply Chains) Regulations 2015.

Lord Bates

Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is now in force. Many businesses called for this provision, we consulted on the turnover threshold, and then involved businesses in drafting associated guidance. Therefore, the Government is confident businesses will be ready.

We have also included a transition provision so that organisations will have time to consider the guidance before the first statements are due on or after 31 March 2016.