Tag: Cathy Jamieson

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cathy Jamieson on 2014-04-30.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effect of his Department’s withdrawal from the Debt Management Plan Protocol guidance group on the development of future non-statutory debt solutions.

Andrea Leadsom

The Government is committed to improving standards in the debt management industry to deliver a better deal for consumers and greater transparency for creditors. The Debt Management Plan Protocol played a crucial role in meeting this objective, working in complement with the OFT regulatory framework, and paved the way for more robust regulation of the sector by the FCA.

From 1 April, responsibility for regulating debt management firms, along with all other consumer credit firms, transferred from the Office of Fair Trading to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Consumers will be better protected under the new regime – the FCA will:

· police the gateway to the market more thoroughly;

· proactively identify risks to consumers;

· focus its supervisory resources on areas most likely to cause consumer harm;

· approve individuals in influential roles in firms;

· operate a flexible and responsive regime;

· use its wide enforcement toolkit;

· and ensure consumers have access to redress.

The FCA will thoroughly assess every debt management firm’s fitness to trade as part of the authorisation process – debt management firms will be amongst the first to require authorisation.

The FCA has also introduced new requirements for debt management firms, including:

· Prudential requirements: Debt management firms often hold consumers’ money – the FCA is requiring large debt management firms to hold capital to ensure that consumers don’t risk losing their money if things go wrong.

· Guidance added that debt management firms should not allocate more than half the money received from customers in debt management plans to meeting their fees and charges.

With the new FCA regulatory regime in place which will greatly improve consumer protection in the debt management market, the Government decided following discussions with a range of stakeholders that it was the right time to step away from an active role in the Protocol.

The Government hopes that the stakeholders involved in the Protocol will continue to work together to help the FCA monitor the market and drive best practice in the sector.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cathy Jamieson on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if he will list the energy companies which have agreed to (a) introduce arrangements before the end of 2014 to limit bad bills to businesses to one year where the supplier is at fault and (b) end automatic roll-overs for new customers.

Michael Fallon

British Gas, Edf Energy, E.ON, First Utility, Good Energy, Opus Energy, RWE nPower, Scottish Power and SSE publically announced that they plan to limit back bills where the company is at fault to one year by the end of 2013, or as soon as practically possible in 2014.

British Gas, Edf Energy, E,ON, First Utility, RWE nPower, Scottish Power and SSE announced their intention to end the use of automatic rollover contracts for new customers before the end of 2014.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cathy Jamieson on 2014-06-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what progress he has made in providing funding to assist East Ayrshire Council with the restoration of former open-cast sites in East Ayrshire; and if he will make a statement.

Michael Fallon

Proposals have been put to me by Scottish Government Ministers asking Her Majesty’s Government to provide a financial contribution towards the costs of restoring abandoned opencast coal mining sites in East Ayrshire and other areas of Scotland. I continue to give consideration to those proposals against the backdrop of other issues currently affecting the coal industry and of spending priorities more generally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cathy Jamieson on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which Scottish airports will benefit from the Regional Air Connectivity Fund.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Government announced on 6 June that a Public Service Obligation will be established on the air route between Dundee Airport and London Stansted Airport from 1 July 2014 for a two-year period, with support from the Regional Air Connectivity Fund announced in last year’s Spending Round.

The Scottish devolved administration or regional body may apply for access to this fund to maintain an air link from other Scottish airports to London, where there is a risk that an existing link may be lost, and where the case for a Public Service Obligation has been made.

The Chancellor announced in this year’s Budget that the funding would be doubled to £20 million per year, and also extended to allow for the support for start-up aid for new air routes from UK regional airports. European Union aviation State aid guidelines allow for provision of start-up aid to facilitate start-up of new routes from airports which handle fewer than five million passengers per annum. This will therefore cover all Scotland’s airports apart from Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The Department for Transport is working with the Treasury to develop guidance that will clarify how the Government will ordinarily expect to interpret the European Union guidelines, and explain how the funding process will work.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cathy Jamieson on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of passport applications have been dealt with within the target timescale in each of the last 12 months.

James Brokenshire

Expected service standards for passport applications are given at
www.gov.uk.

Information in respect of the Member’s constituency is not available and the
cost of collating it would be disproportionate.

The table below shows the proportions of UK passport applications in each of
the last 12 months which have been processed within the published service
standards.

2013	% straightforward applications processed within the published timescales	% non-straightforward applications processed within the published timescales
June	100%	97.8%
July	100%	96.9%
August	100%	96.4%
September	100%	96.0%
October	100%	95.9%
November	99.99%	96.5%
December	99.99%	96.3%
2014
January	99.99%	96.8%
February	99.98%	98.1%
March	99.95%	96.8%
April	98.59%	99.6%
May	92.26%	93.9%

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cathy Jamieson on 2014-06-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of applicants who have upgraded to a premium service following contact with the Passport Office in each of the last 12 months for which figures are available.

James Brokenshire

The table below shows the number of people who have upgraded from a standard to
a premium service.

Month	Number of upgrades
January 2014	6
February 2014	17
Mar 2014	117
Apr 2014	996
May 2014	1024

The specific information required is held in application ‘case notes’ on
Her Majesty’s Passport Office systems which cannot be mined through database
queries. Data presented here is an estimate for 2014.

Information on the number of upgrades prior to January 2014 has not been
collated centrally.