Tag: Chi Onwurah

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-07-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department’s distributed ledger technology benefits payments trial, whether the services being delivered by that trial have passed the Government Digital Service assessment process; and when he expects the outcome of that trial to be published.

Damian Hinds

The DWP works continuously with industry partners to identify and test new innovations that could save taxpayer money, safeguard information and better protect payments to customers.

The DWP is undertaking some small scale research involving blockchain technology which is expected to last 3-6 months with the results available in the last quarter of 2016. It uses a private permissioned distributed ledger to allow participants to store their transactions, including payments from DWP. Those transactions can then be viewed securely on a mobile application so that they can, if they wish, monitor and allocate their spending into categories, check their available balance and plan future spending. There are currently about 12 people in the trial which we expect to increase to around 24 people by the close.

The participants in the trial have complete control over their data and how it is used; the government does not receive or see any of that data. The DWP takes privacy and security extremely seriously and this will form part of the learning from the trial.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-09-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of locating the Security Industry Authority outside London; and what alternative locations have been considered for that authority.

Brandon Lewis

The Security Industry Authority is already considering options for a move from Holborn as part of its planning around estates.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-10-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that GP surgeries have the (a) resources and (b) training to provide a patient-friendly service, including appointments with a preferred GP in advance and at a time convenient to patients; and what rights patients have if GP surgeries do not meet such standards.

David Mowat

The Government is committed to improving access to general practitioner (GP) services as part of our plan for a seven day National Health Service, and has invested £175 million in the GP Access Fund to test improved and innovative access to GP services. Across the two waves of the Access Fund there are 57 schemes covering over 2,500 practices and 18 million patients, testing a wide variety of approaches that will ensure a patient-friendly services. These include opening 8am-8pm on weekdays and weekends; better use of telecare and health apps; more innovative ways to access services by video call, email or telephone; and developing more integrated services with a single point of contact to co-ordinate patient services.

GPs are contractually required to provide essential services to meet the reasonable needs of their patients within core hours. Under the NHS constitution, patients have the right to express a preference for using a particular doctor within their GP practice, and for the practice to try to comply. The 2015-16 (July 2016) GP Patient Survey found that 91% of patients who had a GP they preferred to see them at least some of the time, and 92.1% of patients who got an appointment found it was convenient. If a patient believes they are not receiving this standard of care they have the right to complain; any complaint made must be acknowledged within three working days and be properly investigated.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-10-19.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what safeguards the Government plans to put in place to protect customers from fraud and cyber security risks if they use new products and services in an open banking environment.

Simon Kirby

Improving the resilience of the finance sector to risks such as cyber security is a priority for the Government. HM Treasury works closely with the financial regulators to drive this improvement; it is their responsibility to supervise banks’ operations. The Financial Conduct Authority has a specific objective on consumer protection.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published the final report of its market investigation into retail banking on 9 August 2016. As part of this the CMA requires the nine largest UK banks to develop and adopt an open banking standard for application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow access to customer account information, as set out in the revised Payment Services Directive (PSDII) which will come into force in January 2018. These nine banks are required to deliver open data APIs by Q1 2017, and deliver the full open API banking standard by early 2018. Data protection and cyber security are key considerations in PSDII, and the Government will be consulting on the transposition of this directive shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-11-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what the FTE equivalent headcount figures are for Ofcom for each year for which data is available since 2009.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The information requested has been provided by Ofcom and is set out in the following table:

* Reduction due to Ofcom’s comprehensive expenditure review

** Includes transfer of 48 roles due to integration of postal service regulation

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-11-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has received representations from the Nigerian government on the licensing of Radio Biafra.

Mr Edward Vaizey

We have received no representations from the Nigerian government about Radio Biafra.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-11-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, when the decision was made to connect the monitoring and control of the National Grid to the internet; and what risk analysis was undertaken prior to that decision being made.

Andrea Leadsom

Cyber security is one of the Government’s top national security priorities. Whilst National Grid is a private company, DECC is working with them on cyber security, as well as broader issues of security and resilience. We are also working with other industry partners, government departments and agencies, to ensure that the risks to the energy sector are understood and that appropriate mitigations are established.

National Grid has provided the following additional information:

“National Grid’s Information Security programme has, among other steps, advocated a defence in depth strategy by instituting rigid network segmentation and isolation between our business and SCADA [Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition] systems. Further, National Grid policy does not allow for direct connection between external networks and SCADA systems.”

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-12-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when the Government plans to publish its final findings from the eight market test pilots under the Exploring superfast coverage beyond 95 per cent programme.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Broadband Delivery UK’s Market Test Pilot scheme has been exploring alternative technologies, including wireless, with the aim of better informing how to provide superfast broadband to the hardest to reach premises. The results of these pilots will be published soon.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-12-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues on setting up the Institute for Coding; and how applications for the £20 million funding can be made.

Mr Edward Vaizey

My officials are working with officials in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on proposals for the development of the new Institute. Further details on the competition will be announced in the new year.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-01-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will ask Ofcom to compare the predicted and actual proportion of BT’s ducts that are able to have fibre blown through them without further civil works.

Mr Edward Vaizey

All ducts and poles in BT’s network beyond the telephone exchange are open to other providers, under the Passive Infrastructure Access obligation imposed by Ofcom, to provide primarily residential broadband services. In its Digital Communications Review. Ofcom is looking at the future role of passive infrastructure access in facilitating competition and innovation.