Tag: Dan Jarvis

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2015-11-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether reducing incidents of negligent care will be the primary focus of the Government’s proposed package of reforms aimed at reducing costs in medical negligence litigation.

Ben Gummer

Over the past 10 years claimant legal costs as a percentage of damages paid by the National Health Service have increased from 32% to 52%. We believe that claimant legal costs are disproportionate to the value of the damages paid, sometimes representing up to 299% for lower value claims, and disproportionate to the defendant costs. Ultimately this all comes out money for front line services. The proposal for fixed recoverable cost in lower value clinical negligence claims was suggested by Lord Justice Jackson in his report Reform of Civil Litigation Funding and Costs in England and Wales.

The Department is working closely with partners and interested parties to develop a proposal to introduce fixed recoverable costs for clinical negligence claims. The Department’s proposal in the consultation is a maximum threshold level of £250,000, based on Lord Justice Jackson’s original proposal and with a view to covering at least 80% of all claims. We welcome views on the proposal from all sectors. The results of a pre-consultation exercise with a number of key stakeholders, including representatives of claimant lawyers, and the consultation documentation, including the Impact Assessment, will be published early 2016 subject to relevant Committee clearances.

The level of potential savings will ultimately depend upon the final maximum threshold level proposed. By making legal costs proportionate to the damages paid we would hope to save circa £80 million per annum. The Department is also working with various clinical groups looking at how the current level of incidents can be reduced. In terms of maternity our target to reduce avoidable harm by 50% and save 6,000 lives.

The Department sees the fixed recoverable cost work as part of an overall strategic approach aimed at improving patient safety, improving customer care and improving litigation. Improving patient safety and reducing the incidents of harm is a key element of this.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-01-12.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the Carbon Price Floor tax on energy intensive industries.

Damian Hinds

The government recognises that the increased cost of electricity in the UK, as a result of the Carbon Price Floor (CPF), has an impact on the competitiveness of energy intensive industries that operate in international markets. This is why the most energy intensive industries are compensated for up to 85% of the indirect costs of the Carbon Price Floor – this is greatest amount currently allowed under EU law.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-01-27.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment the Government has made of the gender balance of public appointments to (a) executive non-departmental public bodies, (b) advisory non-departmental public bodies, (c) independent monitoring boards and (d) non-ministerial departments made since May 2015.

Matthew Hancock

The Government is committed to increasing the diversity of public appointments and​ has an​ aspiration that 50% of new public appointees should be women. We are making good ​progress; the most recent figures published for 2014-2015 show 44% of new appointments were made to women and a higher proportion of all public appointments (new appointments and reappointments) were made to women last year than at any other point in the last decade. I will continue to urge more women to apply for these important posts.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-02-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what the average pay is of (a) men and (b) women working in his Department.

Joseph Johnson

This information is published by the Office for National Statistics for all departments on an annual basis. The latest publication date was 8 October 2015.

Detailed breakdowns of mean and median salaries for both men and women (including within BIS) are contained in the Civil Service Statistics 2015 Statistical Bulletin Tables (tables 24 to 35), available here:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-414427

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-02-29.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 25 February 2016 to Question 27757, whether he plans to take steps to mitigate the potential effect of the public sector exit cap proposed in the Enterprise Bill on employees of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Greg Hands

The public sector exit payment cap will apply to organisations classified as within the public sector by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), this will include the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Restrictions imposed by the cap can be relaxed in exceptional circumstances for individuals or groups of individuals, subject to Ministerial approval. These circumstances will be set down in guidance and directions alongside the secondary regulations that will give effect to the cap.

The Government can also confirm that the regulations will not come into force before 1 October 2016 and therefore all exits before that date will not be within the scope of the public sector exit payment cap.

The public sector exit payment cap will apply to organisations classified as within the public sector by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), this will include the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

Restrictions imposed by the cap can be relaxed in exceptional circumstances for individuals or groups of individuals, subject to Ministerial approval. These circumstances will be set down in guidance and directions alongside the secondary regulations that will give effect to the cap.

The Government can also confirm that the regulations will not come into force before 1 October 2016 and therefore all exits before that date will not be within the scope of the public sector exit payment cap.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Attorney General, how much his Department received from the European Social Fund between 2007 and 2014; and how much his Department further received from the European Social Investment Fund from 2014 to the last month for which data is available.

Robert Buckland

The Law Officers’ Departments have not received any such funding.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-03-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, how much funding his Department received from the European Social Fund (a) between 2007 and 2014 and (b) from 2014 to the last month for which data is available.

David Mundell

The Scotland Office has received no funding from the European Social Fund.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps the EU is taking to counter extremism and radicalisation in (a) the Middle East, (b) South Asia and (c) Africa; and in what way the Government is contributing to those steps.

Mr David Lidington

The EU invests significantly in counter-extremism and -radicalisation. The UK supports and is actively involved in shaping the EU’s comprehensive approach which includes political dialogue led by HRVP Mogherini, wider development assistance, CSDP missions, human rights-based security sector reform, conflict prevention and resolution, support for research and analysis, and support to national efforts to develop Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) strategies. The UK also works with the EU through the Global Counter Terrorism Forum (GCTF) Working Group, with the EU co-chairing the Horn of Africa Working Group and UK co-chairing the CVE Working Group. A key joint effort here is addressing the whole lifecycle of radicalisation through capacity-building in priority countries.

It is not possible here exhaustively to list every step the EU is taking to counter extremism and radicalisation in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa, but examples include:

On (a) the Middle East, the EU is establishing CT Action Plans (including CVE) with priority countries in the Middle East and North Africa region.

On (b) South Asia, the EU seconds a security/CT expert to assist in Pakistan.

On (c) Africa, the EU is supporting the development of a Somali national CVE strategy.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-04-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how the Northern Powerhouse schools strategy plans to fast-track the best (a) schools to become teaching schools and (b) local heads to become national leaders of education.

Nick Gibb

Our White Paper, Education Excellence Everywhere, sets out the range of support we will offer to schools across England.

Where schools are failing, Regional Schools Commissioners will identify a suitable academy sponsor to turn them around. In areas where there are too few sponsors, we will recruit new sponsors, including high-performing schools and more sponsors from business, charity and philanthropy. We will also encourage existing sponsors to expand, increasing incentives and minimising barriers, learning from the investment we have already made through the Northern Sponsor Fund.

For other struggling schools, we will ensure there is nationwide coverage of system leaders (teaching schools and National Leaders of Education), who will be expected to work with weaker schools to support them to improve. To help achieve this, we will improve how we designate system leaders by introducing a more sophisticated approach based on timely and accurate data rather than relying heavily on Ofsted judgements. We will also partner schools with the potential to become strong system leaders with existing teaching schools and National Leaders of Education.

Through the Department’s strategy for Achieving Excellence Areas, we will target our existing programmes to secure sufficient high quality teachers, leaders, system leaders, sponsors and members of governing boards on the areas of greatest need. At the Budget, the Government announced that we will invest an additional £20 million a year to build on this strategy to raise education standards across the Northern Powerhouse. The allocation of this funding will depend on the identified need and will be reassessed each year, based on the evidence.

For the additional funding announced in the budget, decisions on how the funding will be allocated for the 2016-17 financial year will be made by the autumn of this year and will be informed by the emerging findings of the review by Sir Nick Weller. We will be publishing the terms of reference for Sir Nick Weller’s review shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-05-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will take steps to ensure that the proposals to more closely align the approval process for the new cancer drugs fund with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence do not limit access to potential life-saving treatments such as Avastin for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

George Freeman

Since October 2010, the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) has helped over 84,000 people in England in accessing life-extending cancer drugs that would not otherwise have been available to them.

NHS England is responsible for the operational management of the Fund and has consulted, jointly with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, on new arrangements for the CDF which will go live on 1 July 2016.

NHS England has advised that, under these new arrangements, it envisages that a greater number of cancer drugs will be funded from baseline commissioning. This will be as a consequence of more appropriate pricing arrangements proposed by pharmaceutical manufacturers and better evidence being available through the Fund as to longer term patient outcomes.