Tag: Dan Jarvis

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 International Development, what steps the EU is taking to tackle poverty in (a) the Middle East, (b) South Asia and (c) Africa; and what the Government’s contribution is to those steps.

Mr Nick Hurd

The European Union (EU), including its Member States, is the world’s largest aid donor. In 2014, the EU and its Member States spent nearly £50bn of Official Development Assistance (ODA), which represents around half of global ODA. The UK has a powerful voice on development through its EU Membership and has achieved real changes to the EU development programme in line with UK priorities.

More detail on the EU development programme can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sites/devco/files/2015-annual-report-web_en.pdf

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department intends to support and mentor weaker schools as part of the Northern Powerhouse schools strategy.

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, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust’s proposal for collaboration between the NHS and Vertex to widen access to the treatment Orkambi on the treatment of the patients with that disease.

George Freeman

The Department has received the Cystic Fibrosis Trust’s proposals for an arrangement that would potentially allow access to Orkambi (lumacaftor in combination with ivacaftor) as part of a Managed Access Scheme in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) appraisal of Orkambi.

I have encouraged the Trust and the manufacturer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, to engage with NICE to consider whether there remains scope for this, or any other, proposal to be taken into account in its appraisal and the Department is also engaging with the manufacturer directly on this matter.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-10-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the implications of the outcome of the EU referendum for future employment levels in the agricultural sector.

George Eustice

The Government has manifesto commitments to develop a 25 year plan to grow more and sell more British food and to treble the number of apprentices in food and farming. These commitments are unaffected by the EU referendum result.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2015-10-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to reduce poverty in (a) Barnsley Central constituency and (b) other former mining communities.

Priti Patel

This Government is tackling poverty through our new Life Chances agenda. This will drive real action which will make the biggest difference to the most disadvantaged children – now and in the future. This approach will ensure that Government action is focused on tackling the root causes of child poverty – worklessness, educational failure, family breakdown, problem debt and addiction.

This Government believes that work is the best route out of poverty and is therefore focused on getting people into employment. With more than two million more people in work than in 2010, and with the number of workless households at a record low, the progress made by this Government has been significant including in Barnsley Central constituency. In the constituency, over the past year, the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, or not in work and claiming Universal Credit, fell by 13 per cent.

We do not have specific data on all former mining communities and this information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2015-11-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to develop a comprehensive strategy to combat ISIL and simultaneously prioritise the protection of civilians in Syria.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The UK already has a robust, long-term and comprehensive strategy to degrade and defeat ISIL. As the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (David Cameron) said on 16 November, the UK’s approach covers a full spectrum response – military power, counter-terrorism expertise and defeating the poisonous narrative that is the root cause of this evil. We are reinforcing our investment in our response and working tirelessly to protect UK citizens, both at home and abroad, from the threat posed by ISIL.

We are also playing a leading role in the 65-member Global Coalition tackling ISIL. That international effort includes military action against ISIL in its heartlands in Iraq and Syria, coordinated international efforts to cut off its finances, tackling foreign fighter flows, and stabilising areas which have been liberated from ISIL. The Coalition is also confronting ISIL’s ideology by exposing this extremism for what it is – a belief system that glorifies violence and subjugates its people, most of all Muslims. On 28 November, I co-chaired the Coalition Strategic Communications Working Group’s social media conference in London.

The UK remains committed to protecting civilians in Syria, both from the brutality of ISIL and the indiscriminate killing of the Assad regime. I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the answer I gave to Question 15059 on 13 November.

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

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether the Government plans to introduce a one-month time limit on engagements for (a) small business and (b) other limited company contractors before they are treated as employees for tax purposes.

Mr David Gauke

Where people would have been employees if they were providing their services directly, the intermediaries legislation (known as IR35) requires that they pay broadly the same tax and National Insurance as other employees.

The Government estimates that currently only around 10% of people who should pay tax on at least part of their company’s income under these rules do so. This non-compliance is both unfair and estimated to cost over £400 million a year. The Government is therefore looking to improve the legislation in a way that protects the Exchequer and improves fairness. However, it is not the Government’s intention to widen the scope of the rules.

The Government published a discussion document on 17 July 2015 that set out the issues in more detail and invited views on options for reform. The discussion period closed on 30 September and the Government will announce next steps in due course.