Tag: David Crausby

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2016-10-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many full-time equivalent staff UK Visas and Immigration employs on its North West MP Account Management Team.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The North West MP Account Management Team employs 9.8 full time equivalent (FTE). However, it relies on expertise and contributions from across the business to enable the service to provide comprehensive and helpful replies.

To try and quantify the full extent of UKVI work on Members’ immigration enquiries alone, staff costs to collate this information would exceed the £850 threshold for answering Parliamentary Questions.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2015-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to encourage the Premier League adequately to contribute to the financing of grassroots football.

Tracey Crouch

I will be continuing the discussions with the Premier League about how best to support the game. Government believesthat given the size of the League’s new TV deal, football’s grassroots should receive greater investment than ever before, and we will work in partnership to ensure that this happens.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what Government spending was in reform of the process of procurement and across central Government in each year since May 2010.

Mr Nick Hurd

The Cabinet Office has been working with central Government departments to implement a demanding Commercial Reform agenda which is aimed at leveraging the Crown’s buying power, deriving better value for money and savings for the taxpayer to support deficit reduction and growth. This work has been carried out across departments and costs are not held centrally.

As a result of our work to date, we have made the way we buy goods and services in central Government quicker, more competitive, more transparent, better value and far simpler than before. This has saved the taxpayer £2.9bn in 2010-11, with a further £3.0bn in 2011-12, £3.8bn in 2012-13 and £5.4bn in 2013-14. These savings are all calculated against a 2009-10 baseline and include both recurring and non-recurring items.

All of this could have been started before the 2010 General Election. However in May 2010 there was no effective central oversight of procurement, commercial skills were lacking and Government didn’t even know who its strategic suppliers were, let alone how much was being spent with them.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2014-06-26.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions his Department has had with the (a) Prudential Regulation Authority and (b) Financial Conduct Authority about reports of UK banks paying allowances to employees in order to avoid the EU’s bonus cap; and what steps he plans to take to reduce such practices.

Andrea Leadsom

The UK is at the forefront of global efforts to tackle excessive pay in the financial sector and ensure that pay is aligned with performance, with a tough Remuneration Code that requires deferral of at least 60% of bonuses of senior bankers and limits the amounts that can be paid in cash. Bonuses are down significantly since their peak under the last Government, and are now largely deferred and paid in shares.

In contrast, the EU’s bonus cap is a poorly thought through measure that undermines rather than reinforces our efforts by pushing up fixed pay. It was introduced without any proper impact assessment and has issues around its compatibility with the EU Treaty; for these reasons we are challenging it in the European Court of Justice. However, pending the outcome, the Government is fully implementing the cap in the UK, and the Prudential Regulation Authority is responsible for ensuring that the banks comply with these rules.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to record cases of bullying as reported by victims in schools by counts of cyber-bullying and similar sub-categories.

Elizabeth Truss

There is no legal requirement on schools to record and report incidents of bullying and we have no plans to introduce one. Schools are free to develop their own approaches to monitoring bullying and exercise their own judgement as to what will work best for their pupils. For some schools, this will involve formal recording of incidents so that they can monitor bullying and identify where it is recurring between the same pupils. Alternatively, some schools may prefer to take a different approach, such as surveying their pupils anonymously to identify trends in bullying, including how safe young people feel at school.

Schools are held clearly to account by Ofsted for pupil behaviour and safety which includes how they tackle bullying. Inspectors consider the types, rates and patterns of bullying and the effectiveness of the school’s actions to prevent and tackle all forms of bullying and harassment, including cyberbullying.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps he is taking to ensure that the recent reductions in wholesale gas prices available to energy companies are benefiting consumers.

Michael Fallon

In a competitive market, pricing decisions are a commercial matter for companies.

Consumers can put pressure on companies to reduce prices by switching to the best deal for them – Ofgem’s Retail Market Reforms to deliver a simpler, clear market combined with Government’s push to significantly reduce switching times and require suppliers to share consumer data with trusted third parties, should make this easier to do.

The Government supported Ofgem’s recent letter to the largest suppliers, challenging them to explain to consumers the impact of falling wholesale prices on their retail prices. Evidence that large suppliers raise prices more quickly when costs increase than they reduce prices when costs fall was one of the issues underpinning Ofgem’s recent referral of the energy markets to the Competition and Markets Authority.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress he has made on provision for the kennelling and seizure of suspected dangerous dogs; and what changes he expects to make to the regulations on dangerous dogs.

George Eustice

On 6 February 2013 the Government announced, as part of its package of measures to tackle irresponsible ownership of dogs, that it would provide powers for the police to allow suspected prohibited type dogs to be kept with the owners in cases where they considered that the dog was not a threat to public safety. The Government is in the process of making changes to the relevant regulations to enable this power to be available to the police.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Crausby on 2014-06-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the change in waiting times for an initial decision for Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) visa applications in the last year; what the average waiting time is for an initial decision for a Tier 1 application; and what assessment she has made of the economic effect of the time taken for such decisions on economic growth.

James Brokenshire

The average waiting time for a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) customer in the financial
year 2013-14 was 125 calendar days. The number of days taken to process
applications dropped by 50 days over the course of the financial year and
processing times continue to decrease.

A record number of applications were decided in the financial year 2013-14, and
there is nothing to suggest that processing times are deterring entrepreneurs
from applying.

Month Despatched	Average Calendar Days Between Application Raised Date and Despatch Date
Apr-13	131
May-13	148
Jun-13	142
Jul-13	129
Aug-13	134
Sep-13	126
Oct-13	96
Nov-13	108
Dec-13	114
Jan-14	141
Feb-14	97
Mar-14	81
Overall Average / Total Cases	125