Tag: Douglas Carswell

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 24 November 2015 to Question 17025, what plans he has to increase the borrowing and investing powers of clinical commissioning groups to ensure that employment terms and conditions for GPs encourage employment in areas with (a) an elderly demographic and (b) a high workload.

Alistair Burt

There are no current plans to increase the borrowing and investing powers of clinical commissioning groups. Responsibility for ensuring all patients have access to NHS primary medical services rests with NHS England.

Those providing services under a contract with NHS England, or clinical commissioning groups acting on their behalf, are independent contractors and not employees of the NHS.

Practices may employ general practitioners to assist them in the provision of services under the contract. Where they do so, they are required to apply, as a minimum, model terms and conditions of service as agreed between NHS Employers and the General Practitioners’ Committee of the British Medical Association.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-01-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much the Royal Air Force Airbus A400M cost from development and approval to the end of 2015.

Mr Philip Dunne

Since being approved in 2000, the cost of the UK A400M Atlas acquisition programme to the end of 2015 has been £1,402 million.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans his Department has to review the efficacy of the 111 service in ensuring that 999 is not used in medical non-emergencies.

Alistair Burt

NHS 111 services are commissioned by local clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) that should ensure all the services they commission are effective.

NHS England’s monthly published data for the period April to September 2015 show that 11% of calls handled by NHS 111 resulted in dispatch of an ambulance.

Most recent figures show that nationally 90.4% of NHS 111 users are satisfied with the service they get.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-02-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Prime Minister’s Oral Statement of 22 February 2016, Official Report, column 35, on the European Council, whether his Department is undertaking planning in the eventuality of a majority leave vote in the EU referendum.

Michael Fallon

At the February European Council the Government negotiated a new settlement, giving the United Kingdom a special status in a reformed European Union. The Government’s position, as set out by the Prime Minister to the House on 22 February 2016, is that the UK will be stronger, safer and better off remaining in a reformed EU.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the time taken to process Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

Karen Bradley

In the vast majority of cases, disclosure certificates are issued in a timely manner. Performance data relating to February 2016 indicates that average processing time for Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) applications was 15 days. It is important that checks undertaken are thorough and a proportion of the applications received by the DBS need to be referred to one or more police forces as part of the enhanced disclosure process.

The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner. A small number of forces have experienced difficulties in meeting the service level agreements in place between the DBS and each force. Whilst no assessment has been made of the impact of timeliness on unemployed customers, it is recognised that delays may create problems for some people. The DBS is working closely with those forces whose performance does not meet turnaround time targets. We will not compromise when it comes to the safety of children and vulnerable adults.

The number of applications to the DBS from people living in the Clacton constituency that have taken more than 60 days to process in the last 12 months is listed in the table below.

Month	Number of certificates issued by DBS to applicants in Clacton constituency	Applications that took longer than 60 days
March 2015– February 2016	5,707	322

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-03-23.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what advice he has received from the Office for Budget Responsibility on the effect on the economy in the event of the UK leaving the EU.

Mr David Gauke

A vote to leave the EU is identified as an economic risk in the OBR’s March 2016 Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which states that it “could usher in an extended period of uncertainty regarding the precise terms of the UK’s future relationship with the EU. This could have negative implications for activity via business and consumer confidence and might result in greater volatility in financial and other asset markets”.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the UK has taken to support increased tariffs on artificially cheap steel imports to the EU.

Anna Soubry

The World Trade Organisation does not have a role in conducting anti-dumping investigations. Responsibility for anti-dumping investigations and imposing anti-dumping measures against imports into the EU and the UK lies with the European Commission. These investigations are driven by requests from EU producers.

The Government makes regular representations to the Commission concerning allegations of dumping of steel. My Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister pressed for more action on dumping of steel at European Council on 17 and 18 March. The government judges each anti-dumping case on its merits, based on the evidence presented by the Commission and on representations from interested parties, including producers, users and importers, but is strongly in favour of effective trade defences to tackle unfair trade practices where justified. We have voted in favour of anti-dumping measures on several steel products since July, including the imposition of provisional anti-dumping measures on reinforcing bar in January, an investigation for which we lobbied the Commission successfully, and on cold-rolled flat steel products in February.

We have supported industry calls for higher duties on specific cases where this is justified by the evidence. For example, in the reinforcing bar case we have raised the steel industry’s concerns that the provisional duties were too low with the Commission. My Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills spoke with Trade Commissioner Malmström about this and received assurances that the Commission will reconsider this during the definitive stage of the investigation, if industry can provide the necessary evidence.

We also welcomed the opening of four new anti-dumping investigations involving steel products earlier this year.

The Government continues to push the Commission for faster, more effective action to deal with dumping of steel. This was one of the conclusions of the Extraordinary Competitiveness Council on Steel in November, a meeting which my Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills was instrumental in convening. In advance of the Commission’s energy-intensive industry stakeholder’s summit on 15 February – another key action from the Competitiveness Council – the government and several other EU Member States sent a joint letter to the Commission, pressing it to make full and timely use of all trade defence instruments to tackle unfair trade. I played an active role at this summit. My Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has also raised these issues in discussions with Commissioner Malmström, most recently at the OECD conference on the challenges facing the steel industry on 18 April. My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (Intellectual Property) reiterated the need for faster and more effective action on dumping at the Competitiveness Council held on 29 February and the Presidency conclusions of that Council reflected this message. I did likewise at the European Steel Day on 21 April. Officials also have regular discussions about anti-dumping cases with Commission officials and officials from other EU Member States.

The Government is also supporting a robust discussion of the issue of overcapacity through the EU’s ongoing dialogue with the Chinese and other governments, including at the OECD conference. My Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister has discussed this issue directly with President Xi and was told that China will take steps to reduce its overcapacity. My Rt Hon Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer also raised it during his visit to China in February and my Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills raised it with his counterpart in February. Similarly, my Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs raised it during his visit to China in April.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-06-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what proportion of the workforce in Clacton constituency are in receipt of the national living wage.

Nick Boles

2.9 million workers are expected to directly benefit from the National Living Wage by 2020, 11 per cent of which are located in the East of England. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has made no detailed assessment of the beneficiaries of the National Living Wage at local authority level.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2015-10-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of GP retention in the North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group area; and what steps he is taking to improve GP retention.

Alistair Burt

We are advised by NHS England that it commissioned the Essex GP Workforce Audit in autumn 2014 to define the extent of the general practitioner (GP) recruitment and retention problem in Essex, including the North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area.

In response to the audit’s findings, the Essex Primary Care Inter-Professional Centre for Workforce Development was launched in September. This has been developed by the Essex Workforce Group (comprising NHS England, local CCGs and Health Education England) to address the ongoing difficulty in recruiting, developing and retaining GPs, practice nurses and primary care staff in Essex. The centre will act as a ‘resource, networking and support hub’ and has a website allowing primary care staff to access training opportunities and mentoring opportunities through which they can develop their skills and careers.

Nationally, we understand that NHS England is working with partners, including the Royal College of GPs and Health Education England, to increase GP numbers, reduce bureaucracy and use the skills of other healthcare professionals, such as community pharmacists, to ensure high-quality, and, above all else, safe, patient care.

On 26 January, NHS England announced a £10 million investment to boost the GP workforce. The money will be used to recruit new GPs, retain those who are thinking of leaving the profession and encourage doctors to return to general practice, to better meet the needs of patients now and for the future.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2015-11-30.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of the increased spending on the NHS is being used to reduce the £2 billion budget shortfall forecast by the NHS Trust Development Authority for NHS trusts in 2015-16.

Alistair Burt

The National Health Service budget is entrusted to NHS England, which shares with the Secretary of State for Health the legal duty to promote a comprehensive health service. The Government sets out its priorities for NHS England in “The Mandate: A mandate from the Government to NHS England: April 2015 to March 2016”, and within that document a clear commitment is made to make £2 billion of extra funding available for front line spending.

Progress against this commitment and details of spending on front line services by type of provider and type of service will be made available at the end of 2015-16, in NHS England’s Annual Report and Accounts 2015-16.

The Government is committed to the NHS and will invest an additional £10 billion by the end of this parliament, to fund the NHS’s own plan for the future. Next year, in 2016-17 the NHS will receive an extra £3.8 billion allocated in the Spending Review, a first step towards an extra £8 billion by the end of this Parliament.