Tag: Gregory Campbell

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-01-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Colombian government in the last three months on the security situation for human rights defenders in that country.

Mr Hugo Swire

On 21 December, Officials from the British Embassy in Bogota raised human rights and protection issues with the national Ombudsman who also explained the role the Ombudsman’s Office will play in post-agreement in Colombia.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department paid to charities in 2014-15; and what criteria were used to make decisions about those payments.

George Freeman

The Department works with charities and other voluntary sector organisations and makes grant and procurement payments to these organisations. In 2014-15, £120 million was paid to the voluntary sector. Payment data is held at voluntary sector level, as such, charities are not separately categorised within this data set. It would incur disproportionate cost to extract this subset of the information.

Payments made through the procurement route are processed in line with Departmental processes, which are consistent with payments made to other organisations. Grant payments are made in accordance with the individual terms of the grant.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what estimate she has made of the level of investment in UK oil and gas production until May 2020.

Andrea Leadsom

The latest published projections of development capital expenditure by the UK upstream oil and gas industry are those in Supplementary Table 2.1 to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s June 2015 Fiscal Sustainability Report:

http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/fsr/fiscal-sustainability-report-june-2015/.

This had annual investment (in £ billion) at the following levels:

2016	2017	2018	2019	2020
8.3	6.6	5.9	4.9	4.2

Updated projections informed by recently-received information from operators should be published alongside the Economic and Fiscal Outlook which will accompany the forthcoming Budget.

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-02-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will raise with the UN the need for all member states to endorse the international campaign against female genital mutilation.

Mr Nick Hurd

The UK has taken the lead internationally in supporting the African-led movement to end female genital mutilation. We lead by example, as the largest donor ever, investing £35m over 5 years in a programme in 17 countries. Last year we successfully worked with others to push for the inclusion of an indicator on female genital mutilation in the Global Goals that applies not only to some, but to all countries. We co-sponsored the UN General Assembly resolutions on female genital mutilation in 2012 and 2014.

In 2014, the Prime Minister co-hosted Girl Summit with UNICEF, which galvanised unprecedented international support. Girl Summit secured 500 signatories to a charter and over 170 commitments from governments, civil society and individuals. Increased funding was committed to the UN Joint Programmes on female genital mutilation and child, early and forced marriage. We continue to urge others to do more.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-02-09.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to assist middle-income families with their pension planning.

Harriett Baldwin

The government is committed to making sure that people can access high quality, affordable, tailored advice and guidance to help them make informed financial decisions.

The government set up Pension Wise to offer free and impartial guidance to those eligible to access the pension freedoms, to allow them to make confident, informed choices about how to use their retirement savings. The government has also extended access to the service, allowing those aged 50 and above to use guidance sessions to help them plan for their retirement. In addition, the Money Advice Service provides guides to help people improve their finances; tools and calculators to help them track and plan ahead; and offers support in person, over the phone and online.

The government recognises that there is a potential “advice gap” for people who do not have significant wealth. The government launched the Financial Advice Market Review (FAMR), which is being led jointly by HM Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority, to look at how best to increase the accessibility and affordability of financial advice. The government also launched the Public Financial Guidance consultation to look at how the provision of public financial guidance could be made more effective for consumers. Both FAMR and the Public Financial Guidance consultation will publish their recommendations in time for Budget 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-02-23.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many investigations have been opened by HM Revenue and Customs under IR35 in the last two years.

Mr David Gauke

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) opened 216 interventions under IR35 in the year 2013/14 and 199 in the year 2014/15. HMRC has increased the number of IR35 inquiries in recent years and has at least 250 open at any one time.

The Government published a discussion document on 17 July 2015, inviting views on options for reforming IR35. The discussion period closed on 30 September and the Government will announce next steps in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how he plans to assess the effectiveness of the recent campaign to encourage people to make a will.

Dominic Raab

My Department has evaluated the Choice not Chance campaign which ran in England and Wales during March 2015 with the aim of promoting the use of wills, lasting powers of attorney and organ donation. We consider the campaign was successful in promoting the making of wills. We were unable to obtain figures for wills made during the campaign but the campaign page on gov.uk received 3,515 views and 19 campaign tweets resulted in 1,268 “click throughs” for more information. Further, the question of making a will is often considered at the same time as the question of making a lasting power of attorney. During the campaign 35,525 lasting powers were made (a 42% increase over the corresponding period in 2014) and 85,743 people accessed the online LPA tool (a 66% increase in average page views compared to the previous 6 months). A further success is that our campaign materials continue to be used by practitioners.

The law of succession in Northern Ireland is devolved.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-05-18.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the cost to the BBC of maintaining free television licences for people over 75 for the remainder of the current Parliament.

Greg Hands

Table 2.2 in Budget 2016 shows the savings to the Exchequer of the BBC taking on the cost of the over-75s TV licence concession which is phased in over the period 2018-19 to 2020-21.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-06-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will commission a study into the potential merits of the use of E10 petrol.

Andrew Jones

The revised industry fuel standard for petrol (EN228), agreed and published by the British Standards Institution in 2013, allows up to ten per cent bioethanol content (known as ‘E10’). However, E10 is not yet on general sale in the UK and whether to supply it is a commercial decision for suppliers.

The Transport Energy Task Force, made up of experts from industry and environmental NGOs, reported its findings to the Department for Transport in March 2015. The report, which included recommendations relating to E10, is available on the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership’s website at:

http://www.lowcvp.org.uk/projects/transport-energy-task-force.htm

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-09-14.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate has been made of the forecast change in the number of people aged 80 and over between 2015 and 2035.

Chris Skidmore

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.