Tag: Ivan Lewis

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2016-02-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what criteria his Department uses to determine the level of supplementary funding provided to local authorities as part of the local government finance settlement.

Mr Marcus Jones

The local government finance settlement distributed revenue support grant by looking at the main resources that are available to local councils. The Local Government Finance Report (England) 2016/2017 sets out the basis of this distribution and the results can be found at;

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2016-to-2017.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2016-03-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many police officers are on duty each night of the week in each division of Greater Manchester Police.

Mike Penning

The Home Office does not hold the requested data centrally. The deployment of a police force’s available workforce is an operational decision for chief officers, in conjunction with their police and crime commissioners.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2016-02-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government is taking to reduce the prevalence of reckless driving.

Andrew Jones

The Road Safety Statement published on 21 December 2015 outlines what the Department is currently doing to improve road safety. For example, we are currently consulting on increasing the penalty points and financial penalty for those who commit the offence of using a mobile phone whilst driving.

We have previously introduced fixed penalty notices in order to assist the police in dealing more effectively with careless driving. This would enable more people to be offered rehabilitative education to combat such behaviour.

Britain is a world leader in road safety, but we are always striving to improve. For example, from 2 March 2015 it has been an offence to drive with certain drugs in your body in excess of official limits. I have provided £1million to further increase enforcement during the THINK! campaign that commenced on 29 February and will run through March thus coinciding with the 1^st anniversary of the commencement of the new offence.

Sentencing and enforcement policy issues are matters for the Ministry of Justice and Home Office respectively.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2016-03-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of the demolition of the Calais camp known as the jungle on the number of migrants entering into the UK.

James Brokenshire

The UK and French Governments have been working closely for many months to address the situation in Northern France, and are committed to resolving it together.

The Joint Declaration, signed by the Home Secretary and the French Interior Ministry in August 2015, committed both countries to a package of work to improve physical security at the ports, to coordinate the law enforcement response, to tackle the criminal gangs involved in people smug-gling and to reduce the number of migrants in Calais.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2016-02-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to tackle the level of mental illness among primary and secondary school children.

Mr Sam Gyimah

We have high aspirations for all children and want them to be able to fulfil their potential both academically and in terms of their mental wellbeing. This attainment is best supported if they have good mental health, character and resilience. Schools can play an important role in promoting good mental wellbeing and in responding to issues that arise.

To support them in doing this we have funded the PSHE Association to provide guidance and lesson plans which support age-appropriate teaching of mental health issues. We have also revised and updated our counselling guidance for schools to include a section on vulnerable children and what schools may need to do to make counselling accessible to them.

The department recently launched activity to identify how to help young people help their friends to talk about mental health issues, including a call for evidence for stakeholders and children and young people. We also announced funding of up to £1.5m for projects to take this forward once the call for evidence is complete, including a new digital innovation fund to develop reliable, engaging and trusted advice online to help them understand both their own, and their friends’ mental health.

Schools need support from specialist services locally to ensure that pupils with mental illness get the support they need. That is why the Government is investing an additional £1.4bn in children’s mental health this Parliament. Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) across the country have worked with partners, including schools and colleges, to produce local transformation plans for children and young people’s mental health services. These should set out what will be done locally to make the best use of the resources available – changing how CAMHS is delivered in response to the challenges set out in the Future in Mind report.

In addition we are contributing to a £3m joint pilot with NHS England which is testing how single points of contact in CAMHS and schools can secure effective mental health support to pupils. The pilots are involving over 250 schools in 27 CCG areas through joint training, which supports schools and CAMHS leads to identify specific activity to improve support in their area.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2016-03-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to help reduce knife crime in Greater Manchester.

Mr John Hayes

Tackling knife crime is a priority for this Government. Knife crime offences recorded by the police remain 14% below the level of offences in 2010.

However we recognise there is always more to do and we are currently reviewing action to be taken on knife crime. We will be setting out the measures in the Modern Crime Prevention Strategy which will be published shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many passport applications have been processed by the passport office in Belfast in each year since 2010.

James Brokenshire

The table below shows the number of passports processed by the Passport Office
in Belfast.

Year	Number of passports processed
2010	364,688
2011	408,628
2012	427,422
2013	433,530
2014 (until 31 May)	294,998

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, when she last met the (a) CEO and (b) Chair of the British Business Bank to discuss how that organisation can more effectively support Northern Ireland businesses; and if she will make statement.

Mrs Theresa Villiers

I regularly hold discussions with representatives of the British Business Bank in my role as Chair of the Joint Ministerial Task Force on banking and access to finance.

The Task Force has discussed how Northern Ireland business benefits from the British Business Bank schemes and will continue to explore how these measures can be delivered in the most effective way in Northern Ireland.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what work the British Business Bank is doing in Northern Ireland to promote its services to small businesses located there.

Matthew Hancock

British Business Bank programmes facilitated £7.5m of new lending and investment to smaller businesses in Northern Ireland in 2013/14.

The Business Bank’s Enterprise Finance Guarantee programme supported £5.1 million of additional lending to Northern Irish businesses during 2013/14, bringing the total amount of lending through the programme in Northern Ireland to £36.1 million.

The Bank’s Start Up Loans programme was extended to Northern Ireland in June 2013 and since then, it has provided 120 loans to Northern Irish start-ups, lending a total of over £560,000.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Northern Ireland Executive recently hosted a roadshow in Northern Ireland to promote the delivery of Business Bank programmes through Northern Irish finance providers and the Business Bank is actively discussing with the Executive how it can continue to support Northern Irish businesses in the future.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2014-06-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what additional support she is providing to the passport office in Belfast.

James Brokenshire

The Belfast Office Full Time Equivalent (FTE) workforce in June 2014 was 216.29
compared with 147.76 FTE in June 2012. The increase in staff has been to deal
with the introduction of processing of work from overseas in 2013-14 and the
introduction of an evening shift in January 2014 to assist in dealing with UK applications.
Currently there are 20 additional staff redeployed to Belfast to assist in the
examination function.