Tag: Jim Cunningham

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-09-14.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the total value of the contract between his Department and Concentrix; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Ellison

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has, to date, spent circa £30 million with Concentrix for service delivery under the contract. HMRC, under appropriate procurement transparency mandates, published anticipated spend details on Contracts Finder of between £55-75 million pounds at the start of the contract.

Final spend with the supplier will be dictated by contractual considerations around delivery of specific service campaigns. Such considerations are commercially sensitive at this time and cannot, in this instance, be disclosed.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-10-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the number of full-time equivalent officials in his Department who are employed on cases where tax credits have been stopped by Concentrix; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Ellison

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) currently has around 700 full-time equivalent (FTE) officials employed across a variety of Concentrix related activity.

Concentrix only record the number of awards that have been amended, which could be stopped, reduced or increased. HMRC is unable to breakdown the FTE data to show those staff employed specifically on cases where awards have been stopped by Concentrix.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, how many civil servants working in his Department have opted out of the EU Working Time Directive.

Mr Robin Walker

As a new department we are currently in the process of migrating a large number of civil servants onto our HR systems from across government. As a result we do not hold this information.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of public-access defibrillators located in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England; and if he will make a statement.

David Mowat

No estimate has been made of the number of public-access defibrillators located in Coventry, the West Midlands and England or of the number of people who have taken part in coronary pulmonary resuscitation training delivered by the National Health Service.

We recognise that better provision of defibrillators and increasing the number of people trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation could help save more lives of those who have a cardiac arrest outside a hospital setting.

That is why the Chancellor announced in the budget in March that the Government is making available another £1 million to make public access defibrillators and coronary pulmonary resuscitation training more widely available in communities across England. This builds on last year’s funding of £1 million, which provided almost 700 more publicly accessible defibrillators in communities across England and increased the numbers of people trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Details on how this second tranche of the funding can be accessed will be available in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-10-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many primates were imported into the UK for scientific research purposes in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement.

Mike Penning

The Home Office have previously published data on the numbers of non-human primates imported and used for scientific research in PQs 222873 (05 Feb 2015), 182703 (20 Jan 2014), 80687 (22 Nov 2011) and 76262 (25 October 2011). The numbers of non-human primates imported into the UK for scientific research were: 2,071 in 2010; 1,771 in 2011; and, 1,557 in 2012. This data was gathered from information supplied by project licence holders when requesting permission to import.

On 1 January 2013, the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 was amended to transpose European Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes. The amended legislation has no requirement to request prior permission to import non-human primates acquired from overseas breeding centres. Therefore, the Home Office does not hold the information requested for 2013 and 2014. The published Annual Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals in Great Britain provide information on the sources of non-human primates used in experimental procedures for 2013 and 2014.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-11-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assistance and support her Department is providing to food sovereignty movements in developing countries; and if she will make a statement.

Grant Shapps

DFID supports strengthening household food security through improving agricultural productivity and improved incomes from agricultural production, building resilience against climate change and linking smallholder farmers to markets and supply chains. We help with a context-specific range of programmes, which all contribute to the inclusive and more sustainable economic growth that will lift poor people out of poverty.

The UK Government believes that a key element in strengthening food security is to encourage diverse sources of supply. We will not support approaches that undermine open markets and free trade, which allows consumer choice and options for a healthier diet, and so does not specifically support food sovereignty movements in developing countries.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-11-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what review his Department has conducted of homelessness in the West Midlands; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Marcus Jones

One homeless family is one too many. We have provided more than £500 million to local authorities to prevent homelessness since 2010, which has resulted in 935,800 households, including 121,400 in the West Midlands region, being prevented from becoming homeless. The Department will continue to work with local authorities and the voluntary sector to tackle homelessness.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-11-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that men make use of mental health services when they need them; and if he will make a statement.

Alistair Burt

We have committed to achieving parity of esteem for mental and physical health and improving access to mental health services for all people. We are implementing the first waiting times for mental health services to ensure more people have access to care when they need it and we have increased access to talking therapies through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme.

We know that men can sometimes be a hard to reach group for some mental health issues such as reducing the risk of suicide and reducing stigma and encouraging men to seek help for their mental health problems.

We continue to provide financial support to the Time to Change programme which aims to reduce the stigma around mental health and we provide financial support to the National Suicide Prevention Alliance, which involves organisations from across Government, industry and the community, voluntary and charitable sectors to support delivery of the National Suicide Prevention Strategy. Men are highlighted as a high risk group within the National Strategy for whom our suicide prevention activities should be prioritised.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-11-23.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to increase (a) income tax and (b) corporation tax receipts; and if he will make a statement.

Mr David Gauke

The Government wants to deliver a low tax, high wage economy.The personal allowance has been increased from £6,475 in 2010-11 to £10,600 in 2015-16, and the headline rate of corporation tax has been cut from 28 per cent to 20 per cent since 2010.

The Government has committed to going further in this parliament by raising the personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher rate threshold to £50,000.Corporation tax will be cut to 18 per cent by 2020, benefitting over a million companies.

Due to the strength of our economy, tax receipts are growing strongly. Onshore corporation tax receipts have risen nearly 30% since 2010.Income tax receipts are £8bn higher in the first 10 months of 2015 compared to the first 10 months of 2014. In its most recent Economic and Fiscal Outlook the Office for Budget Responsibility have raised their forecast for receipts over the parliament.

At the same time the government has taken a number of steps to clamp down on avoidance and evasion. For instance it will invest over £800m in HM Revenue and Customs to help them to tackle evasion and non-compliance over the course of the parliament. These measures are forecast to raise £7.2bn by 2020-21.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-12-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much her Department plans to spend on domestic counter-terrorism operations in each of the next five years; and if she will make a statement.

Mr John Hayes

The Government protected counter-terrorism police funding over the last 5 years and the Strategic Defence and Security Review and Spending Review both confirmed a real terms increase to counter-terrorism police funding to invest in new capabilities.

The Spending Review announcement set the overall budget for the Home Office. Officials are now going through the detail and will continue to provide advice to the Home Secretary on individual allocations and spending commitments. We anticipate that funding allocations for counter-terrorism will be confirmed in the New Year.