Tag: Jim Sheridan

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Sheridan on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent discussions he has had with employment agencies on the practice of blacklisting.

Jenny Willott

Blacklisting is an unacceptable and illegal practice and we take any allegations of blacklisting very seriously. I have not had any discussions on the practice of blacklisting with employment agencies. We have referred the allegations made about an international recruitment agency to the Information Commissioner’s Office which is looking into the matter.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Sheridan on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the prevalence of blacklisting amongst employment agencies.

Jenny Willott

Blacklisting is an unacceptable and illegal practice and we take any allegations of blacklisting very seriously. We have always encouraged anyone with evidence of blacklisting to come forward so that we can investigate. Any evidence of blacklisting should be referred to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Individuals who believe they are being excluded from employment because of a blacklist should seek redress in the county courts in England and Wales, or Court of Session in Scotland.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Sheridan on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the proportion of Royal Mail staff who bought shares in the newly-privatised company in (a) Paisley and Renfrewshire North constituency, (b) Renfrewshire and (c) Scotland.

Michael Fallon

The Government has not made any estimates by constituency, county or country of shares bought by Royal Mail staff.

As part of the Royal Mail Initial Public Offering, each eligible employee has now received 729 shares free of charge. Only 372 of the 147,000 eligible employees opted out of the scheme. Approximately 99.75% of employees accepted the shares that we offered them. Under the Employee Priority Retail Offer, over 15,000 employees (just over 10%) bought additional shares in Royal Mail.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Sheridan on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the effect of fines imposed by the Information Commissioner’s Office on reducing nuisance calls and texts.

Mr Edward Vaizey

No such assessment has been made, but we are aware that after ICO issued a large monetary penalty in November 2012 for spam text messages, the monitoring service Cloudmark reported a 10% drop in unsolicited spam SMS text messages. We remain keen to ensure robust enforcement of the regulations, so that companies breaking the rules are caught and penalised.

OurNuisance Calls Action Plan that was published on 30th March 2014, details the range of legislative and non-legislative measures being taken forward to tackle nuisance calls and texts and the plan can be viewed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nuisance-calls-action-plan-unveiled

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Sheridan on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what assessment he has made of the net benefit to people in Scotland of the UK’s membership of the EU.

David Mundell

The Government does not collate data which would allow calculation of a net benefit to the people of Scotland arising from the UK’s membership of the EU. However, independent analysis published by the Centre for Economics and Business Research in March 2014 suggested that, in 2011, approximately 335,000 jobs in Scotland were associated with Scottish exports to the EU.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Sheridan on 2014-05-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the contribution by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries on 25 February 2014, Official Report, column 95WH, when the consultation on modernising the Electronic Programme Guide regime will be launched.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Pursuant to my contribution on 25 February 2014, Official Report, column 95WH, DCMS will make an announcement on the publication date of the consultation in due course.