Tag: John McDonnell

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to reduce the delays in criminal proceedings in courts in England and Wales.

Mike Penning

The Transforming Summary Justice programme is a collaboration between the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts designed to ensure that magistrates’ court cases are prepared and prosecuted in a timely and efficient manner. It is in the process of being rolled out and will be operating throughout England and Wales by May 2015. The recent report of the Review of Efficiency in Criminal Proceedings, which was carried out by Sir Brian Leveson, President of the Queen’s Bench Division, makes detailed recommendations for improving efficiency, some of which build on these initiatives. The Government is now considering these recommendations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2015-02-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, in how many cases in which a suspect had been charged for offences committed in (a) 2013 and (b) 2014 a trial had not commenced after (i) six and (ii) 12 months had elapsed.

Mike Penning

Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) records the date of offence and date of trial in magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court. However, a number of cases do not go to trial, either because the defendant pleads guilty or the prosecution drop the case. A number of offences committed during 2014 will not yet have reached six or twelve months since receipt by HMCTS. To answer this question would require the creation of complex reports to combine the variables within the question, which would then need to be tested, this would incur disproportionate costs.

Also, offences committed in 2014 would be incomplete as many will not yet have reached six or 12 months since they were received by HMCTS.

The Ministry of Justice does, however, publish official statistics on the timeliness of criminal cases in Criminal Courts Statistics Quarterly at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/criminal-court-statistics.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what payments have been received by the NHS in return for the advertising of Optical Express services on the NHS Choices website.

Dr Daniel Poulter

NHS Choices does not advertise services on their website. Optical Express is included within the service directory published on NHS Choices on the basis that it is a provider of NHS services.

NHS Choices has neither sought nor received any payment from Optical Express in return for this inclusion.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reason the NHS logo appears on the Optical Express website; what the relationship between Optical Express and the NHS is; whether NHS funding (a) is and (b) has been provided to Optical Express in order to carry out procedures on NHS patients; and how many NHS patients were referred to Optical Express by the NHS in each of the last 10 years.

Dr Daniel Poulter

The current NHS identity guidelines only allow opticians to use the NHS logo on a poster in their premises. The guidelines are available at:

www.nhsidentity.nhs.uk/all-guidelines/guidelines/opticians/introduction

NHS England is due to take over responsibility for managing the NHS identity from the Department shortly, and we will be carrying out a thorough review of NHS identity guidelines during 2014-15.

Optical Express receives NHS funding from NHS England for providing NHS sight tests and optical vouchers to qualifying patients. The choice of optician is a matter for individual patients who are able to use any optician offering NHS sight tests and they can also choose where they have their glasses dispensed.

Other eye health services, over and above the NHS sight test, are commissioned by clinical commissioning groups, formerly primary care trusts. Neither the Department nor NHS England holds data on the number of patients who have received such services from Optical Express.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the advertising of Optical Express under the services section of the NHS choices website, for what reason his Department concluded that Optical Express does not fall under the excluded advertising categories set out in the NHS Choices terms and conditions for offering cosmetic surgery and procedures including Botox and sunbeds; and what assessment he has made of whether advertising Optical Express services is an appropriate use of NHS funding used to maintain the website.

Dr Daniel Poulter

NHS Choices does not advertise services on their website. Optical Express is included within the service directory published on NHS Choices on the basis that it is a provider of NHS services.

NHS Choices has neither sought nor received any payment from Optical Express in return for this inclusion.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the capabilities are of the multi-purpose ankle tag; and what forms of surveillance and supervision it makes possible.

Andrew Selous

The multi-purpose ankle tags will support the monitoring of compliance with curfew, exclusion and inclusion zones, and subject location.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reasons the hardware and software providers in the new contract for electronic monitoring of offenders have been separated.

Andrew Selous

We divided the provision of electronic monitoring into discrete components, separating the supply of hardware and software, and competed these as separate lots because we consider this approach most likely to support the development and deployment of the best technology. This strategy also had the advantage of encouraging the participation of new entrants, SMEs and specialist companies, allowing them to bid for a particular component rather than the entire end-to-end service.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what reasons were given to him by Buddi for its withdrawal from the new electronic contract in March 2014.

Andrew Selous

MoJ was unable to agree on certain technical and commercial aspects of the proposed contract with Buddi. We therefore took the decision to discontinue discussions with Buddi and recompete this part of the competition.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John McDonnell on 2014-06-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much the Government expects to receive from (a) the 20 per cent deduction from the child maintenance payment of the paying parent and (b) the four per cent deduction of total payment of support to the child from the receiving parent.

Steve Webb

Paragraph 106 of the CSA Case Closure, Introducing CMS Fees, Supporting Family Based Arrangements Impact Assessment gives an estimate of the total income by year raised through the parent with care fee and the non-resident parent fee. This Impact Assessment, published on 22 November 2013, is available at

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/259694/cm-case-closure-and-charges-regs-ia-final.pdf

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