Tag: Julie Cooper

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure an effective balance between its policies on tackling radicalisation and protecting people at risk of Islamaphobic attacks.

Sarah Newton

The Government is determined to tackle hate crime and extremism wherever it occurs.

The Government’s Prevent strategy, published in 2011, explicitly tackles all forms of terrorism. That includes protecting individuals who are at risk from far right and Neo-nazi extremism, as well as those vulnerable to Islamist extremism.

Prevent is about safeguarding people who are at risk of radicalisation. Prevent does not target a specific faith or ethnic group. Rather, Prevent protects those who are targeted by terrorist recruiters. Currently the greatest threat comes from terrorist recruiters inspired by Daesh. Our Prevent programme will necessarily reflect this by prioritising support for vulnerable British Muslims, and working in partnership with British Muslim communities and civil society groups.

The Prevent programme is implemented in a proportionate manner that takes into account the level of risk in any given area or institution. In some areas the risk of far right extremism may be significant and we would expect in those circumstances for Prevent activity to focus on the far right threat.

Far right extremism often brings with it the threat of anti-Muslim or antisemitic attacks. We have a strong record of action against Islamophobia and antisemitism and deplore all religious or racially motivated crimes.

We strongly condemn the increase in attacks on Muslims that have been seen in this country in recent years. We know the majority of people in United Kingdom join our condemnation, and we have seen great examples of individuals and communities standing together to tackle this hatred.

Muslims make an enormous contribution to British society. They are all too often the victims of hatred and intolerance in this country and overseas. This Government is determined to act to protect British Muslims.

The United Kingdom has in place one of the strongest legislative frameworks in the world to protect communities from hostility, violence and bigotry. We will keep it under review to ensure it remains effective and appropriate in the face of new and emerging threats. We also published a new Cross-Government Hate Crime Action Plan on 26 July which will drive forward action against all forms of hate crime, including anti-Muslim hatred. This will be taken forward in partnership with communities to ensure we target the harm that hate crime causes.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children are in (a) primary and (b) secondary education in Burnley.

Nick Gibb

The January 2015 school census recorded a total of 8,062 pupils in state funded primary schools and 4,743 pupils in state funded secondary schools in the Burnley constituency.[1]

[1] Figures calculated from the underlying data of the ‘schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2015’ statistics, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-01-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many work coaches are employed by job centres in (a) Burnley, (b) Lancashire and (c) the North West.

Priti Patel

Responsibility Centre	Number of WC’s
JCNW Burnley JC Plus	19
Lancashire	235
JCNW North West England	1436

The information available for the number of Employment and Support Allowance claimants by phase of claim and geography is published and can be found at:

https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp

Guidance for users is available at:

https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/home/newuser.asp

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-01-18.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps the Government has taken to prevent predatory high-frequency trading.

Harriett Baldwin

It would not be appropriate for the Government to comment on any ongoing investigations. This is an operational matter for the FCA which is an independent regulator. I have transferred this question across to them and they will respond fully in due course.

The Government is clear that any attempted manipulation of any financial market is completely unacceptable. The integrity of the City matters to the economy of Britain, and that is why the Government is taking action at home, in Europe, and globally, to ensure that this behaviour is punished and that similar scandals cannot occur again.

The Government has taken a number of steps to strengthen financial regulation in the UK. These include introducing the Senior Managers and Certification Regime to provide for effective regulation of individual conduct and accountability in the banking sector. The Bank of England and Financial Services Bill, now before the House of Commons, will extend this regime to cover all authorised financial services firms, including dealers in securities and other non-banks which may engage in high-frequency trading (HFT).

The Government has supported the European Union (EU) Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2 (MiFID 2), which from 2017 will alter the regulatory landscape in relation to automated trading including HFT. As part of this, HFT firms will be required to disclose information concerning their trading activities to their regulator in order to increase the regulatory supervision of these markets.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, when she expects the Government’s response to the impact assessment of reductions to feed-in tariffs to be published.

Andrea Leadsom

The Government published an impact assessment for the feed-in tariff review on 17 December 2015, alongside the Government response to the consultation on this review.

The impact assessment is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486084/IA_-_FITs_consultation_response_with_Annexes_-_FINAL_SIGNED.pdf

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-02-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department plans to cap the number of times a person in receipt of benefits can be sanctioned in a month.

Priti Patel

The Department has no plans to cap the number of times a sanction might apply to a claimant’s benefit in a month.

There are established safeguards to prevent the accrual of sanctions. This prevents the duration of a sanction escalating if the sanctionable failure occurs within two weeks of a previous similar failure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many NHS 111 calls were made in (a) 2014 and (b) 2015 in (i) Lancashire and (ii) Burnley.

Jane Ellison

The data is not held centrally.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-03-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of increasing the state pension age on productivity.

Justin Tomlinson

The projected increase in the number of people working as a result of the rise in State Pension age provided for by the Pensions Act 2011 was estimated to generate a significant increase in gross employment earnings. Under this new timetable the peak increase compared to the previous timetable would be £5.0 billion in 2022/23 (in 2011/12 prices).

At an individual level, working longer and saving into a private pension will, on average, increase lifetime pension income. Taking into consideration the additional employment income, individuals’ lifetime income will be improved if they work longer. Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that the rise in women’s State Pension age from 60 to 62 has been accompanied by increases in employment rates for the women affected.

Research by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in 2011 showed that an increase of one year in the average effective working life is estimated to result in additional annual national output worth up to one per cent of GDP. In the same research, it was estimated that real GDP would be six per cent lower than it otherwise would have been by 2030, if plans for raising the state pension age (according to the Pensions Act 2007) were not implemented.

The increase in labour supply as a result of the Pensions Act 2011 was also estimated to boost GDP above the projected baseline of the previous timetable. GDP could be between £7 billion and £9 billion higher in 2022/23 (in 2011/12 prices); in the period 2016 to 2026, the increase in labour supply due to the increase in State Pension age could boost national output by £70 billion (in 2011/12 prices).

More information on both impacts can be found in Annex A of the Pensions Act 2011 Impact Assessment at::

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pensions-act-2011-impact-assessment

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-03-23.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if his Department will offer tax relief on home insurance payments for occupants of council housing.

Mr David Gauke

The Government’s preferred policy is to take people out of tax through higher personal allowances, and to lower tax rates when it is affordable to do so.

The Government has already pledged to raise the personal allowance to £12,500 by the end of this parliament.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 1.89 of Budget 2016, how much of the £500 million of additional core funding for schools will be allocated to schools in Lancashire.

Mr Sam Gyimah

The funding announced at the Budget has been provided to support the Department’s school reform agenda. This will allow us to spend around £500 million over the Spending Review period, in addition to the per pupil protection of the core school budget announced at the spending review, to speed up the introduction of a fair national funding formula.

Our current consultation on a National Funding Formula for schools outlines the principles of the funding system and the funding factors that we believe should define the national funding formula for schools. This consultation closes on 17 April, and having considered the responses to this consultation, later this year we will launch a second consultation. This second stage consultation will detail our proposals for weighting each factor, the transitional arrangements and illustrate the distribution of funding for schools and local authorities that that implies, including the allocation of this funding. Until then, I am unable to comment on how additional funding will be allocated to schools in Lancashire.

A link to the consultation can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/schools-national-funding-formula.

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