The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2015-11-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what (a) ex gratia and (b) other payments were made to Moussa Koussa by the UK Government in 2011; and if he will make a statement.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
Moussa Koussa has received no payments from HMG.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many and what proportion of trade union members in (a) Great Britain and (b) Northern Ireland pay the political levy.
Nick Boles
The latest Annual Report of the Certification Officer shows that 4,954,606 union members in Great Britain paid the political levy in the period 2013-2014. This represents 70.67% of the total number of individuals who were union members in the same period.[1]
Employment law is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland and I am not able to respond to the questions relating to Northern Ireland.
[1] Political Funds of Trade Unions, 2013-2014, Annual Report 2015/2016 of the Certification Officer, page 68-69, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/449387/CO_Annual_Report__2014-2015_.pdf
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2016-04-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what records the Government holds on how many job opportunities have been lost due to the time taken for Disclosure and Barring Service checks to be made.
Karen Bradley
The Disclosure and Barring Service is a non-departmental public body which provides access to appropriate criminal record information for employers through its disclosure service for England and Wales. It also makes independent barring decisions about people who have harmed, or where there is considered to be a risk of harm to, a child or vulnerable person within the workplace. Given the sensitive nature of this work and the reliance on police forces to provide locally held intelligence, it would not be appropriate to introduce competition.
Whilst no assessment has been made of the affect of timeliness on the number of job opportunities which may have been lost, the impact which delays may have on applicants is recognised. The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner and is working closely with those forces whose performance does not meet turnaround time targets. In very exceptional cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant, the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the relevant police force.
The average end to end time taken to complete a DBS check, including the time taken by police forces, is listed in following table.
|
Financial Year |
Average calendar days for a disclosure to be processed |
|
13/14 |
11.5 |
|
14/15 |
14.4 |
|
15/16 |
14.5 |
The proportion of checks which took longer than (a) eight weeks (b) 12 weeks and (c) six months is listed in the following table.
|
Financial Year |
Disclosures which took longer than 8 weeks |
Disclosures which took longer than 12 weeks |
Disclosures which took longer than 6 Months |
|
% of Disclosures |
% of Disclosures |
% of Disclosures |
|
|
13/14 |
2.6% |
0.8% |
0.0% |
|
14/15 |
4.9% |
2.1% |
0.1% |
|
15/16 |
5.2% |
3.5% |
0.3% |
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2015-10-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish the October 2015 census data for primary school reception class places for each school in the London Borough of Lambeth.
Edward Timpson
The department does not publish information from the October school census, and instead publishes information from the January census which is the only one of the termly censuses that covers all school types and collects information on class sizes. We collect data on pupils but not on places in schools. Data from the January 2016 school census will be published in June 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2015-02-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions took place at his most recent meeting with the European Health Commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis; whether he discussed (a) the likely timelines for the future setting of maximum permitted levels for nutrients under the provisions of Article 5 of the Food Supplements Directive and (b) the potential extension of the scope of that Directive to include supplements containing ingredients of plant, fish and animal origin at that meeting; and if he will make a statement.
Jane Ellison
No discussions have yet taken place with Commissioner Andriukaitis. The new European Commission has not announced any renewed plans to implement Article 5 of the Food Supplements Directive and the Government has not recently made an assessment of potential effects of maximum permitted levels of vitamins and minerals, either on consumer choice, or on British businesses. Our advice to United Kingdom manufacturers on safe daily dose levels for vitamins and minerals in food supplements is based on the report of the UK’s Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals. The industry has supported the use of these levels and the report is also used by some other member states as advice for safe upper levels.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to engage with the public about (a) care.data and (b) ways of opting-out of care.data before data is collected.
Dr Daniel Poulter
NHS England is currently listening to the views of patients, the general public, general practitioners (GPs) and stakeholders on how best to further build trust and confidence in the care.data programme. Local stakeholders, including GPs, patients, the general public and health and care representatives, are taking part in debates and workshops to air their views.
There will be a phased approach to implementation. NHS England intends to work with a number of GP practices, ‘pathfinders’, in the autumn to test, evaluate and refine all aspects of the data collection process ahead of national roll-out. This will include consideration of ways of objecting “opting out” to being included in the care.data programme.
A care.data advisory group has been established to support the programme and that group will also be involved in shaping the pathfinder stage. Ciaran Devane, Chief Executive of Macmillan Cancer Support and a non-executive director of NHS England, has agreed to chair the group.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the punctuality of South West Trains’ passenger rail services in each month since that company formally entered into a deep alliance with Network Rail in April 2012.
Claire Perry
The Public Performance Measure is a measurement of train punctuality against the planned services for the day. The Department regularly monitors each operators performance. This includes regular meetings with their senior management where performance figures are scrutinised and challenged.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what criteria are used to establish whether delays over five minutes to a scheduled commuter train service in (a) London and (b) the South East were caused by (i) Network Rail, (ii) the train operating company or (iii) other factors; and what changes have been made to those criteria since January 2008.
Claire Perry
The criteria for establishing delay causes are to be found in the Delay Attribution Guide, issued by the Delay Attribution Board – a joint industry body remitted to provide guidance to the industry on delay attribution issues.
The current guide was issued in April 2014. Copies of the all the guides since 2007 can be seen at:
http://www.delayattributionboard.co.uk/delayattributionguides.htm
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many of the existing franchise agreements between his Department and train operating companies contain punctuality targets for timetabled passenger services; what the target is in each case; and what the penalties are for missing such a target.
Claire Perry
6 existing franchise agreements contain punctuality targets for timetabled passenger services.
The targets are in the franchise agreements, which are published online by the Department for Transport at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-register-of-rail-passenger-franchise-agreements. The associated contractual payments are commercially confidential.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many train operating companies (TOCs) missed their annual punctuality targets in each year of Control Period 4, 2009-14; and whether the Office of Rail Regulation can impose fines on TOCs for missing punctuality targets for timetabled train services.
Claire Perry
The regulatory targets for punctuality set by the Office of Rail Regulation for Control Period 4 applied to Network Rail, but not to the individual TOCs. ORR holds Network Rail accountable for its delivery to TOCs by enforcing targets agreed between Network Rail and TOCs.