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Tag: Keith Vaz

  • Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-02-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to support Saudi Arabia’s internal inquiry into war crimes in Yemen.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    We encourage Saudi Arabia to investigate allegations of breaches of international humanitarian law, and for their investigations to be thorough and conclusive. Saudi Arabia has its own internal procedures for investigations and they announced more detail of how they investigate such incidents on 31 January. This will include an independent team of skilled specialists who will assess and verify incidents of concern.

  • Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-02-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government is taking to encourage increased international donor support for Yemen.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    The UK is the fourth largest donor to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and has more than doubled its humanitarian support over the last year to £85 million for 2015/16. We have so far helped more than 1.3 million Yemenis with medical supplies, food, water, and emergency shelter.

    We continue to call on other donors to step up. In July 2015 the Foreign and Development Secretaries wrote to international donors to raise the profile of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis and encourage more funding to the response. In September, the Development Secretary co-hosted a meeting on Yemen’s humanitarian crisis at the UN General Assembly, at which donors (including the UK) pledged an additional £85 million.

    We will continue to encourage donors to give generously to the newly launched UN humanitarian appeal for 2016.

  • Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-03-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reasons only four of the 10 ePassport gates at Luton Airport were in operation between 7pm and 8pm on 26 February 2016.

    James Brokenshire

    The numbers of ePassport gates in use is an operational decision for Border Force and are flexed according to need. On the evening in question, there was a high proportion of arriving passengers using ID cards who were ineligible to use the gates. Officers were therefore redeployed to the manual immigration desks to assist with the majority of passengers requiring manual checks.

    Waiting times between 19.00 and 20.00 were within agreed service level agreements, with queue measurements for passengers at the ePassport gates being no more than 8 minutes and those at the manual control being no more than 21 minutes.

  • Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-03-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many times Spirit Healthcare has been commissioned to deliver type 2 diabetes education to date.

    Jane Ellison

    The information requested is not held centrally.

  • Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-06-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress has been made by the East Midlands Ambulance Service on reducing patient handover times to local hospitals.

    Ben Gummer

    NHS Improvement advises that East Midlands Ambulance Service is working with hospital trusts, clinical commissioning groups, NHS Improvement and NHS England to reduce handover delays. For example, since November 2015 at Leicester Royal Infirmary 1-2 hour delays have reduced by 67% and delays of more than two hours have been reduced by 76%. This has resulted in the average handover time reducing by 38% from 39 minutes to 24 minutes.

  • Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Keith Vaz – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2016-09-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if she will estimate the number of (a) refugees, (b) internally displaced persons and (c) persons of concern resulting from conflict in Yemen.

    Rory Stewart

    Since March 2015, the United Nations (UN) estimates that:

    1. 179,654 people have arrived in Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Oman from Yemen, including Yemeni refugees and asylum-seekers;
    2. 2,205,102 people are internally displaced within Yemen; and
    3. 21.2 million people are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance.
  • Keith Vaz – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Keith Vaz – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2014-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum cases were awaiting decision for travel documents on 1 February 2014.

    James Brokenshire

    We are unable to provide figures specific to asylum cases awaiting travel
    documents. This information is only held within paper case files, which would
    mean this question could only be answered through a disproportionately
    expensive manual case search.

  • Keith Vaz – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Keith Vaz – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2014-01-07.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many non-UK EEA nationals had dependants eligible to receive child benefit where the dependant is (a) in the UK and (b) outside the UK on 1 January 2014; and how much has been paid in such a fashion in each of the last three years.

    Nicky Morgan

    HMRC are not able to provide the information in the manner requested. HMRC do not record the nationality of the claimant receiving Child Benefit for children living in another member state.

    Published Child Benefit statistics provide annual estimates of the number of families and children claiming. The latest available (August 2012) show that there were 7.92 million families, responsible for 13.77 million children and qualifying young people receiving Child Benefit.

    The main purpose of Child Benefit is to support families in the UK. Consequently, the rules generally do not provide for them to be paid in respect of children who live abroad.

    Nevertheless, Child Benefit is a family benefit under EC Regulation 883/2004. This regulation protects the social security rights of nationals of all member states of the European economic area, including the UK, and Switzerland when they exercise their rights of free movement under EU law.

    HMRC holds information on the number of Child Benefit awards under EC Regulation 883/2004. As at 31 December 2013, there were 20,400 ongoing Child Benefit awards under the EC Regulation in respect of 34.268 children living in another member state.

    This is a fall of 3,682 (15.3%) awards in respect of 5,903 (14.7%) fewer children since 31 December 2012.

    The breakdown by member state is as follows:

    *We have withheld the number where it is fewer than 5, as there is risk that the information could be attributed to an identifiable person, which would prejudice their right to privacy and would therefore be a breach of Principle 1 of the Data Protection Act.

    Child Benefit

    Country of residence of children

    Number of awards

    Number of children

    Austria

    23

    37

    Belgium

    75

    140

    Bulgaria

    186

    245

    Croatia

    *5

    *5

    Cyprus

    39

    61

    Czech Republic

    124

    203

    Denmark

    13

    23

    Estonia

    45

    65

    Finland

    12

    23

    France

    789

    1429

    Germany

    283

    495

    Greece

    44

    69

    Hungary

    136

    196

    Iceland

    *5

    *5

    Italy

    156

    273

    Latvia

    797

    1091

    Liechtenstein

    0

    0

    Lithuania

    1215

    1712

    Luxembourg

    7

    14

    Malta

    15

    22

    Norway

    30

    61

    Poland

    13174

    22093

    Portugal

    202

    309

    Republic of Ireland

    1231

    2505

    Romania

    230

    392

    Slovakia

    692

    1232

    Slovenia

    11

    21

    Spain

    600

    1019

    Sweden

    49

    95

    Switzerland

    77

    150

    The Netherlands

    142

    288

    Totals

    20400

    34268

    As announced in the 2014 Budget, to prevent EEA migrants claiming benefits they are not entitled to, the Government will increase compliance checks to establish whether EEA migrants meet the entitlement conditions to receive Child Benefit

    Under domestic law, in order to claim Child Benefit EEA Migrants must be present in the UK, ordinarily resident and have a right to reside in the UK and their children must live in the UK.

    The recent changes to migrants’ access to benefits announced by the Government sends a strong message that the UK benefit system is not open to abuse, as well as deterring those who may seek residence in the UK primarily to claim benefits.

    Strengthening compliance checks will help prevent EEA migrants from claiming, and continuing to claim, benefits they are not entitled to. Checks will be applied to both new claims and existing awards.

  • Keith Vaz – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Keith Vaz – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2015-10-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people in the UK are currently in possession of Security Industry Authority licences; and how many such licences were obtained since January 2010.

    Mike Penning

    There are currently 326,144 individuals who hold Security Industry Authority licences. Since 2010, 765,022 licences have been issued.

  • Keith Vaz – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Keith Vaz – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Keith Vaz on 2015-10-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people are currently detained in UK prisons for cannabis-related offences.

    Andrew Selous

    As at 30 June 2015 (latest date for which information is available), the number of offenders in prisons in England and Wales for cannabis related offences was 1,363.

    Information on Scotland and Northern Ireland are matters for the Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive respectively.

    These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.