Tag: Keith Vaz

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

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what funding the Government has allocated specifically to child protection in Yemen.

Mr Desmond Swayne

The UK is the 4th largest donor to the crisis in Yemen and has more than doubled its humanitarian support over the last year to £85 million for 2015/16. This includes funding for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Save the Children to raise awareness of child rights, to monitor and support displaced children and to provide children with food, nutritional support, water and sanitation.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the parameters or cost of the Home Office contract with Airwave have been altered as a result of the acquisition of Airwave by Motorola Solutions.

Mike Penning

The Home Office holds three contracts with Motorola Solutions. These are:

(a) The Public Safety Radio Communications Service (PSRCS) Framework Arrangement for the provision of the Airwave service to the police services of Eng-land, Scotland and Wales.

(b) Contract ST03 10/641/9 for the provision of telecommunications services to the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

(c) Emergency Services Network (ESN) — Lot 2 User Services; one of the contracts that will replace the current Airwave contract.

The cost to the public purse of the Home Office contract with Airwave in Financial Year 2015-16 is forecast to be £283 million comprising £230 million paid centrally by the Home Office and £53 million paid locally by police forces to Airwave. By way of comparison, under the newly procured Emergency Services Network, the policing share of costs is expected to be less than half of the current Airwave costs.

Airwave Solutions Ltd provides mobile telecommunications services for emer-gency services. The Home Office Airwave contracts only relate to police forces, and immigration and nationality functions within the Home Office. The Home Office is not party to the contracts which many other organisations in the public sector have entered into with Airwave.

The acquisition of Airwave by Motorola Solutions means all three Emergency Services contracts now end on 31st December 2019. This provides continuity of service for the transition to the Emergency Services Network.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what scientific testing Spirit Healthcare’s Empower type 2 diabetes education programme underwent for the outcomes it produces.

Jane Ellison

The information requested is not held centrally.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what measures are in place to regulate the prices of everyday drugs sold to the NHS by pharmaceutical companies.

George Freeman

There are arrangements in place to ensure that the prices paid by the National Health Service for medicines provide value for money for the NHS. The prices and the profits made on the sales of branded medicines to the NHS are controlled by the voluntary Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme. If a company chooses not to join the voluntary scheme, it falls under a statutory scheme which controls the prices of branded medicines.

The Department does not control the price of generic medicines; instead it relies on competition to drive down prices. A report in 2010 by the National Audit Office showed that the reimbursement arrangements had delivered savings for the NHS of £1.8 billion between 2005/6 and 2008/09.

Concerns about possible anti-competitive behaviour by pharmaceutical companies are investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The Department and the CMA work closely together on such matters. The CMA is committed to investigating suspected infringements of competition law, including suspected excessive pricing in the pharmaceutical sector. The CMA has strong powers of investigation and, where it finds that a firm has breached competition law, it may impose penalties of up to 10% of a company’s worldwide turnover.

The CMA has been asked by the Secretary of State to undertake further work to look into specific instances of excessive pricing.

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 her Department’s spending related to the crisis in Yemen.

Rory Stewart

Since March 2015, the UK has provided £90 million to the Yemen crisis, helping over a million Yemenis with food, medical supplies, water, and emergency shelter. We have so far committed £72 million to Yemen for this year.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.