Tag: Lord Beecham

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-10-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reported growth in reliance on the employment of locum doctors in GP practices and the extent, if any, to which the employment of full-time doctors in GP practices has declined.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The latest statistics, published on 27 September, as at 31 March 2016, show that the total full time equivalent general practitioners (GPs), including locums was 34,914, an increase of 323, compared to September 2015.

The same statistics showed that on 31 March 2016, there were 601 locums recorded as working in GP practices on that one day. On the day of 30 September 2015, 537 locums were recorded working in GP practices.

Locum doctors cover a variety of roles, including vacancies and absences such as maternity, training and annual leave. Not all practices completed returns or provided detailed information on the type of GP that was working in the practice, on either 30 September and/or 31 March, which means that it is not possible to compare the data of September 2015 and March 2016.

The data that NHS Digital publish on the general practice workforce is labelled provisional, experimental statistics, as they use a new methodology/data set and collection vehicles. These statistics replace the traditional GP census. The new data set, introduced in September 2015, collected information on locum doctors for the first time.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2015-11-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what efforts they have made to promote diversity in the composition of the judiciary by reference to (1) socio-economic status, (2) ethnicity, (3) gender, and (4) age.

Lord Faulks

The Government fully supports a more diverse judiciary and has taken steps to improve representation, whilst still appointing the best people for the job.

In Courts and Tribunals the representation of women has risen to 32.3% of the judiciary, compared to 28.8% in 2012. Black Asian Minority Ethnic (BAME) representation has risen to 7.4 % from 6.8% over the same period.

The Government works with its partners in the judiciary, the Judicial Appointments Commission and the legal professions through the Judicial Diversity Forum to take action to increase the diversity of the judiciary at all levels.

Recent initiatives include:

• Supporting the judiciary in the implementation of the ‘New Route to the High Court’ scheme. This offered high quality candidates support to apply for a Deputy High Court Judge selection exercise launched in July 2015. As this programme was aimed at encouraging diversity, places on this support scheme were limited to women, BAME candidates and those from low socio-economic backgrounds.
• Holding outreach events, targeted at under-represented groups, such as ‘Women in the Judiciary: Making it happen’.

This work builds on significant legislative changes which:

• Introduced the equal merit provision into the final stage of the judicial appointments process, which allows diversity, in terms of gender and ethnicity, to be taken into account when two applicants are of equal merit. This has already been applied in seven JAC recommendations between October 2014 and March 2015;
• Extended salaried part-time working to the High Court and above to increase flexibility and make it easier to balance home and work life; and
• Introduced a statutory duty for the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice to encourage judicial diversity.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2015-12-08.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to ensure that local authorities with a low council tax base are not disadvantaged in relation to authorities in more affluent areas by the new power to raise council tax by 2 per cent in order partially to offset cuts in social care following the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

The Government recognises that councils have varying capacity to raise money through council tax. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government set out, in the provisional local government finance settlement 2016-17, proposed changes to rebalance support, including to those authorities with social care responsibilities, by taking into account the main resources available to councils. In particular, he published illustrative allocations for the extra funding we are providing to local authorities for adult social care through the improved Better Care Fund: these allocations directly take into account the council tax-raising capacity of authorities.

I refer the noble Lord to information accompanying the Oral Statement made on 17 December, Official Report, Column 2238-2239 (attached).

Further details are available on the Government website at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/council-tax-in-2016-to-2017 and https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486708/Core_spending_power_supporting_information.xlsx

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-03-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what savings they estimate will derive from their courts closure programme; and how much, and over what period, they plan to invest in technology to reduce the demand for court facilities in the justice system.

Lord Faulks

The Impact Assessment published alongside the consultation document outlines estimated savings of £170m over a 10-year period.

The Government is committed to modernising the way in which justice is accessed and delivered. We are investing over £700m over the next 4 years to update the court and tribunal estate, installing modern IT systems and making the justice system more efficient and effective for modern users.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-09-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to publish the report they received in December 2015 from the Scientific Advisory Committee on the Medical Implications of Less-Lethal Weapons on the use of less-lethal weapons such as tasers; and if not, why not.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

The Scientific Advisory Committee on the Medical Implications of Less-Lethal Weapons’ report was provided on request by the Home Office and police. It is not a formal assessment and was never intended as a public report and therefore has not been published. The key conclusions were communicated to all police forces in England and Wales by DAC Neil Basu.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-10-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the research commissioned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in 2013 Payment of Tribunal Awards showing that one-third of employment tribunal awards remained unpaid and only 49 per cent of successful applicants received their full awarded compensation, what steps they are taking to ensure that employment tribunal awards are paid in full.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has introduced robust Employment Tribunal enforcement processes, which can ultimately lead to a referral to a debt collection agency. A new process implemented in April 2016 allows for a penalty to be issued. The penalty is calculated as 50% of the value of the tribunal award up to a maximum of £5,000.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2015-11-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they have refused to answer freedom of information requests from The Guardian in relation to non-UK migrant families.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The Guardian has received responses to their requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2015-12-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Faulks on 14 December (HL4095), why the occupations of those appointed as lay magistrates are no longer recorded.

Lord Faulks

The information is no longer recorded because it does not form part of published statistics on the magistracy. Additionally, the enduring accuracy of the recorded information could not be guaranteed subsequent to appointment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-04-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the extent and impact of the number of defendants in criminal cases appearing without representation as revealed in the report by Transform Justice Justice Denied? The experience of unrepresented defendants in the criminal courts.

Lord Faulks

Data on litigants in person in Magistrates’ Courts is not centrally recorded. There has been no change in the scope or eligibility for legal aid in the magistrates’ courts since means testing was introduced in 2006.

Legal aid is available, where necessary, for both magistrates’ and Crown Court cases, subject to defendants being means tested.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-09-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much tax has accrued to the Exchequer from the reported removal of £6.1 billion from pension funds since the new pensions flexibility rules were introduced, and how much they estimate will accrue by 2020.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The latest estimate of the tax revenue consequences of the introduction of pensions flexibility was set out in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook in March 2016. This stated, in paragraph 4.40, that: “tax from pension withdrawals relating to the pension flexibility measure is expected to be around £0.9 billion for the whole of 2015-16, around £0.2 billion higher than assumed in the original costing”.

The estimated longer term tax impacts of the pensions flexibility measures announced at Budget 2014 were set out in Chart 1.11 (page 45) of the Budget 2014 document.