Tag: Lord Harrison

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the finding of the report by the Fair Admissions Campaign and the British Humanist Association last year An Unholy Mess that a significant proportion of religiously selective schools are not properly publishing their admission arrangements, thereby depriving parents of the information they need to navigate the admissions process.

Lord Nash

Admission authorities for all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious designation, are required to comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code and other admissions law.

Where an objection is made to the Schools Adjudicator, if the arrangements are found to be unfair or fail to comply with the Code, the admission authority must make changes to ensure their arrangements are compliant without undue delay. Where an admission authority fails to implement decisions of the adjudicator, the Secretary of State may direct the admission authority to do so.

We continue to keep the Code under review, and, where we consider any changes are necessary to make the admissions system work more effectively for parents, these will be subject to a full public consultation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what advice they received on the impact on small and medium-sized enterprises’ productivity levels following the withdrawal of HM Revenue and Custom’s valuation check service.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

No impact on the productivity of small and medium-sized enterprises is anticipated. HMRC has not withdrawn the valuation service for those share schemes most relevant to these enterprises.

These include:

• Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI),

• Company Share Option Plans (CSOP),

• Save As You Earn share option schemes (SAYE),

• Share Incentive Plans (SIP) and

• Employee Shareholder Status (ESS).

  HMRC has however announced a review of the valuation services for those schemes and is consulting interested parties.

  HMRC has withdrawn valuation checks for income tax and PAYE that are not part of these recognised employee ownership schemes. Most people submitted acceptable valuations and therefore the valuation service offered was not seen as needed.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the finding of the report by the Fair Admissions Campaign and the British Humanist Association last year An Unholy Mess that a majority of religiously selective schools may not be properly prioritising looked-after, and previously looked-after, children in their admission arrangements, and what steps they are taking to address this.

Lord Nash

Admission authorities for all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious designation, are required to comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code and other admissions law.

Where an objection is made to the Schools Adjudicator, if the arrangements are found to be unfair or fail to comply with the Code, the admission authority must make changes to ensure their arrangements are compliant without undue delay. Where an admission authority fails to implement decisions of the adjudicator, the Secretary of State may direct the admission authority to do so.

We continue to keep the Code under review, and, where we consider any changes are necessary to make the admissions system work more effectively for parents, these will be subject to a full public consultation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on UK productivity of the planned withdrawal of HM Revenue and Custom’s valuation check service.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

No impact on UK productivity is anticipated. HMRC has not withdrawn the valuation service for those share schemes most relevant to small and medium sized enterprises.

These include:

• Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI),

• Company Share Option Plans (CSOP),

• Save As You Earn share option schemes (SAYE),

• Share Incentive Plans (SIP) and

• Employee Shareholder Status (ESS).

  HMRC has however announced a review of the valuation services for those schemes and is consulting interested parties.

  HMRC has withdrawn valuation checks for income tax and PAYE that are not part of these recognised employee ownership schemes. Most people submitted acceptable valuations and therefore the valuation service offered was not seen as needed.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the finding of the report by the Fair Admissions Campaign and the British Humanist Association last year An Unholy Mess that a significant number of religiously selective schools are still interviewing prospective pupils, despite this being banned in 2006.

Lord Nash

Admission authorities for all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious designation, are required to comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code and other admissions law.

Where an objection is made to the Schools Adjudicator, if the arrangements are found to be unfair or fail to comply with the Code, the admission authority must make changes to ensure their arrangements are compliant without undue delay. Where an admission authority fails to implement decisions of the adjudicator, the Secretary of State may direct the admission authority to do so.

We continue to keep the Code under review, and, where we consider any changes are necessary to make the admissions system work more effectively for parents, these will be subject to a full public consultation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the HM Revenue and Custom’s commissioned research conducted by Oxera on the impact employee share ownership schemes had on the productivity levels of UK firms.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The report “Tax-advantaged employee share schemes: analysis of productivity effects” was prepared for HM Revenue and Customs by Oxera and published in August 2007.

The research represents a valuable addition to the evidence base on employee share schemes, but there are important limitations to its scope. While the research uses real measures of company productivity, it does not take into account potential complementary effects or assess the effects of share schemes on other performance measures, such as staff turnover, or in achieving wider objectives such as promoting share ownership.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the finding of the report by the Fair Admissions Campaign and the British Humanist Association last year An Unholy Mess that a significant number of religiously selective schools are requiring practical or financial support for associated organisations such as churches and synagogues from parents, and what steps they are taking to address this.

Lord Nash

Admission authorities for all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious designation, are required to comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code and other admissions law.

Where an objection is made to the Schools Adjudicator, if the arrangements are found to be unfair or fail to comply with the Code, the admission authority must make changes to ensure their arrangements are compliant without undue delay. Where an admission authority fails to implement decisions of the adjudicator, the Secretary of State may direct the admission authority to do so.

We continue to keep the Code under review, and, where we consider any changes are necessary to make the admissions system work more effectively for parents, these will be subject to a full public consultation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to meet with the representative bodies of employee share ownership schemes to discuss the recent decision to withdraw HM Revenue and Custom’s valuation check service.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

Officials from HM Revenue and Customs have already met representative bodies of employee ownership schemes. HMRC will be working with those groups to develop further public guidance and discuss any other proposals their members might raise.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the finding of the report by the Fair Admissions Campaign and the British Humanist Association last year An Unholy Mess that a significant number of religiously selective schools are asking parents for information they do not need, and are not allowed to ask for, such as the predicted grades of their children, and how this could be prevented in future.

Lord Nash

Admission authorities for all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious designation, are required to comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code and other admissions law.

Where an objection is made to the Schools Adjudicator, if the arrangements are found to be unfair or fail to comply with the Code, the admission authority must make changes to ensure their arrangements are compliant without undue delay. Where an admission authority fails to implement decisions of the adjudicator, the Secretary of State may direct the admission authority to do so.

We continue to keep the Code under review, and, where we consider any changes are necessary to make the admissions system work more effectively for parents, these will be subject to a full public consultation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-03-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many staff in each of the armed services work at the level of interpreter in each language.

Earl Howe

The Armed Services recognise 48 languages for which they declare a capability. The Joint Arms Control Implementation Group is the only unit which employs personnel in the direct role of interpreter. Across the Armed Services a total of 697 personnel are recorded as holding a level of language qualification and currency that is functional or above. These are broken down as follows:

	Army	RAF	Royal Marines	Royal Navy	Total
Functional	160	56	17	31	264
Professional	191	52	17	41	301
Expert	85	27	5	15	132
Total	436	135	39	87	697

The number of languages that Ministry of Defence (MOD) employees could conceivably need to converse in is extremely broad. The MOD employs professional interpreters for more niche languages and has robust strategies in place to ensure the quality of contractors’ interpretation skills.