Tag: Lord Harrison

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.

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 breaking the School Admissions Code by taking into account the past behaviour, attendance, attitude, or achievement, of children.

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 what steps they are taking to ensure there are sufficient linguistic skills in languages such as Russian and Mandarin across the armed forces.

Earl Howe

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) regularly reviews its requirements for linguists to ensure that all operational demands for linguists are met in full, and trains its personnel accordingly. For languages with little or no immediate operational requirement, the MOD ensures that there is a baseline of linguists that can be called on for contingency tasks and Defence Engagement.

Long and short-term language priorities are agreed at a strategic level and provide the basis for the statement of training requirement against which defence language training is delivered.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the European Commission’s Recommendation in 2014 on a new approach to business failure and insolvency on the UK’s insolvency regime.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The UK’s flexible and effective restructuring and insolvency regime is very much in keeping with the general themes of the EU Recommendation. Following the European Commission’s 2014 Recommendation, the Government conducted a call for evidence seeking the views of stakeholders and submitted a response to the Commission’s survey on how Member States comply with the Recommendation. The Government published the UK’s response in August 2015. This can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/european-commission-recommendation-on-business-failure-and-insolvency-call-for-evidence

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to respond rapidly to new requirements for linguistic skills across the armed forces.

Earl Howe

The Defence Centre for Language and Culture (DCLC) has an extremely agile training delivery model, comprising a core of military and specialist civilian lecturers supported by a commercial training contract supplying contracted tutors. The DCLC covers a number of languages. This enables the Ministry of Defence to respond rapidly to new requirements, at scale, and at short notice. A dedicated Contingency Wing has been established specifically to respond to and manage this type of short notice demand, particularly in operationally focused languages. Plans are regularly reviewed to ensure that we have already considered broad options for the delivery of new requirements.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harrison on 2016-02-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what work they are doing to promote the UK’s insolvency regime to the European Commission as it develops its plans for an insolvency directive.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

My officials have regular discussions with Commission officials on this matter. Insolvency experts have also had such discussions to ensure they are aware of the features and strengths of our insolvency regime. The Commission has announced its intention to publish a legislative initiative on corporate insolvency in late 2016. This is to be preceded by a consultation to be published this spring. The Government will be responding to the consultation.