Tag: Lord Hylton

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2015-11-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will ensure that the FCO’s cleaning contractor, Interserve, pays the London Living Wage to its employees.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Interserve is responsible for setting the terms and conditions of its staff, including pay. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office supports its contractors in paying the London and UK Living Wage when it is affordable and does not cost jobs, however this should be for individual employers to decide. Interserve will have to pay its staff the National Living Wage from April.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2015-11-26.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking, and advocating to others, in order to boost Palestinian economic activity in Zones B and C of the occupied West Bank.

Earl of Courtown

DFID is promoting economic development which is vital for Palestinian development. We are providing £15 million (2013-2019) through the Palestinian Market Development Programme (PMDP) which seeks to improve the competitiveness of 570 Palestinian businesses and address market failures. So far 190 firms in the West Bank including Areas A, B, and C have been assisted and were able to develop 117 products and enter 63 new markets. Through the UN FAO, DFID has helped vulnerable rural farmers in Area C support their families through increased incomes from agricultural production. We also continue to fund the development of Palestinian outline plans to improve Palestinian communities’ access to services in Area C.

The UK remains deeply concerned about the impact of Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods, which continue to be the main impediment to sustainable economic growth in the Occupied Palestinian Territories including Area B and C. We have consistently called on Israel to improve movement and access in the OPTs, including in visits by the Minister of State for International Development and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We fund advisers to support the work of the Office of the Quartet (OQ) on easing movement and access restrictions in the OPTs and to improve the environment for businesses operating there.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2015-12-10.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take steps to ensure that Turkey does not repatriate any genuine refugees, following the recent EU–Turkey financial agreement.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The UK cooperates closely with Turkey on migration and Turkey has consistently confirmed that their borders remain open to genuine refugees. We commend Turkey’s generosity in hosting over 2.2 million refugees from the crisis in Syria and Iraq. Enhanced cooperation between the EU and Turkey is critical to resolving the current migration crisis. At the EU-Turkey summit on 29 November, the EU agreed €3billion of additional support to Turkey to help ease its refugee burden and prevent further irregular migration to the EU. Turkey and the EU also agreed to activate the migration action plan. As part of this action plan, Turkey committed to accelerate procedures in order to readmit smoothly irregular migrants who are not in need of international protection, whilst ensuring that vulnerable people continue to be identified and taken care of.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-01-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what practical steps they are taking to achieve the maximum use of vacant residential, commercial, and industrial premises for temporary or interim housing, in particular for homeless people or refugees; and whether they have released government properties for such purposes.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

The Government has taken a range of steps to increase housing supply by providing more homes for rent and ownership, as well as encouraging local authorities to bring empty homes back into use. As a result, the number of homes that stand empty for more than six months is at an all time low. The Government is committed to releasing surplus assets to drive economic growth and release land for housing. The Spending Review announced that departments have committed to release land for more than 160,000 homes.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-01-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any proposals for diverting a proportion of the EU’s external aid to assist member states in receiving and caring for the current increased numbers of refugees, and to job-creating investment in the Middle East and North Africa.

Baroness Verma

With pressure from the United Kingdom and other Member States, the European Union (EU) has mobilised considerable funding to support the international response to the refugee crisis – including within Europe, and to tackle the root causes of migration and displacement in the Middle East and North Africa.

Within Europe, the UK is working to ensure that all tools are being used to support the humanitarian response to the refugee crisis, and that the donor effort is well coordinated through the Civil Protection Mechanism. Alongside this, the UK’s support for refugees and migrants during the Mediterranean migration crisis has reached nearly £55million. This money is focused on providing life-saving assistance and protection to vulnerable people rescued at sea or in transit.

In the Middle East and the North Africa, the EU is a leading donor in the response to the Syria crisis with over €5 billion of total budget mobilised by the European Commission and Member States collectively in humanitarian, development, economic and stabilisation assistance. The UK has been at the forefront of this, pledging over £1.1 billion, our largest ever humanitarian response to a single crisis. In addition, the EU Trust Fund for Africa – a €1.8billion fund – will allocate money to projects in the Sahel, Horn and North Africa to tackle the root causes of migration.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-02-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many persons for whom the British armed forces had a duty of care have been admitted to the UK for settlement in each year since 2001; and what sums of compensation have been paid for resettlement in other countries in that same period.

Earl Howe

I am responding with figures relating to Iraqi and Afghan civilian personnel employed by HM Armed Forces and admitted for settlement to the UK. Admissions date from 2008 and have taken place under ex gratia arrangements rather than on the basis of a duty of care.

A total of 1,323 Iraqi civilians have been relocated to the UK since the locally engaged staff (LES) assistance scheme was announced in 2007. This total comprises 367 former locally engaged staff and 956 dependants.

	Total
2008	171
2009	627
2010	130
2011	7
2012	125
2013	139
2014	69
2015	37
2016	18
TOTAL	1,323

Nearly 500 Afghan former LES are eligible to apply for relocation to the UK with their immediate families under the Afghan LES Ex Gratia Redundancy scheme, which was announced on 4 June 2013. 573 people, comprising 249 locally engaged staff and 324 dependants, have relocated to the UK up to the end of January 2016.

	Total
2014	55
2015	482
2016	36*
Total	573

*as at 31 January 2016

A number of Iraqi and Afghan former LES will have claimed asylum after entering the UK outside of the ex gratia arrangements; however, the relevant data is not held centrally.

We are not aware that any payments have been made for the resettlement of Iraqi or Afghan civilians to other countries.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-02-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on 18 February (HL5926), whether they intend to propose a system of sharing of expenditure by EU member states whereby those that accept smaller numbers of refugees for settlement proportionate to their own population size pay a higher fraction of national income towards programmes benefitting refugees both in Europe and outside it.

Baroness Verma

The UK encourages other EU member States to support programmes of assistance to refugees, as demonstrated most recently at the February Conference on Syria and the Region.

The UK is at the forefront of the response to the Syria crisis, committing over £2.3 billion. We are prioritising our aid in Syria and neighbouring countries, where the scale of displacement is greatest. The Government has no plans to propose a system as suggested by the noble Lord.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-03-07.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they plan to take, if any, to get the current ceasefires in Syria enlarged to include the whole of south-east Turkey.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

There are no plans to extend the Syrian Cessation of Hostilities to south-east Turkey. Violence by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) must end and we support a return to peace talks between Turkey and the PKK, in the interests of Turkey and the wider region.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-04-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what information they have about the size of the prison population in Tunisia, in particular about alleged over-crowding in Mornaguai Prison near Tunis; and whether they will assist the government of Tunisia in processing cases and in providing defence counsel.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

In January 2016 the Tunisian authorities said that their prisons and detention centres were holding around 170 per cent of their capacity. The UN reported in March 2014 that Mornaguia prison was 25 per cent over its capacity. We have raised with the Tunisian authorities the importance of introducing reforms to the Penal Code. These would help address prison overcrowding.

We have no current plans to assist the Government of Tunisia in processing cases or providing defence counsel: the focus of our minimum £8 million support in this financial year is on Tunisia’s transition, security capacity building, governance and the economy.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2016-04-27.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will discuss with the government of Turkey the early release of Abdullah Öcalan, in the light of his long solitary imprisonment, so as to assist the resumption of peace negotiations.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

We have no plans to discuss this particular case with the Government of Turkey. Abdullah Öcalan is the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a terrorist organisation proscribed in the UK that has killed over 350 people in violent attacks since July 2015. We have supported the peace process initiated by the Turkish government and hope the process can be restarted soon.