Tag: Lord Oates

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Prime Minister last visited Africa to promote trade, investment and economic development; which countries he visited; and when he next intends to make such a visit.

Lord Price

Details of ministerial visits overseas are published on a quarterly basis and can be accessed via the gov.uk website. For security reasons, the Prime Minister’s engagements are announced as and when appropriate.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the average time it takes HMRC to respond to written communications from (1) small businesses, and (2) personal taxpayers.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not collect data in such a way that the average waiting time for responses to written communications can be calculated. The performance is measured as a percentage of post cleared within 15 and 40 working days of receipt. HMRC has published the information on the performance results including post turnaround in the Annual Report and Accounts 2014-15.

HMRC’s data on response times for written communication cannot be easily analysed by customer group.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Chancellor of the Exchequer last visited Africa to promote trade, investment and economic development; which countries he visited; and when he next intends to make such a visit.

Lord Price

Details of ministerial visits overseas are published on a quarterly basis and can be accessed via the gov.uk website. For security reasons, the Chancellor’s engagements are announced as and when appropriate.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of what is an acceptable average period for (1) small businesses, and (2) personal taxpayers, to wait for their calls to a government department to be answered.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

HM Revenue and Customs has a target to handle 80 per cent of call attempts to their contact centre helplines. It also aims to answer calls within 5 minutes.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what support they are giving to the government of Ethiopia to encourage the development of a strong private sector able to sustain economic development and employment.

Baroness Verma

The UK Government supports the Government of Ethiopia’s vision of becoming an industrialised, resilient country that is less reliant on aid. DFID Ethiopia is investing in an exciting portfolio of programmes to help deliver this, underpinned by rigorous analysis of the key constraints to growth and private sector development.

DFID is helping to create 45,000 jobs and raise the incomes of 65,000 people through our support to key Ethiopian priority sectors; increasing the availability of financial products to 350,000 people through support to micro-finance institutions and banks; and helping to increase incomes for over 1.4 million households by providing land certificates to farmers.

We are also supporting the Government of Ethiopia to use its own resources well to encourage growth and private sector development. We will provide technical advice on public investment to help the Government improve the effectiveness of its spending. This will include bringing in more private sector finance over time, for example through Public Private Partnerships– i.e. a contract between a private party and government which can bring additional financing as well as expertise. In addition, our work on tax will help the Government meet its revenue targets, improve the business environment, limit corruption and increase transparency.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they plan to take to ensure equality of treatment for mental and physical illness.

Lord Prior of Brampton

We have put into legislation through the Health and Social Care Act 2012 that mental health should have equal priority to physical health. We have also committed NHS England through the NHS Mandate to achieve parity of esteem between mental and physical health.

We are implementing the first waiting times targets for mental health services to ensure more people have timely access to care in the same way they do for treatment for physical health. We have also increased access to talking therapies through the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme.

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

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report of the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges in February 2015, Exercise: The miracle cure and the role of the doctor in promoting it, and how that assessment has informed their policy making.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The evidence and messages in the report of the Academy of Royal Medical Colleges align with the United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ (CMOs) guidelines for physical activity and Public Health England’s physical activity framework ‘Everybody Active Every Day’ both of which highlight the key role of health professionals in promoting physical activity.

The Government is committed to raising awareness of the UK CMOs guidelines and the benefits of physical activity amongst the public and health professionals. The CMO recently launched a new infographic specifically designed to help health professionals to discuss the benefits of physical activity with their patients. The Government also has in place a range of other programmes to support doctors in the promotion of physical activity. These include e-learning modules on physical activity and health, undergraduate training resources for medical, nursing and allied health professionals and Public Health England’s Clinical Champions Programme. Physical activity is also embedded in NHS’s risk reduction services such as NHS Health Checks and the NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce HMRC’s delays in answering telephone enquiries.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) recognise that their customer service has not been good enough, and have taken major steps to improve, including recruiting 3,000 new staff into customer service roles, available outside normal office hours when many of their customers choose to call. This year has seen their biggest-ever training programme as HMRC build customer support teams that can move across a wide range of work according to customer demand. By the end of December 1,600 existing staff will be trained to cover a wider range of work. Hundreds of these people are already taking calls. These improvements have started to make a difference. Last month, HMRC answered more than 80 per cent of calls, and average queue times are now around 10 minutes or less.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2016-05-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assistance they are providing to the government of Ethiopia in dealing with the displacement of people as a result of the recent flash flooding in southern Ethiopia.

Baroness Verma

Extensive spring rains have come at a time when Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought in 30 years, which has already left 18 million people in urgent need of relief. Britain is scaling up its response to help the Government of Ethiopia provide lifesaving support to thousands of families in urgent need after severe flooding.

Emergency humanitarian supplies – including 34,000 shelter kits, 60,000 blankets, 30,000 kitchen sets, clean water devices and other equipment – have begun arriving in Ethiopia to help 150,000 people in immediate need cope with the aftermath of intense flooding.

The UK is already the second largest bilateral humanitarian donor in Ethiopia, and this new support, at around £3.5 million, brings our total funding to the current humanitarian response in Ethiopia to £145 million.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-11-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the cost to (1) small businesses, and (2) personal taxpayers, of HMRC’s delays in answering telephone enquiries in terms of lost productivity.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

HM Revenue and Customs has not made such an assessment.