Tag: Meg Hillier

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to enable special circumstances to be taken into account when making the decision to withhold pension credit to people who are away from their homes for a period of more than four weeks.

Justin Tomlinson

It is the intention to amend the Pension Credit temporary absence from Great Britain rules from April 2016. The temporary absence rules allow entitlement to Pension Credit to continue where under normal conditions it would not do so.

We are planning for a general rule which will allow Pension Credit to remain payable for absences not exceeding four weeks. We intend to have exceptions to the general rule to cater for bereavement or medical treatment. Where the absence from Great Britain is in connection with a bereavement concerning a partner or close relative then entitlement to Pension Credit may continue for absences not exceeding eight weeks. Where the absence from Great Britain is in order to receive medical treatment then entitlement to Pension Credit may continue for absences not exceeding 26 weeks.

These changes do not affect the Pension Credit rules covering absences from home within Great Britain.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2016-02-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 7 January 2016 to Question 20730, what change there has been in the level of overall police spending in real terms over the Spending Review period when precept is not taken into account.

Mike Penning

Overall central Government funding to the police (excluding funding for counter-terrorism policing) will reduce by 1.4% in real terms over the Spending Review (SR) 2015 period. This is equivalent to a £500 million (6.2%) cash increase over the period.

When precept is taken into account, this amounts to a flat cash protection for policing over the SR period.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2016-02-19.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to ensure that there is full market participation in real-time data-sharing in the short-term credit market.

Harriett Baldwin

The Government agrees that market-wide credit data sharing is key to effective affordability assessments in the high-cost, short-term credit market. In February 2014 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) asked the payday lending industry to identify and remove any blockages to real-time data sharing as a matter of urgency. The FCA reports that there has been substantial recent progress made by the industry in this area. Over 90% of high-cost, short-term lenders by market share are meeting the FCA’s expectations to share data in real-time.

The FCA expects that the proportion of firms using real-time data sharing to further increase by the time the authorisation process is complete for most high-cost short-term credit firms. The FCA will continue to monitor progress to keep this momentum, and ensure that there continues to be improvement in this area.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether VAT was charged on the purchase of Kingsland Fire Station from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.

Edward Timpson

VAT was not charged on the purchase of Kingsland Fire Station, 333 Kingsland Road, London, E8 4DR when it was purchased in October 2015. The site was not VAT elected.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which police forces take longest to process applications from the Disclosure and Barring Service; and what the average processing time for such application is for each police force in England.

Karen Bradley

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) processes applications in date order and is reliant on the police completing their checks in a timely manner. In very exceptional cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant, the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the relevant police force.

The table below shows the average time spent by each police force in England to process disclosure applications between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her policy is on priority categories in Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

Karen Bradley

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) processes applications in date order and is reliant on the police completing their checks in a timely manner. In very exceptional cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant, the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the relevant police force.

The table below shows the average time spent by each police force in England to process disclosure applications between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2016-07-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how often the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme has been applied in each police authority area in England.

Sarah Newton

The Home Office published an evaluation report on the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme on 8 March 2016 which showed that there had been over 1,900 disclosures under the scheme since national roll out. A full breakdown by police force area can be found in the report which is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/domestic-violence-disclosure-scheme-assessment-of-national-roll-out

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2015-10-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the appropriateness of the time taken to secure appeal hearings at the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber.

Mr Shailesh Vara

The most recently published average time for appeals to be disposed of by the First-tier Tribunal is 30 weeks between April and June 2015. This compares to an average of 29 weeks in 2014/15. HM Courts & Tribunals Service remains confident that it continues to have the capacity to deal with the volume of appeals it expects to receive. We are preparing to put additional court time in place to make sure waiting times do not increase.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many disclosure and barring applications have been sent to the Metropolitan Police in each year of the last five years; and what the average time taken by the Metropolitan Police to process checks for Disclosure and Barring Service applications was in each of those years.

Karen Bradley

The number of applications that the Disclosure and Barring Service sent to the Metropolitan Police in each of the last five years is set out in the follwoing table, together with the Metropolitan Police’s average processing time for each of those years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2015-10-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to his oral contribution of 20 October 2015, Official Report, column 813, what discussions he has had with ministers in the Turkish government on ensuring that freedom of the press is upheld in that country as it relates to citizens of any country.

Mr David Lidington

Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers and officials regularly encourage Turkey to continue to work towards the full protection of fundamental rights, including the principles of freedom of expression and freedom of the press. I discussed these issues, in the context of Turkey’s accession to the EU, when I last met my Turkish counterpart in August this year.