Tag: Mike Kane

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2015-11-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to ensure its programme of work contributes to Goal 10 of the Sustainable Development Goals on reduced inequalities.

Mr Desmond Swayne

The UK welcomes, and is committed to championing, the Global Goals. Through our commitment to global development, and by honouring our 0.7% aid commitments, we will play a key role in helping countries to achieve these goals – especially on eradicating extreme poverty, hunger and disease. The UK has played a key role in creating a set of goals that are universal and inclusive, and underpinned by a commitment to leave no one behind.

Given the focus of DFID’s work and interventions on those living in extreme poverty, DFID programmes contribute to reducing within country inequality. The new UK Aid strategy commits the government to being a world leader in implementing the Leave No One Behind Promise agreed by the Prime Minister and other world leaders in September 2015. To deliver the new strategy, the government will focus on the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, the most excluded, those caught in crises, and those most at risk of violence and discrimination.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2015-12-10.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of (a) the current proportion of air passenger duty revenues which are raised from Manchester Airport and (b) the potential effect on that proportion of air passenger duty in Scotland being reduced by 50 per cent.

Damian Hinds

Air Passenger Duty is payable by airlines and not on a per airport basis. Therefore HMRC does not collect the data to produce a reliable estimate.

The government is currently undertaking a consultation into options to support regional airports from the impacts of air passenger duty devolution. We are carefully considering the evidence we have received from stakeholders and will respond in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to reduce the number of asylum seekers placed in hotels while awaiting decisions on asylum applications.

Mike Penning

We have continued to make clear to our providers that the use of hotels is only acceptable as a short-term contingency arrangement and we are supporting all measures being pursued by providers to increase procurement to provide sufficient accommodation as a matter of urgency.

With the support of local authorities we, and our housing providers, are engaging with areas that to date have not participated in asylum dispersal with a view to negotiating voluntary agreements to do so. We are also working through a range of other options for accommodating asylum seekers safely and securely.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions the Government has had with (a) UK companies and (b) the Malawian government on oil exploration around Lake Malawi.

James Duddridge

Our High Commissioner to Malawi met a representative of UK oil exploration firm Surestream, who are now a minority shareholder of an exploration licence for one of the oil exploration blocks in Lake Malawi, on 29 February. Last month the High Commissioner also discussed with the Malawi Minister of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining his desire for assistance to develop legislation and agreements that would conform to global good governance standards and protect Malawi’s national interests.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2016-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the measurable outcomes of the Healthier Together programme.

Mr Philip Dunne

No assessment has been made. These are matters for the local National Health Service.

We are advised by NHS England that clinicians working within the programme have started to share best practice across Greater Manchester which has already improved patient outcomes.

Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS+) involves pre-operative patient assessment, using exercise testing, to assess how well a patient should cope with surgery. This is used at Central Manchester NHS Foundation Trust and has demonstrated a 50% reduction in significant post-operative respiratory complications across a group of a thousand patients. In addition, ERAS+ has led to shorter stays in hospital for patients.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2015-11-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment she has made of the potential benefits to developing countries of the implementation of public registers of beneficial ownership by UK Overseas Territories with financial centres.

Mr Desmond Swayne

The UK continues to lead the way on beneficial ownership disclosure and to encourage others to do the same. We are having discussions at both Ministerial and official level with the Overseas Territories to emphasise the importance of this agenda. Any system should meet the following criteria: UK and domestic law enforcement and tax authorities must be able to access company beneficial ownership information without restriction, subject to relevant safeguards; these competent authorities should be able to quickly identify all companies that a particular beneficial owner has a stake in, without needing to submit multiple and repeated requests; and companies or their beneficial owners must not be alerted to the fact that an investigation is under way.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2016-01-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what work his Department has undertaken on helping develop a common reporting standard and collection method for incidents of disruptive passengers on flights departing from or arriving in the UK.

Mr Robert Goodwill

I and my officials have met with industry representatives to discuss the issue of disruptive passengers on a number of occasions in recent months. In these meetings we have encouraged the industry to work towards improved data collection on incident occurrence. This will help to ensure that both industry and government have a full picture of both the scale and nature of this issue.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in Wythenshawe and Sale East constituency who are existing universal credit claimants and who are in work will have their universal credit decreased as a result of changes to the work allowance taking effect in April 2016.

Priti Patel

The information requested is not available because individual claimants’ circumstances can change as they move in and out of work or their earnings change. We have contacted all claimants who are in work and reporting earnings to make them aware of this change, which will affect a subset of that population.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effect of the findings of the Government’s Human Rights and Democracy Report 2015, published on 21 April 2016, on her Department’s country guidance on people from Eritrea seeking asylum in the UK.

James Brokenshire

We are currently updating our September 2015 country information and guidance on handling asylum claims made by Eritrean nationals.

The revised guidance will be based on an assessment of a range of sources including the Foreign Office’s Human Rights and Democracy Report 2015 as well as recent publications by Amnesty International and the findings of a Home Office fact finding mission to Eritrea undertaken in February 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mike Kane on 2016-10-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what date his Department holds on the number of incidents involving (a) lorries and (b) buses that related to wheel loss.

Andrew Jones

The police-reported personal injury accident data does not include anything that specifies whether an accident resulted from wheel loss.

The closest piece of information in the statistics is the contributory factor of ‘tyres illegal, defective or under inflated’. A total of 19 heavy goods vehicles and two buses or coaches in Great Britain had this contributory factor in 2015.