Tag: Nicholas Brown

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2015-11-02.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what plans his Department has to ensure (a) British Overseas Territories and (b) the City of London comply with international standards for transparency in tax matters.

Mr David Gauke

In 2013, a major focus of the UK’s G8 Presidency was tax transparency and combatting offshore tax evasion. As part of this the UK promoted the development of a new global standard for reciprocal automatic exchange of financial account information in order to effectively tackle the global problem of tax evasion. Due in large part to the UK’s leadership, over 90 countries and jurisdictions have now committed to the new global standard – known as the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) – and will begin automatically exchanging information under the standard by 2017 or 2018.

Together with the UK itself, all of the UK’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories with a recognised financial centre have committed to the 2017 timetable as early adopters. They will also be automatically exchanging 2014 and 2015 financial account information bilaterally with the UK in 2016. The City of London is covered by the CRS which has been implemented in UK law.

In addition to their commitments to early adoption of the CRS, all of the Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have engaged fully in the Global Forum Peer Review Process on exchange of information on request, have publicly committed to improvements in the transparency of company ownership and meet Financial Action Task Force requirements.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of additional algae in river and pond systems since the recent flooding in England on those systems; and what information her Department holds on levels of toxins produced by algae in those systems and their effect on the marine environment.

Rory Stewart

The Environment Agency assesses the presence of algae in the spring, summer and autumn as this is when algae can become a nuisance to people and nature.

The recent floods will have flushed nutrients from agricultural land and urban drainage systems into rivers and lakes. Much of this increased nutrient loading washes down into estuaries and coastal waters. Since the flooding has occurred in winter months, when algae are not growing, there is unlikely to be an immediate effect. Sunny and hot conditions may lead to a higher number of blooms but this will depend on the weather in the spring and summer months.

The Environment Agency and Cefas will also monitor in response to reports of toxic algal blooms at any time of year. They hold data on the levels of toxins in samples from affected sites, which inform management action. Where toxins pose a risk to the quality of shellfish, to recreational or other users of waters, this can result in closure of shellfisheries or action to warn the public about the hazards.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Prevent training programme in schools; what benchmarks her Department uses to assess and train staff who provide Prevent training; and what representations she has received from schools on that training.

Edward Timpson

The statutory Prevent duty guidance refers to the importance of training to equip staff to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and to challenge extremist ideas. Individual schools and childcare providers are best placed to assess their training needs in the light of their assessment of the risk. Ofsted assess schools’ effectiveness in keeping children and learners safe from the dangers of radicalisation and extremism and will consider evidence that there is a clear approach to implementing the Prevent duty.

To help raise awareness of Prevent and issues around radicalisation amongst front line staff, the Home Office is continuing to roll out freely available Workshops to Raise Awareness of Prevent (WRAP). There are a number of professionals, particularly in safeguarding roles (many of whom work within local authorities and the police), who are accredited WRAP facilitators. There has been a significant increase in the number of WRAP training sessions delivered since the end of 2014. The greatest volume of WRAP training has taken place in schools with a significant increase in numbers of staff trained. Over 32,000 staff within schools were WRAP trained in 2015.

The Department has received a number of representations from schools about the availability of WRAP training, and we are working with Home Office and other partners to ensure that schools have access to the training they need.

Jointly with Home Office, the Department has also launched a new website, called Educate Against Hate, which brings together the best advice, support and resources available for parents, teachers and school leaders who want to learn how to protect young people from extremism and radicalisation. The website also includes references to Prevent training. http://www.educateagainsthate.com/

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-04-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to extend the time limits on applications for bereavement allowance.

Priti Patel

The time limit for claiming Bereavement Allowance is three months from the date of death, which is consistent with the time limit for other welfare entitlements. We are not considering extending this at this time. We are, however, currently developing the new Bereavement Support Payment due to be implemented for new claims from April 2017, and we will assess the merits of further flexibilities on backdating as part of this work.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-05-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reasons the budget for the revised Cancer Drugs Fund was established at £340 million.

George Freeman

NHS England has advised that the Cancer Drugs Fund budget was increased to £340 million for 2015-16 and, with the new financial control and commercial mechanisms being put in place from 1 July 2016 under the new arrangements for the Fund, that budget increase will be maintained at £340 million for 2016-17.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-07-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will make it his policy that student maintenance loan payments are paid on a monthly basis to nursing students.

Joseph Johnson

Full-time students starting nursing courses from 1 August 2017 will qualify for the same loans for living costs as other new full-time undergraduate students in 2017/18. Loans for living costs are paid to students in three equal instalments at the start of each term to help meet up-front costs while studying.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2015-11-02.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the amount of money saved for the public purse as a result of the Government’s policies on tackling international tax avoidance.

Mr David Gauke

The UK has been at the forefront of international action to tackle corporate tax avoidance through the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. The first phase of the BEPS project was delivered in 2014 and the UK committed to introduce country-by-country reporting from 1 January 2016 and rules to deal with hybrid mismatch arrangements from 1 January 2017.

In line with the objectives of the BEPS project, the Government also introduced the Diverted Profits Tax from 1 April 2015 to target contrived arrangements used by large multinational companies to divert profits away from the UK.

As set out in Autumn Statement 2014, together these measures addressing are estimated to yield around £1.6 billion over the next five years. The policy costings were certified by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.

The final BEPS project reports were published by the OECD on 5 October 2015 and endorsed by the G20 Finance Ministers at their meeting in Lima on 8 October. The UK welcomes the outcomes of the BEPS project and will give full consideration to the OECD’s recommendations.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what capital dredging programmes are in place for the five principal river systems in the North East of England between from the River Tees to the River Tweed.

Rory Stewart

The Environment Agency’s dredging work is funded through its Revenue Programme and has work planned for the financial period 2016/17 in the wider Rivers Wansbeck and Blyth, Wear, Tees and Tyne catchments. This work will include the removal of localised silts and gravels from maintained structures and channels.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-02-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what duties apply to betting companies to ensure that vulnerable customers using their services gamble responsibly.

David Evennett

One of the three key licensing objectives set out in the Gambling Act 2005 is that vulnerable people should be protected from harm. All betting shop operators are required by the Gambling Commission’s Licence Conditions and Code of Practice (LCCP) to have policies and processes in place to meet this objective. In addition, the industry trade body, the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB), has a mandatory code of conduct which places additional social responsibility requirements on all of its members.

The rate of problem gambling is at 0.6% of the adult population, which is lower than comparable jurisdictions (USA, South Africa or Australia). However we recognise that rates are significantly higher among some sections of the population, such as young men, and that gambling-related harm is a real and significant problem. The majority of current provision for treatment of problem gamblers is through the Responsible Gambling Trust’s funding of organisations such as GamCare, who provide a helpline and counselling services, and the Gordon Moody Association, which provides specialist residential treatment. Local treatment can be found through GPs and NHS addiction clinics, there is also a specialist NHS service treating gambling disorder, based in London.

The Government is committed to ensuring that people are protected from being harmed or exploited by gambling. The Minister for Sport and Tourism has explained to the gambling industry that they are expected to demonstrate that they are improving existing player protection initiatives and evaluating the effects of previous initiatives. As the Minister said at the recent RGT harm minimisation conference, government and industry should never feel that there is an end point to social responsibility.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Brown on 2016-04-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how his Department measures and demonstrates parity of esteem between mental and physical health in the NHS.

Alistair Burt

The Government accepted the Mental Health Taskforce recommendation to identify the gaps in provision between mental health and physical health and has increased funding for mental health to an estimated £11.7 billion last year and have introduced waiting time standards so people know they will be treated quickly.

This Government continues to hold NHS England to account through the NHS Mandate for the achievement of measurable progress towards the parity of esteem for mental health and clinical commissioning groups are required through the annual planning guidance to increase spending each year on mental health at least in line with the increase in their overall allocation.

In line with practice in physical health, from 1 April 2015, waiting times standards for mental health came into effect for:

– treatment within two weeks for more than 50% of people experiencing a first episode of psychosis; and

– treatment within six weeks for 75% of people referred to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme, with 95% of people being treated within 18 weeks.

The National Health Service has already achieved waiting time standards for IAPT and we have made changes to the Mental Health Services Dataset to measure performance against the standard for Early Intervention in Psychosis.