The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness King of Bow on 2015-12-17.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 8 December (HL3999), when they expect to publish the Savills report on the regeneration of local authority estates in central London.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
A copy of the report will be placed in the Library of the House in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emma Reynolds on 2016-01-27.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what provision there is for people with perinatal mental health issues living in clinical commissioning group areas where there is no specialist community perinatal mental health team.
Alistair Burt
This Government is committed to improving access to perinatal mental health services for women during pregnancy and in the first postnatal year. In January 2016 the Government set out that an additional £290 million will be made available over the next five years to 2020/21, over and above the money identified in the Spring Budget, to invest in perinatal mental health services. This is funded from within the Department’s overall Spending Review settlement and means that in total from 2015/16 to 2020/21 £365 million will be invested in perinatal mental health services.
We are aware that there is unacceptable variation in the levels of access to high quality, NICE-recommended specialist perinatal mental health care for women across England. A 2014 census identified that 40% of women in England have no access to specialist perinatal mental health services and that is why we have confirmed this additional investment. The funding should enable significant progress towards closing this gap and will help to enable women across the country to access evidence-based specialist support, in the community or through inpatient mother and baby services, closer to their home, when they need it. It is anticipated that, by 2020/21, around 30,000 more women should be able to access appropriate specialist support.
This new funding, together with the recommendations of the forthcoming report of the independent Mental Health Taskforce, will enable NHS England to work with partners to design a longer-term transformation programme to build capacity and capability in specialist perinatal mental health services over the next five years. This will include setting detailed plans for how the additional investment will be targeted over the period to 2020/21 and setting clear outcome measures and metrics to monitor the impact of the funding on perinatal mental health provision.
In 2015/16 work is already underway to lay the foundations for this longer-term work programme through targeted funding of activities to build capacity in specialist services. This will include, for example, a £1 million investment in strengthening clinical networks across the country. It is also expected to include the provision of national and regional benchmarking data and analytical support to regions, and work to develop clinical leadership capacity. Work will also continue to support the development of specialist mother and baby units in the regions identified as most in need of new services.
To ensure the workforce are available and appropriately trained, NHS England is working closely with Health Education England and key stakeholders to better understand the future workforce commissioning requirements and how it is best to meet multi professional education and training needs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philippa Whitford on 2016-02-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support his Department provides to (a) claimants of universal credit while the benefit is assessed and dispatched and (b) people becoming unemployed from low-paid and temporary jobs who have no redundancy payments or other income.
Priti Patel
Advance payments of up to 50% of their Universal Credit award are available to all new Universal Credit claimants who are in financial need.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Melanie Onn on 2016-03-15.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of trends in waiting times for elective surgery for people with inflammatory bowel disease.
Jane Ellison
Inflammatory bowel disease is not uniquely identified in the International Classification of Diseases and therefore it is not possible to specifically identify waiting times for people with this condition.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Derek Thomas on 2016-03-23.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he plans to take to help give the views of young people greater prominence in policy decisions in their community.
Mr Rob Wilson
The Cabinet Office supports the Government’s commitment of giving young people the power and opportunity to play a real part in their community. We promote engagement, advocacy and consultation at both national and local level
We support the British Youth Council (BYC) to deliver its ‘youth voice’ programme, including key activities such as the national annual Make Your Mark ballot, UK Youth Parliament, and the Youth Select Committee.
Cabinet Office has committed to continuing its support for these activities for the remainder of the current Parliament.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Deech on 2016-05-04.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on charities operating in Gaza of the freezing of financial transfers to them owing to the orders of the Palestinian Authority to Palestinian banks.
Baroness Verma
The UK remains supportive of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) efforts to strengthen its revenue generation. A transparent and effective tax system is an important part of this. It is also important that the tax system is implemented in a way that does not negatively impact the vital role which NGO’s play in responding to the needs of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is an importtant part of this.
DFID officials have raised concerns with the Ministry of Finance (MOF) about this, particularly the need for clarity on the implications of the tax system for NGOs, and how this could affect issues such as operations in Gaza and banking signatory authorities. The UK, along with other donors, UN OCHA and the NGO community, will continue to be in close contact with PA to clarify their approach.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Redwood on 2016-06-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which EU (a) legislative and (b) other proposals his Department is leading negotiations on for the Government in the Council of the EU.
Justin Tomlinson
The Department for Work and Pensions is leading on one set of negotiations on the following EU proposal:
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Johnson on 2016-09-05.
To ask the Attorney General, how many applications under the unduly lenient sentence scheme have been rejected due to falling outside the remit of that scheme in each of the last five years.
Jeremy Wright
The Government has committed to extending the scope of the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme and is carefully considering its approach.
The number of offenders who have had their sentence increased under the unduly lenient sentence scheme in each of the last five years is set out below.
|
Year |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
Offenders who have had their sentence increased by the Court of Appeal |
95 |
62 |
61 |
106 |
102 |
Some cases attract multiple referrals from various sources and we do not record how many referrals each case has received. The total number of cases where requests were received by the Attorney General’s Office for sentences to be reviewed in each of the last five years is set out below.
|
Year |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
Total number of referrals received by the Attorney General’s Office for sentences to be reviewed under the scheme |
377 |
435 |
498 |
674 |
713 |
The number of sentences referred to the Court of Appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme that were (a) increased and (b) kept the same in each of the last five years is set out below.
|
Year |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
Total number of sentences referred to the Court of Appeal |
117 |
82 |
70 |
122 |
136 |
|
Total number of sentences that were increased |
95 |
62 |
61 |
106 |
102 |
|
Total number of sentences that remained unchanged |
22 |
20 |
9 |
16 |
34 |
The number of referrals under the unduly lenient sentence scheme that have been rejected due to falling outside the remit of the scheme in each of the last five years is set out below.
|
Year |
2011 |
2012 |
2013 |
2014 |
2015 |
|
Number of referrals that have been rejected due to the offence falling outside the remit of the scheme |
62 |
75 |
131 |
194 |
228 |
|
Number of referrals received out of time |
3 |
12 |
9 |
10 |
16 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Patrick Grady on 2016-10-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will issue a response to Early Day Motion 44, on Down’s syndrome, don’t screen us out campaign, tabled on 19 May 2016.
Mr Philip Dunne
The United Kingdom National Screening Committee (UKNSC) has recommended that Non Invasive Prenatal Testing for Down’s, Patau’s and Edwards’ syndromes should be introduced as an additional test into the NHS Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme as part of an evaluation. Ministers are currently considering this recommendation from the UK NSC.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Elliott on 2015-10-28.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what tax revenue was lost as a result of tobacco smuggling in Northern Ireland in each of the last three years.
Damian Hinds
Estimates of revenue losses associated with the tobacco illicit market are published in ‘Tobacco Tax Gap estimates: 2014-15’. The combined figures for Cigarettes and Hand Rolling Tobacco are available in table 1.1
These estimates cannot be disaggregated by country within the UK.
The methodology for producing the estimates are provided in the ‘Methodological Annex for Measuring Tax Gaps 2015’.
Both documents can be accessed via the following page on the HMRC website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/measuring-tax-gaps
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