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Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Gareth Thomas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Gareth Thomas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Thomas on 2016-01-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether the Ross Fund will include funding to tackle HIV/AIDS; and if she will make a statement.

    Mr Nick Hurd

    Whilst the Ross Fund is not directly focused on HIV and AIDS, the UK continues to invest in research on HIV and AIDS. This includes research into understanding the structural drivers that can increase HIV (including gender inequality, stigma and limited livelihood opportunities), HIV prevention technologies (such as microbicides and vaccines) and studies to identify cost-effective ways to deliver HIV services.

    The Ross Fund will target infectious diseases including malaria, diseases with epidemic potential, neglected tropical diseases which affect over a billion people globally, and antimicrobial resistance which poses a substantial and growing threat to global health. The goal of the Ross fund is to develop, test and deliver a range of new products (including vaccines, drugs and diagnostics) to help combat these diseases in developing countries.

  • Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-01-29.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether Concentrix has met its targets set in its service level agreement.

    Mr David Gauke

    In HM Revenue and Customs’ contract with Concentrix there are three Key Performance Indicators. These cover post and telephony expectations, and all three are currently being met. There is also one Quality Performance Indicator, where the most recent indicative result is 95.2% against an expectation of 97%.

  • Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to paragraph 3 on page 5 of the Five Year Forward View Mental Health Task Force report, published on 15 February 2016, if he will make it his policy to provide equal funding for mental health services.

    Alistair Burt

    We are committed to achieving parity of esteem between mental health and physical health. The Mental Health Taskforce estimates that the priority recommendations for the National Health Service set out in their report will cost an additional £1 billion annually by the year 2020/21. By the end of this Parliament we will make the Taskforce’s recommendations a reality.

    This builds on the £1.4 billion over this Parliament that has been previously announced for transforming children and young people’s mental health and improving support for eating disorders.

    All of the Taskforce report recommendations are funded from within the overall envelope agreed in the Spending Review. All of the £1 billion announced with the Taskforce report represents additional investment over and above what was allocated to the NHS in 2015/16.

    We are already spending more money on mental health than ever before – an estimated £11.7 billion last year. This shows our commitment to achieving an equal status between mental and physical health services. We have been clear that commissioners must continue to increase investment in mental health services each year at a level which at least matches their overall expenditure increase.

    We will monitor this closely to ensure this happens and know that clinical commissioning group spend is on track to increase as expected.

  • Frank Field – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Frank Field – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2016-03-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of incorporating flood rescue into the statutory duties of the fire and rescue services.

    Mike Penning

    The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 already set out clearly the roles and powers of fire and rescue authorities in respect of emergency response and rescue in a wide range of situations, including flooding.

    Fire and rescue authorities are required to produce Integrated Risk Management Plans which identify the full range of risks to which an authority’s service is expected to respond, and these plans are subject to consultation with local communities. This approach is enshrined in the National Fire Framework which was given statutory effect in August 2012.

  • Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Compass asylum accommodation contract with Serco for the region of Scotland and Northern Ireland, how many faults were reported or identified from Compass inspections for each contractual pay period in the years 2014-15 and 2015-16; and how many such were not resolved within the agreed contractual timescales.

    James Brokenshire

    Providers are contractually required to provide safe, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped accommodation to comply with the Housing Act 2004 and the Decent Homes Standard. Providers are monitored closely to ensure accommodation meets these standards and the contracts include measures to ensure any issues are quickly addressed. These performance standards are defined in the contract and are managed using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including those which measure whether an individual property is compliant with contractual obligations following an inspection and also the number of service users effected if a fault is not repaired within the contract timescales.

    The Home Office does not centrally record the number of individual faults reported or identified during accommodation inspections, or the number of individual faults not resolved within the agreed timescales. The requested information could therefore only be provided at disproportionate cost.

  • Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-05-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that block contracts are being phased out for mental health services.

    Alistair Burt

    NHS England and NHS Improvement are introducing changes to the National Tariff that will rule out unaccountable block contracts for adult mental health services that provide poor value for money and do not support the adoption of new models of care. NHS England and NHS Improvement have developed two possible payment models that could be adopted locally – one based on care clusters on an episodic or year of care basis, and the other a capitation-based model.

    Whichever payment model is adopted for use locally, there should be a strong element that links payment to outcomes, particularly the recommendations arising from the report of the independent Mental Health Taskforce.

  • Margaret Ferrier – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Margaret Ferrier – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ferrier on 2016-06-28.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has received representations from Amnesty International on photographs alleged to show UK-produced cluster munitions dropped in Yemen.

    Michael Fallon

    Amnesty International wrote to the Prime Minister on the 23 May, and to the Department on 3 June, on the alleged use of UK-produced BL-755 cluster munitions by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

  • Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Stephen Doughty – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Doughty on 2016-09-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many UK armed forces personnel are stationed in (a) Saudi Arabia, (b) Yemen, (c) Oman, (d) Qatar and (e) UAE.

    Mike Penning

    There are around 100 military personnel based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including at the Defence section within the British Embassy in Riyadh. These personnel provide mentoring and advice to the Saudi Arabian National Guard as part of the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard. Personnel also work on the Saudi Arabia National Guard Communications Project to acquire and support, modern communications capabilities for the Saudi Arabian National Guard and work on the Ministry of Defence (MOD) Saudi Armed Forces Projects, supporting the United Kingdom’s commitment to the defence of Saudi Arabia through the supply of modern military aircraft, naval vessels, weapons and associated support services to the Saudi Armed Forces. We have a small number of liaison personnel who work at the Saudi MOD and Operational Centres. We do not discuss specific numbers for reasons of safeguarding operational security.

    There are no UK Armed Forces personnel based in Yemen.

    There are around 195 military personnel based in Oman, including at the Defence section within the British Embassy in Muscat; personnel on Loan Service to the Omani Armed Forces and others on temporary assignments in the region. These numbers change on a daily basis according to the tasks assigned.

    There are seven military personnel permanently assigned to Qatar (three within the Defence Section in the Embassy and four Loan Service officers working in training establishments). There are also a number of temporary personnel who work at Al Udeid airbase but we do not discuss specific numbers for reasons of safeguarding operational security.

    There are six military personnel permanently assigned to the UAE (three within the Defence Section in the Embassy at Abu Dhabi; one within the Defence Section in the Dubai Consulate; and two Loan Service officers working with the UAE Electronic Warfare and Signals departments). There are also a number of temporary personnel at Al Minhad airbase but we do not discuss specific numbers for reasons of safeguarding operational security .

  • Jonathan Reynolds – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Jonathan Reynolds – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Reynolds on 2015-11-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what fiscal steps he is taking to support the Government’s aim of halving the disability employment gap.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The Government is committed to giving disabled people the opportunity to fulfil their potential and achieve their ambitions. Work is an important part of this. That is why we have committed to halving the disability employment gap, requiring us to transform policy, practice and public attitudes.

    We must build on recent progress. We have already:

    – extended Access to Work to provide support to more disabled people in pre-employment, such as work experience and also to undertake employment-based training, such as supported internships, traineeships and self-arranged work experience.

    – launched Specialist Employability Support, an innovative new programme which provides intensive, specialist support to the disabled people who need the most help.

    – continued to work with employers through our Disability Confident campaign to ensure that they understand the benefits of recruiting and retaining disabled people in work.

    – announced new funding in the Budget of up to £100m per year for additional practical support to provide the right incentives and support to enable those who have limited capability, but who have some potential to prepare, for work to move closer to the labour market, and when they are ready, back into work.

    – committed to spending £43m over the next 3 years to develop the evidence base on what works for those with common mental health conditions retain and return to employment. This will be done through a range of voluntary mental health and employment pilots that will go live next year

    We set up the Work and Health unit in the summer to bring together the Work and Health agendas, to help disabled people and people with health conditions get into work, stay in work, and return to work with the right support and we are developing our plans in this area.

    The Government will set out it its spending plans for this Parliament in the forthcoming Spending Review.

  • Jim Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Jim Cunningham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-11-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many qualified fast-jet pilots were employed by the RAF in each of the last five years.

    Mark Lancaster

    The number of qualified fast jet pilots in the Royal Air Force, as of 1 January in each of the last five years is shown below, and includes both Regular and Reserve personnel.

    2011

    2012

    2013

    2014

    2015

    720

    680

    660

    670

    640

    In accordance with Defence Statistics rounding policy, the numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10, with numbers ending in five being rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.