Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Lord Kilclooney – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Lord Kilclooney – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kilclooney on 2015-12-01.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Dunlop on 1 December (HL3644), which UK members and UK associate members attended the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly in Cheltenham on 16 and 17 November.

    Lord Dunlop

    The Northern Ireland Office is not responsible for the administration of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly.

    However, I am advised by the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly secretariat that the following full members of the UK delegation to the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly took part in the Assembly’s plenary session held in Cheltenham from 15 to 17 November 2015:

    David Anderson MP

    Lord Bew

    Baroness Blood

    Andrew Bridgen MP

    Deidre Brock MP

    Oliver Colvile MP

    Lord Dubs

    Mark Durkan MP

    Paul Farrelly MP

    Lord Glentoran

    Helen Jones MP

    Danny Kinahan MP

    Rt Hon Lord Mawhinney

    Conor McGinn MP

    Nigel Mills MP

    Laurence Robertson MP

    Andrew Rosindell MP

    Lord Skelmersdale

    Robin Walker MP.

    In addition, a number of full and associate members who had initially committed to attend the plenary session withdrew at short notice.

  • David Amess – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    David Amess – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Amess on 2016-01-06.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much HM Revenue and Customs spent on IT contractors in 2015.

    Mr David Gauke

    HM Revenue and Customs’ financial management systems do not hold the information requested because all costs relating to IT Contractors are classed within the generic value for IT Services and Project Development, so individual contractor costs are not identified separately.

  • Lord Kinnock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Lord Kinnock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kinnock on 2016-02-01.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the duration of (1) in-work, and (2) out-of-work, benefits paid to all recent EU migrants in households supported by the benefits system as at March 2013.

    Lord Freud

    I refer the noble Lord to the answer given by my Rt. Hon. Friend the Minister for Employment (Ms. Esther McVey) in the House of Commons on 20 November 2014 to Question number 211618 as below:

    While the Government checks the immigration status of benefit claimants to ensure the benefit is paid properly and to prevent fraud, traditionally that information has not been collected as part of the payment administrative systems.

    However, the Government is looking at ways to reform the current administrative system under Universal Credit so that it will systematically record nationality and immigration status of migrants who make a claim.

    The Government has made a radical series of changes over the last year to restrict the access by non-UK citizens from the European Economic Area to UK benefits and tax credits. This is in order to protect the UK’s benefit system and discourage people who have no established connection with the UK from moving here, unless they have a job or a genuine prospect of work, or have savings to support themselves until they do.

  • Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Ashworth on 2016-02-25.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much his Department has paid to staff in overtime in each of the last 24 months.

    Matthew Hancock

    As part of this Government’s transparency agenda, all Departments are required to publish monthly workforce statistics that includes overtime costs. This information is available from the Cabinet Office website at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/payroll-costs-and-non-consolidated-pay-data

    “

  • Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-03-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 17 March 2016 to Question 31008, how many officials of his Department worked full-time on strategies to tackle homelessness in each of the last five years.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    Over the years, this Department always ensured that policy areas, including homelessness, were suitably resourced in order to provide the best possible response to deal with changing priorities.

  • Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-04-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 2.29 of her Department’s White Paper, Educational excellence everywhere, published in March 2016; what measure her Department plans to use to determine what constitutes a high quality trainee.

    Nick Gibb

    High-quality trainee teachers are central to our ambition of achieving educational excellence everywhere. The White Paper confirmed that we will introduce new quality criteria to inform the allocation of training places to providers of initial teacher training (ITT) for both schools and universities. This will include an assessment of the quality of trainees recruited to ITT courses.

    We will announce further details of the criteria we intend to use shortly; this will begin to inform the allocation of training places to schools and universities from the 2017/18 training year. We anticipate refining the criteria over the coming years, taking account of feedback from the sector and the way in which providers are responding.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-06-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with his Canadian counterpart on steps to secure the release of foreign hostages held by Muslim extremists in the Philippines.

    Mr Hugo Swire

    We maintain a close dialogue with our international partners on terrorism and kidnapping, both on a bilateral basis and through international fora. G7 leaders have recently reaffirmed their commitment not to pay ransoms to terrorists, to protect the lives of our nationals, including by reducing terrorist groups access to funding. We do not comment on individual cases.

  • Fiona Mactaggart – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Fiona Mactaggart – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona Mactaggart on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what criteria were used to select Wales, Hampshire and Greater Manchester as the locations for the early adopter sites for the second phase trials of independent child trafficking advocates.

    Sarah Newton

    The early adopter sites were chosen because they offer a wide geographical coverage across England and Wales with the potential for differing levels and types of referrals, including children who may have been internally trafficked, as well as those that have been trafficked from abroad.

  • Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-10-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the announcement of 1 October 2016 that people with long-term degenerative conditions will be exempt from repeat work capability assessments, if he will set out those medical conditions a diagnosis for which will provide such exemption.

    Penny Mordaunt

    There is no condition based entitlement to Employment Support Allowance.

    We will be working over the coming months with medical professionals and other stakeholders to develop functional criteria that will help us identify those with the most severe health conditions or disabilities, for whom repeat work capability assessments can be stopped.

    Rather than a list of specific medical conditions, the criteria will be based on identifying claimants with the most severe health conditions or disabilities where it would be unreasonable to expect the individual to undertake any form or amount of work or work-related activity. This change will only apply to those placed in the Support Group and UC equivalent.

  • Rehman Chishti – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Rehman Chishti – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rehman Chishti on 2015-11-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with the Chief Executive of NHS England on spending on mental health services during 2015-16.

    Alistair Burt

    In total, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) have set plans for 2015/16 which reflect an increase in mental health care expenditure in excess of their increase in allocation for the year. NHS England is tracking actual expenditure against those plans and it will report to the Secretary of State at the end of the year on whether those plans have been met.

    Departmental Ministers meet the Chief Executives of NHS England and Monitor regularly and discuss a wide range of issues, including funding for mental health services.

    NHS England was formally established on 1 April 2013.Expenditure by NHS England on Specialist Mental Health Services for 2013/14 was £1.780 billion and £1.795 billion in 2014/15. NHS England’s planned expenditure on Specialist Mental Health Services for 2015/16 is £1.859 billion.

    NHS England has published CCG level expenditure on mental health for 2013/14, which was estimated to be £8.1 billion. CCGs are currently in the process of preparing estimates of expenditure for mental health services in 2014/15. Estimates for 2015/16 are not available.