Tag: Parliamentary Question

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

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

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-05-24.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the freeze on housing benefit rates, combined with an extended benefit cap and rising rents, on homeless families, and especially children, in particular in cases where local authorities have to place families in temporary housing far away from their local areas.

    Lord Freud

    The Government routinely publishes cumulative analysis of the impacts of its tax, welfare and public spending policies on households. The most recent assessment was published at Budget 2016 and is available on gov.uk. Nevertheless, such static analysis is limited in that it cannot robustly capture the behavioural changes encouraged by these policies. Considering welfare measures in isolation, such as Housing Benefit changes, would fail to recognise the impacts of tax and spending decisions such as the increase to the personal allowance and the provision of early years’ childcare, which are benefitting families up and down the country.

  • Peter Bottomley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Peter Bottomley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Peter Bottomley on 2016-07-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the reasons given for the dismissal of Mr Agrawal were related to clinical concerns.

    Mr Jeremy Hunt

    This is an employer and employee matter between the East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust and Mr Aditya Agrawal respectively. The Department cannot comment on individual employment matters that are the responsibility of independent organisations, and that are subject to ongoing legal proceedings or on matters relating to individual clinical cases or other personal information. We understand that the cost to East Lancashire Trust of legal proceedings concerning Mr Agrawal is £296,848.42 to date, and that the Trust does not have insurance costs for legal awards in the event of the Trust or one of its employees being subject to legal action for defamation.

  • Jess Phillips – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Jess Phillips – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jess Phillips on 2016-10-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many times her Department has used the services of Denford Associates in each of the last five financial years; what work was so undertaken; and what the cost to the public purse was on each such occasion.

    Caroline Dinenage

    The Department’s financial systems have no record of Denford Associates as a supplier, and it has not made any payments to them in the last five financial years.

  • Nic Dakin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Nic Dakin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the contribution international students studying in the UK make to British soft power overseas; and if he will make a statement.

    Joseph Johnson

    The presence of international students in the UK, and UK students going overseas, helps build relationships and understanding which have life-long effects. There is no limit on the number of bona fide overseas students able to study in the UK, and the UK is the second most popular destination for international students after the USA.

    The wider benefit to the UK of international students was considered in a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills research paper which highlighted the value of alumni becoming informal ambassadors for the UK, with the benefits increasing as they become more influential in their home country. Research by the British Council suggests that the average level of trust in the UK is 16% higher amongst those who had participated in cultural relations activities such as education.

  • Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Luciana Berger – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many representatives from the criminal justice system are on the Mental Health Taskforce; and what areas of that sector each represents.

    Alistair Burt

    Membership of NHS England’s Mental Health Taskforce is drawn from the Department of Health and its arms-length bodies which hold critical responsibilities related to the planning and delivery of care. It also includes representatives from the third sector, providers and professional bodies.

    Senior representatives from other NHS England work programmes may be invited to advise, participate in decision making or contribute resources where there is a common purpose or objective. Kate Davies OBE, Director for Direct Commissioning of Health & Justice Services, NHS England has contributed to the work of the Task force.

    Further details about the organisations represented on the Taskforce can be found at:

    https://www.england.nhs.uk/mentalhealth/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2015/10/mh-tor-fin.pdf

    In recognition of the critical interdependencies with a wide range of services outside the health and care system, the Taskforce was asked to consider the enabling actions required from the wider system, including criminal justice.

  • Jess Phillips – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Jess Phillips – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jess Phillips on 2016-01-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2016 to Question 21059, on universal credit: domestic violence, for what reasons that information is not currently available; and whether his Department plans to collect such information in the future.

    Priti Patel

    The Department published a strategy for releasing official statistics on Universal Credit. As outlined in the strategy, officials are currently quality assuring a range of data for Universal Credit. It is for this reason that the information requested is not currently available.

    During 2016 we will be increasing the range of statistics on Universal Credit, which will be published in accordance with the relevant protocols in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

  • Shabana Mahmood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Shabana Mahmood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Shabana Mahmood on 2016-02-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the level of funding was for coroners in the coroner areas of (a) Birmingham and Solihull, (b) the Black Country and (c) Coventry in (i) 2009-10 and (ii) 2015-16; and what assessment he has made of the implications for such funding of trends in the number of cases dealt with by coroners between those two years.

    Caroline Dinenage

    The Ministry of Justice does not have operational responsibility for coroner services, as they are funded and run by local authorities. The level of funding for the Birmingham and Solihull, Black Country and Coventry coroner services is a matter for the relevant local authorities and the Ministry of Justice holds no information on this.

    Statistics for deaths reported to coroners, including deaths in state detention and those subject to Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, are published annually at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/coroners-and-burials-statistics.

    We do not have information on the number of deaths in state detention reported to coroners in 2010 as this information has only been gathered centrally since 2012. The statistics for 2015 will be published in due course.

    “

  • Craig Whittaker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Craig Whittaker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2016-03-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that prison officers complete Prevent awareness training.

    Andrew Selous

    The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has a range of Prevent awareness training and briefing packages available for staff.

    Prevent awareness training forms part of the Prison Officer Entry Level training for new prison officers. By the end of this month, over 1800 prison officers will have completed this training in 2015-16.

    In addition NOMS regularly reviews the extremism based training provision available to all staff in prisoner facing roles, adapting it to meet the need of the audience and the changing threat.

    During 2015/2016 over 12,000 directly employed and non-directly employed staff attended such training and briefing events.

  • Antoinette Sandbach – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Antoinette Sandbach – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Antoinette Sandbach on 2016-04-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what research HS2 Ltd has (a) produced and (b) commissioned since 17 July 2013 on the potential effect of the construction of High Speed 2 on the aquifer in Eddisbury.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    HS2 Ltd have not produced any detailed work specifically examining the potential effect of the construction of High Speed Two on the aquifer in Eddisbury.

    HS2 Ltd has commissioned desktop studies using existing survey work for the whole of the route from Crewe to Manchester which will examine interactions with landfill and mining and other ground conditions.

    Following a route decision in autumn 2016 HS2 Ltd will begin production of a full Environmental Impact Assessment.

  • Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-05-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of legislation for protecting children from in-game selling and promotions when playing games online.

    Nick Boles

    The Government is committed to ensuring that consumers are properly protected and that children’s vulnerability and inexperience is not exploited by aggressive commercial practices. We welcomed the Office of Fair Trading’s (OFT) investigation into whether children have been unfairly encouraged to spend money in online games and apps, in breach of consumer laws. The OFT’s subsequent Principles for Online and App-based Games, which are based on the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (2008), were published in January 2014. The Competition and Markets Authority subsequently referred 3 games to the Advertising Standards Authority for further enforcement action. The Government continues to take a close interest in this issue.