Tag: Parliamentary Question

Rebecca Long Bailey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rebecca Long Bailey on 2016-01-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to safeguard 16 and 17 year olds from child sexual exploitation.

Karen Bradley

Tackling child sexual exploitation is a top priority for this Government. We have prioritised child sexual abuse as a national threat in the Strategic Policing Requirement, setting a clear expectation on police forces to collaborate across force boundaries, to safeguard children, to share intelligence and to share best practice.

The Government has overhauled the legislative options available to the police in tackling child sexual exploitation. Most importantly we have introduced new Sexual Risk Orders (SRO) and Sexual Harm Prevention Orders (SHPO) which the police can now use to manage an individual who presents a risk of sexual harm to a child, including a young person aged 16 and 17. The Government has also removed all references to the misleading and unhelpful terms ‘child prostitution’ and ‘child pornography’ from statute via the Serious Crime Act 2015. The law now explicitly recognises these harmful activities for what they are: child sexual exploitation.

This Government is committed to supporting victims of sexual exploitation, in December 2014 the Government announced a £7 million uplift to services supporting survivors of sexual abuse, including child sexual exploitation. This was in addition to the £1.72 million a year the Home Office provides to part fund 87 Independent Sexual Violence Advisors to work with and support victims. In January 2016, the Ministry of Justice announced that Government will continue the £7 million uplift to support survivors and victims of sexual abuse, including child sexual exploitation.

January 1, 2023
Grahame Morris – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Grahame Morris on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he has taken to ensure that local authorities meet their obligation under the National Planning Policy Framework to meet the housing needs of disabled people requiring wheelchair accessible homes.

Brandon Lewis

Local authorities are best placed to understand the housing needs in their area. We expect them to work closely with key partners and their local communities in deciding what type of housing is needed.

National policy sets out clearly the need for local authorities to plan for the housing needs of all members of the community and that planning should encourage accessibility. The introduction of optional requirements for accessibility in the Building Regulations provides local authorities with the tools needed to ensure that new homes are accessible and that in particular the needs of disabled people are met.

Local authorities are held accountable for their housing delivery via their Local Plans which are tested by local independent planning inspectors and are scrutinised via yearly Authority Monitoring reports which set out progress on delivery against Local Plan targets. In addition local authorities must determine individual decisions in line with the development plan and other material considerations, such as the National Planning Policy Framework and having regard to viability considerations.

January 1, 2023
Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-03-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 2 March 2016 to Question 27886, if he will publish a list of the planning appeals which were recovered in the last 12 months.

Brandon Lewis

Attached is a table which shows all planning appeals which have been recovered in the last 12 months.

January 1, 2023
Anna Turley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2016-04-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether the postcodes for the addresses of mothers of babies born with congenital abnormalities are available on the British Isles Network of Congenital Anomaly Registers.

George Freeman

The National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Registration Service (NCARDRS) is operated by Public Health England. NCARDRS has legal permission to collect patient identifiable data without the need for individual consent. As part of this dataset, patient postcodes for individuals resident in England are recorded on the NCARDRS congenital anomaly database. Protection of individual patient data is paramount and release of this data, including postcode data, is strictly controlled.

January 1, 2023
Lord Patten – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2016-05-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 29 April (HL7749), whether they have identified any prospective disadvantages of the Right to Roam policy; and if so, what those disadvantages are.

Lord Gardiner of Kimble

The Government has not identified any prospective disadvantages of the right of access for open-air recreation on foot on open country (mountain, moor, heath and down) and registered common land which is provided for under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. The Act was passed by a previous Government after public consultation and an appraisal of a number of options for increasing access to land where access had not been allowed before.

The legislation was therefore framed so that the right of access over such areas was carefully balanced against the needs of land managers, businesses and wildlife. Areas such as houses and their gardens, and buildings or their curtilage, are automatically exempt from the right of access to avoid intrusion on people’s privacy even where they fall within land which appears on a map of open access land.

The open access regime also includes general restrictions at the national level that exclude specific potentially damaging activities from the right of access and controls on people walking with dogs. To supplement these, local temporary restrictions on the right of access may be put in place to limit where people go or what they do, if it is necessary to protect against the harm that any access may cause to sensitive landscape or wildlife habitat, public safety or the ability of landowners to manage their land.

January 1, 2023
John Glen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Glen on 2016-07-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the introduction of the English language tuition scheme in supporting Muslim women to learn English.

Mr Marcus Jones

As the first step in rolling out the new £20 million programme we have committed just over £3 million to enable six providers who delivered the Department’s previous community-based English language programme to provide new tuition to over 10,000 people by March next year.

We will shortly be issuing a new Prospectus, inviting applications to run the bulk of the new programme from 2017. The nature and targeting of that provision will be informed by Louise Casey’s Review of Integration and Opportunity.

We will monitor the new Programme to assess its effectiveness in meeting its objectives.

January 1, 2023
Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to the Pakistani government on the death penalty imposed on Imdad Ali.

Alok Sharma

I am concerned about Mr Ali’s case and continue to follow developments. The UK remains firmly opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances. Abolitionist work is high on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) agenda and is part of the day-to-day work of all diplomatic missions to countries that retain the death penalty. The FCO human rights and democracy report 2015 makes clear our views on the death penalty and the resumption of executions in Pakistan.

Whilst we have not raised the specific case of Imdad Ali with the Pakistani government, the former Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Philip Hammond), raised the issue of the death penalty with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 2015, and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Tobias Ellwood), since wrote to the Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK expressing deep concern about ongoing executions. Together with our EU partners, we continue to raise our concerns about the death penalty with the Government of Pakistan and urge compliance with international obligations.

January 1, 2023

Nicholas Soames – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-10-30.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate he has made of his Department’s likely civilian personnel strength on 1 April (a) 2016 and (b) 2020 for each top level budget.

Michael Fallon

Projected estimated civilian personnel strengths prior to any decisions in the Strategic Defence and Security Review, at 1 April 2016 and 1 April 2020 for each top level budget are as follows:

	1 April 2016	1 April 2020
Navy Command	4,773	4,748
Army Command	14,154	12,445
Air Command	4,140	4,049
Joint Forces Command	8,039	7,649
Head Office & Corporate Services	8,355	8,192
Defence Infrastructure Organisation	5,385	5,155

January 1, 2023

Maria Eagle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 33 of the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, how much his Department plans to save by reducing the civil service headcount in his Department to 41,000.

Mark Lancaster

Spending Review 15 and the Strategic Defence and Security Review confirmed that the number of Ministry of Defence (MOD) civilians would reduce by almost 30% to 41,000 by the end of this Parliament. The majority of these reductions will be generated from pre-existing and emerging change programmes. The remaining reductions are estimated to produce a saving of £300million over the next five years which will be used to reinvest within the Defence Programme. The MOD will undertake a number of studies to determine how best to generate this saving without impacting front-line outputs.

January 1, 2023
Sadiq Khan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the five most common causes of deaths were in (a) England and Wales and (b) each London borough in (i) 2014, (ii) 2010, (iii) 2005 and (iv) 2000.

Mr Rob Wilson

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

January 1, 2023