Tag: Parliamentary Question

Lord West of Spithead – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord West of Spithead on 2016-03-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration was given in the Budget to the commitment made by the Prime Minister, when introducing the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, that there would be a bigger navy by 2030.

Earl Howe

Government commitments to maintain defence spending above the NATO target of 2 per cent of GDP, and to increase the defence budget by 0.5 per cent above inflation each year until 2020-21 were unchanged by the Budget.

We will publish our national shipbuilding strategy later this year, which will lay the foundations for a modern and efficient sector capable of meeting the UK’s future defence and security needs. Furthermore, as announced in the Strategic Defence and Security Review, we intend to launch a concept study to design and build a new class of lighter, flexible, and exportable frigate so that by the 2030s we can further increase our total number of frigates and destroyers.

January 1, 2023
David Morris – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Morris on 2016-04-15.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department plans to introduce maternity pay for self-employed women; and if he will make a statement.

Mr David Gauke

The Government has continued to improve the support and flexibility of parental pay and leave, spending around £3 billion a year on maternity payments to support pregnant women and new mothers and to help them achieve a better balance between their work and home lives.

Self-employed mothers can receive Maternity Allowance. The standard rate of Maternity Allowance is the same as the standard rate of Statutory Maternity Pay.

January 1, 2023
Nicholas Soames – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2016-05-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, which organisations are consulted in advance of decisions taken on how many (a) doctors and (b) nurses will be trained each year.

Ben Gummer

It is Health Education England’s responsibility to ensure that there is sufficient future supply of staff, including doctors and nurses, to meet the workforce requirements of the English health system.

The Workforce Plan is built upon the needs of local employers, providers, commissioners and other stakeholders who, as members of its Local Education Training Boards (LETBs), shape the 13 local plans.

The Workforce Plan is predominately an aggregate of the local LETB plans, but the final national plan is only agreed with the advice and input of its clinical advisory groups and Patients’ Advisory Forum, as well as the Royal Colleges and other stakeholders.

January 1, 2023
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead on 2016-07-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of Amnesty International’s report Our Hearts Have Gone Dark, what steps they have taken to ensure that the victims of serious health issues, including mental health, as a result of the conflict in South Sudan receive urgent and adequate care.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The UK is the second largest aid donor in South Sudan and leads the £200 million, five year, multi-donor Health Pooled Fund which provides primary health services, including mental health care, to over 8million people in eight states across South Sudan. The fund also supports the South Sudan Healthcare system to deliver lifesaving care, ranging from Primary Health Units in more remote areas to State Hospitals. Patients with serious illnesses, including mental health cases, are referred to the nearest centre able to provide care for them.

January 1, 2023
Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to encourage clinical commissioning groups to abide in full by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines on funding in vitro fertilisation.

Nicola Blackwood

Clinical commissioning groups have a legal duty to have regard to National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines. As such, NHS England expects that all those involved in commissioning infertility treatment services to be fully aware of the importance of having regard to the NICE fertility guidelines.

Representatives from NHS England, the British Fertility Society and Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority are looking at how commissioning of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) services could be improved. Commissioning of IVF will remain a local decision but there may be scope to improve the quality of commissioning through, for example, the development of a benchmark price that the National Health Service pays for infertility treatments and by encouraging the adoption of best practice when making clinical decisions.

January 1, 2023
Fiona Bruce – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Fiona Bruce on 2015-11-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to promote alcohol treatment and counselling options that will help to prevent alcohol-related crime.

Jane Ellison

Government is keen to promote recovery from alcohol problems, and this year the Department added a new condition to the ring-fenced public health grant to local authorities, stating that they should have regard to the need to improve the take up of, and outcomes from, their alcohol and drug misuse treatment services.

A key step in preventing alcohol-related crime is the Liaison and Diversion (L&D) programme. This programme is a cross government initiative, led by NHS England and has developed the first national model to identify, assess and refer people into appropriate treatment and support services at their first point of contact with the criminal justice system. Twenty-five trial sites have been commissioned by NHS England.

Another key piece of work is an initiative between Public Health England, NHS England and the National Offender Management Service to give alcohol brief interventions in North West England where prisoners whose offending is linked to alcohol misuse are offered brief interventions pre-release and then by their offender manager after release.

January 1, 2023
Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2015-12-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to introduce measures to set quotas for women on boards.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Government is committed to seeing more women on the boards of British companies. We believe that a business led, voluntary approach is the best way to get more women on boards, as set out in Lord Davies of Abersoch’s review 2010 into the subject.This approach is working, with 26.2% representation in the FTSE 100, up from 12.5% in 2011. We will build on this with a new programme of work set out by Lord Davies in his recent 5 year report on progress. Government will therefore not be introducing measures to set quotas for women on boards.

January 1, 2023

Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what estimate she has made of the financial support her Department has provided to the United Nations Childrens’ Fund in each of the last five years.

Mr Desmond Swayne

The core and non-core contributions (in £ millions) made by DFID to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) from 2009/10 until 2013/14 can be found in the table below. These figures are taken from DFID’s internal data sources and DFID’s publication ‘Statistics on International Development’.

Delivery Channel	2009/10	2010/11	2011/12	2012/13	2013/14
DFID core funding to UNICEF	21.0	23.6	40.0	40.0	46.0
DFID non-core funding to UNICEF	113.9	127.4	207.1	192.3	270.1
Total DFID funding to UNICEF	134.9	151.0	247.1	232.3	316.1

Data for 2014/15 will be included in the next release of DFID’s ‘Statistics on International Development’ publication. This is due for release in February 2016.

January 1, 2023

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-02-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider suspending their consultation on how to implement grants and tuition fees for nursing, midwives and allied health professional healthcare students, and instead consult fully on a range of proposals that would best deliver a sustainable future workforce with access to high quality education and clinical training.

Lord Prior of Brampton

In the Spending Review 2015 the Government announced that from 1 August 2017, new nursing, midwifery and allied health professional students will no longer receive National Health Service bursaries and will move onto the standard student loans system.

The Government has set out its intention for these changes to be implemented in August 2017. Ahead of this, the Government will issue a public consultation on how we most successfully implement these reforms. The consultation will welcome a range of views from stakeholders, which the Government will consider before publishing its consultation response later in the year.

January 1, 2023
Kevin Brennan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what recent assessment she has made of the availability of bank loans for oil exploration companies which operate in the North Sea.

Andrea Leadsom

Banks must make commercial decisions with regard to lending. The Government’s clear view is that the UK’s offshore oil and gas industry has a bright future and will remain a significant and important industry and energy supplier for the UK. The Government’s confidence in the sector was underlined in the tax reform package outlined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Budget , worth £1 billion. In the Budget, the Chancellor also announced that the government is willing to consider proposals for using the UK Guarantees scheme for infrastructure where it could help secure new investment in assets of strategic importance to maximising economic recovery of oil and gas. Any proposals would also need to meet the existing criteria of the scheme, including in relation to commerciality and financial credibility

January 1, 2023