Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-10-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether public consultations or surveys were undertaken in the former Department for Energy and Climate Change to ascertain whether people trusted and understood the data-sharing element of the Warm Home Discount Scheme in the run-up to implementing that scheme.

    Jesse Norman

    The Warm Home Discount consultation, published in December 2011, included questions on data sharing.

    Prior to the Warm Home Discount, the Energy Rebate Scheme, which ran for one year, used data-matching (of DWP and energy suppliers’ data) to identify a group of pensioners likely to be vulnerable to fuel poverty, so that their electricity supplier could award a one-off rebate to their electricity bill. This earlier scheme ran for one year.

    DWP Social Researchers carried out a small-scale qualitative evaluation of the scheme, involving telephone interviews with customers to investigate reactions to their personal data being used in this way – this includeding issues around privacy, security and data sharing, and the broader concept of data use in Government.

    The findings of the research and consultation responses can be found here:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-warm-home-discount-scheme

    “

  • Derek Twigg – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Derek Twigg – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Derek Twigg on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that new interconnector capacity is supported by robust cost analyses.

    Andrea Leadsom

    Ofgem, through the regulatory regime introduced in summer last year, have in place a thorough eligibility assessment of individual interconnector projects which provides robust cost analysis, ensuring the interconnectors are in the interest of consumers. The Government is confident that Ofgem’s cost analysis process for interconnectors is appropriate.

  • Gregory Campbell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Gregory Campbell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2015-12-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps her Department is taking to consult people in Northern Ireland Assembly constituencies which will be affected by proposed changes in polling station locations.

    Mr Ben Wallace

    The design and publication of polling station schemes for elections in Northern Ireland is an operational matter for the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland.

    The Chief Electoral Officer published a consultation on a proposed polling station scheme for use at the May 2016 Assembly elections on 19 November with a closing date of 11 February 2016. The Chief Electoral Officer intends to publish the final scheme in the first week of March. Details of the consultation may be found on the Electoral Office website at: http://www.eoni.org.uk/News/Publication-of-Proposed-Amendments-to-the-Poll-(1).

    “

  • 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 2016-01-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people in England and Wales are on long-term prescriptions of more than four weeks for benzodiazepines.

    Alistair Burt

    The National Health Service Business Services Authority (NHS BSA) has advised that, in December 2015, it initiated a project to improve the storage of transaction level prescription data, including the age of patients and to enhance reporting capability against this data. The NHS BSA anticipates having the capability to provide patient level prescription information towards the end of the 2016-17 financial year. This should contain primary care prescribing information for the full range of medicines, including anti-depressants.

    This should also allow the reporting on long-term prescriptions for medicines, including benzodiazepines, which is not currently possible.

  • Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-02-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many care leavers in part or full-time education other than higher education aged between 19 and 21 in (a) 2014 and (b) 2015 were former unaccompanied asylum-seeking children looked after by the local authority.

    Edward Timpson

    The information requested is shown in the table below. This information is for England only.

    Care leaver activity [2]

    Number of former unaccompanied asylum seeking children [1]

    2014

    2015

    Higher education

    20

    40

    Education other than higher education

    100

    260

    Training or employment

    40

    130

    Source: SSDA903

    Information on the activity of all care leavers in England has been published in tables F1 of the Statistical First Release on looked after children[3].

    [1] This includes young people who were unaccompanied asylum seeking children in their final period of care.

    [2] Numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10.

    [3] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2014-to-2015

    “

  • Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-02-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many children aged (a) up to 12, (b) 12 to 15 and (c) 16 to 18 were prescribed (i) fluoxetine, (ii) fluvoxamine, (iii) sertraline, (iv) paroxetine, (v) escitalopram and (vi) citalopra by the NHS in each of the last five years.

    Alistair Burt

    This information is not collected centrally. Prescribing information is not linked to the patient receiving the prescription so it is not possible to supply prescribing information by patient age.

  • Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2016-04-26.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of legislation governing housing co-operatives and the case for updating or consolidating that legislation.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    The Government has no current plans to change legislation governing fully mutual housing co-operatives.

  • Tom Watson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Tom Watson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps he is taking to promote a whistleblowing culture in his Department.

    Matthew Hancock

    This Government has taken a number of steps to ensure effective whistleblowing practices are in place across Departments and to raise the profile and awareness of whilstleblowing. Updated and refreshed model whistleblowing policies are in place across all departments, providing information on sources of support available to whistleblowers, including access to employee assistance programmes, and advice on accessing legal support. In addition, we have improved support for Nominated Offices, and Departments have introduced dedicated whistleblowing hotlines and are publishing case studies on departmental intranet sites to build confidence that cases will be heard fairly and appropriately.

    The Cabinet Office has developed a new data collection tool to enable HR Directors to collect information on whistleblowing cases including how cases have been resolved, identification of systemic issues, and lessons learned. Departments are using this tool to report to their Departmental Boards, and to the Cabinet Office, on a 6 monthly basis.

    More details on action taken by specific Departments, including the first set of data collated by Departments, can be found in the Cabinet Office’s recent report to the Public Accounts Committee: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/public-accounts-committee/whistleblowing-recall/written/31692.html

    “

  • Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-09-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average time taken is for family reunification of unaccompanied refugee children in Europe.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    For unaccompanied refugee children accepted for transfer to the UK, transfer requests are generally processed within 10 days and children transferred within weeks.

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

    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 2016-10-13.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that Clinical Commissioning Groups do not arbitrarily restrict treatments for obese people and smokers.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    Arbitrary restrictions on treatment by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) are unacceptable. Treatment decisions should always be made by doctors based on a patient’s individual clinical needs. For instance, major surgery poses much higher risks for severely overweight patients and those who smoke. So, where it is clinically appropriate, local general practitioner-led CCGs are right to ensure these patients first get support to lose weight and try to stop smoking before their operation.

    NHS England must ensure that CCGs are not breaching their statutory responsibility to provide services that meet the reasonable needs of the local population, including obese people and smokers. In doing so, CCGs need to ensure that the services they provide are fit for purpose, reflect the needs of the local population and are based on the available evidence and take into account national guidelines.