Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Alasdair McDonnell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Alasdair McDonnell – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alasdair McDonnell on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what preparations her Department is making to support the agricultural economy in the Northern Ireland in the event of the UK leaving the EU.

    George Eustice

    The Government is focused on delivering a successful renegotiation. We believe we can and will succeed in reforming and renegotiating our relationship with the EU and campaigning to keep the UK in the EU on that basis.

  • Ruth Cadbury – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Ruth Cadbury – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ruth Cadbury on 2015-12-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that (a) lorry drivers from outside the UK have the appropriate licences and skills to drive on roads safely and (b) left-hand drive lorries have appropriate extra mirrors to improve visibility of cyclists and other road users to the lorry driver.

    Andrew Jones

    Road traffic legislation applies to everyone using British roads and this includes the obligation to provide documentation if required to do so by the police.

    The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has check sites in the Port of Dover and throughout the strategic road network of Great Britain. At these sites, all classes of Large Goods Vehicles are checked to ensure vehicle roadworthiness, the correct documentation and compliance with drivers’ hours regulations.

    The mirror requirements for heavy goods vehicles are the same throughout the EU.However, Department for Transport officials have currently negotiated improved requirements for mirrors on the passenger side of vehicles. The implementation process is now underway in the EU and means that drivers of newly registered HGVs from 1 July 2016 will have a better view of the area adjacent to the cab on the passenger side, which should improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians. Furtherchanges will also allow camera monitoring systems and enable the redesign of lorry cabs for better vision.

  • Iain Wright – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Iain Wright – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Iain Wright on 2016-01-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve recruitment and retention of embryologists in the NHS in (a) England and (b) the North East.

    Ben Gummer

    Individual healthcare providers are responsible for ensuring that they have the right level of staffing to provide high quality care to their patients, including embryology services.

    Health Education England (HEE) was established in 2012 to ensure the National Health Service has access to the right numbers of staff, at the right time and with the right skills. In doing so, HEE works with key external stakeholders to develop its National Workforce Plan for England which sets out the number of training places it will commission in the year ahead to meet future local need.

    HEE will continue to work with its 13 Local Education and Training Boards and others to ensure that there are sufficient healthcare scientists, including embryologists, being trained to meet the future needs of patients.

    Currently HEE has 28 reproductive scientists in training (which includes embryology) and are planning a further 11 to start in 2016/17. It takes three years to train a reproductive scientist.

    The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority have advised that it is not aware of any issues concerning the availability of embryologists in the United Kingdom.

  • Lord Green of Deddington – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Green of Deddington – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Green of Deddington on 2016-02-08.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the proposed restrictions on access to in-work benefits mentioned in paragraph 2(b) of Section D of the draft Decision of the European Council published on 2 February will apply to Universal Credit, and if so, to which elements of Universal Credit those restrictions will apply.

    Baroness Stowell of Beeston

    The number of statutory instruments laid before Parliament is recorded in the sessional returns. The House of Commons Library produce publications on this matter which show that the numbers peaked in the 2005-2006 session. The latest figures show that the number of UK statutory instruments laid before the House of Commons in each session since 1997 are as follows:

    • 1997-98: 1856

    • 1998-99: 1479

    • 1999-00: 1456

    • 2000-01: 868

    • 2001-02: 1788

    • 2002-03: 1474

    • 2003-04: 1281

    • 2004-05: 793

    • 2005-06: 1885

    • 2006-07: 1361

    • 2007-08: 1319

    • 2008-09: 1302

    • 2009-10: 823

    • 2010-12: 1809

    • 2012-13: 964

    • 2013-14: 1173

    • 2014-15: 1378

    • 2015-16: 540 (so far in this session)
  • Baroness Crawley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Baroness Crawley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Crawley on 2016-03-03.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of HMRC’s pilot of the Codentify system, why no other companies or systems have been asked to participate in such a pilot.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) takes the restrictions in the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) very seriously. These require that the development, implementation and enforcement of tobacco policies as part of public health policies should be protected from the influence of the tobacco industry.

    Codentify is a system, developed and introduced by the major tobacco manufacturers on their own initiative through the Digital Coding and Tracking Association (DCTA). HMRC played no part in the development or introduction of the system nor did HMRC require that it be introduced. Codentify codes already feature on packs and are there regardless of any HMRC use of them. The trial HMRC is undertaking is to see whether these existing codes could help officers in the field to authenticate products and help tackle illicit tobacco. No other companies currently provide such codes.

    The use of Codentify by HMRC is not part of an exercise to evaluate the wider use of potential tools available on the market. Any such exercise would be undertaken in the context of the implementation of the EU Tobacco Products Directive track and trace security feature requirements, which will be implemented by May 2019 for cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco.

    The European Commission is still considering, with Member States, proposals for new pan European security features and track and trace systems, and has yet to determine any technical specifications. HMRC are not evaluating Codentify as a track and trace tool or potential security feature; the aspects of the system being used are entirely separate from the requirements of the Directive.

    The use of Codentify is not a formal pilot and there will not be reports or results to publish. Instead the trial will identify the strengths, weaknesses and usefulness of using Codentify to HMRC as an authentication tool in the field. HMRC will review this later in 2016. Some resource has been spent providing access to the system and training officers in the use of the tool. However, this has been minimal and has not been separately identified. The Department of Health leads on public health policy and has been consulted on this initiative. HMRC sees no conflict between its current use of the Codentify system and FCTC requirements.

  • Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anne-Marie Trevelyan on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what modelling she has conducted to assess the likelihood of the emergency brake mechanism to control immigration from the rest of the EU into the UK being utilised in the next five years.

    James Brokenshire

    The European Commission has clearly said that the UK already meets the criteria for the implementation of the ‘emergency brake’ and the text of the agreement makes clear that, once the necessary legislation is in place, EU workers newly arriving in the UK will not have full access to our in-work benefits for up to four years.

    The Home Office accepted the view of the independent Migration Advisory Committee that to produce such estimates "would not be sensible, or helpful to policymakers" and did not prepare specific forecasts of likely inflows from Romania and Bulgaria once restrictions expired on 1 January 2014. There are no plans to undertake a review of this decision.

  • Jeff Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jeff Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jeff Smith on 2016-05-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many students currently receive the NHS bursary in (a) England and (b) Manchester, Withington constituency.

    Ben Gummer

    The latest available figures provided by the NHS Business Services Authority show that there were 99,549 students attending a university in England who received an NHS Bursary payment in the financial year 2014/15. Of the students receiving an NHS Bursary payment, 48 provided their current address with a postcode in the Withington constituency of Greater Manchester.

  • John Healey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    John Healey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Healey on 2016-06-28.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many local authorities will be affected by the sale of higher value council homes under the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

    Brandon Lewis

    The requirement to make a payment in respect of higher value vacant housing and to consider selling such housing applies to local authorities with a Housing Revenue Account. The scheme will therefore affect any such authorities who hold housing which falls within the definition of "higher value". That definition will be set out in regulations which are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. In addition Government has the power to exclude types of housing from the policy through regulations.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-09-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make it his policy to restore compensation for war widows who remarried between 1973 and 2005.

    Mark Lancaster

    The Government remains sympathetic to the circumstances of those affected. We are reviewing the position, but need to take account of the wider consequences for other public sector schemes of making retrospective changes.

  • Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate her Department has made of the change in the bee population over the summer of 2015.

    George Eustice

    Records from volunteer societies provide a rich source of data and can be analysed to show how bee populations are changing. In 2014 Defra published a pilot indicator of changes in the wild bee population in the UK. This showed that between 1980 and 2010 some bee species had become more widespread, but that a greater number had become less so.

    Defra is working with the research community to improve and update this indicator on pollinators. However, there is currently insufficient data to provide an assessment of changes over the summer of 2015. We hope to update the indicator in future years.

    The Government continues to work to strengthen monitoring. In 2014 Defra commissioned a two-year project to develop a robust and affordable framework for monitoring pollinators, which can be applied by volunteers and professionals across the UK. This will report in early 2016.