The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2016-02-08.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have an agreement or understanding with the IRA that there will be no attempts to stop or bring to court its members on charges relating to tax fraud or tax terrorism in South Armagh.
Lord Prior of Brampton
Genomics England is familiar with the Broad Institute’s database and it is one of a number of data sources that will be included in their clinical interpretation process.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Crawley on 2016-03-03.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether HMRC’s current pilot of the Codentify system takes account of any known weaknesses of Codentify for the purpose of authentication.
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.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Compass asylum accommodation contract with Clearsprings Ready Home Limited for the region of Wales and South West England, how many faults were reported or identified from Compass inspections for each contractual pay period in 2014-15 and 2015-16; and how many such faults were not resolved within the agreed contractual timescales.
James Brokenshire
Providers are contractually required to provide safe, habitable, fit for purpose and correctly equipped accommodation to comply with the Housing Act 2004 and the Decent Homes Standard. Providers are monitored closely to ensure accommodation meets these standards and the contracts include measures to ensure any issues are quickly addressed. These performance standards are defined in the contract and are managed using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) including those which measure whether an individual property is compliant with contractual obligations following an inspection and also the number of service users effected if a fault is not repaired within the contract timescales.
The Home Office does not centrally record the number of individual faults reported or identified during accommodation inspections, or the number of individual faults not resolved within the agreed timescales. The requested information could therefore only be provided at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-05-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential contribution of public health nursing to (a) improving the health of the population and preventing acute hospital admissions and (b) delivering the Government’s commitment to seven-day NHS services.
Ben Gummer
Improving population health is the responsibility of every nurse and they have a role in working with individuals, communities and/or the population to prevent illness, protect health and promote wellbeing. The National Health Service Five Year Forward View (FYFV) sets out the need to close the health and wellbeing gap, radically upgrade prevention as part of a drive to reduce acute hospital admissions, and deliver seven-day hospital services for patients with urgent or emergency care needs. The new framework for nurses, midwives and care staff in England, Leading Change, Adding Value, scheduled for publication later this month, sets out how these professionals will support delivery of the FYFV. There are 10 commitments in the framework, of which three specifically relate to population health and population health and prevention.
To support all health care professionals including nurses to provide evidence based preventative interventions and measure their impact, Public Health England will be launching a resource called All Our Health later this month.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Tomlinson on 2016-06-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will provide additional funding for broadband provision to difficult to reach properties in (a) rural and (b) urban areas which have not been provided with access under the Universal Service Obligation to date and where Openreach fibre rollout has been delayed for more than a year.
Mr Edward Vaizey
Superfast broadband coverage will reach 95% of UK premises by the end of 2017. Further funding from clawback and efficiency savings in the local broadband contracts with BT will allow this coverage to be extended further.
In addition it is the Government’s intention to implement a new broadband Universal Service Obligation. This will give people the legal right to request a broadband connection, no matter where they live, by the end of this Parliament. Our ambition is that this should initially be set at 10 Mbps.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl Turner on 2016-09-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an assessment of the effect of the exclusion of sexual assault, voyeurism, exposure and sexual activity in a public lavatory from the schedule of offences that are subject to the mandatory referrals process on the ability of victims to report such acts.
Mark Lancaster
A person who believes they have been a victim of crime may report the matter to the Service or civilian Police, or to their chain of command. Commanding Officers are under a statutory duty to ensure that all allegations which indicate that a service offence may have been committed – including the offences of sexual assault, voyeurism, exposure and sexual activity in a public lavatory – are properly investigated. The Ministry of Defence has undertaken to review the existing provisions whereby Commanding Officers can decide how best to investigate those allegations of sexual offences which do not fall to be automatically referred to the Police. We expect the review to be complete by the end of the year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nick Smith on 2015-11-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, for what reasons the Rural Payments Agency was not able to make advance basic payments from 16 October 2015.
George Eustice
The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) remains focused on making full payments from December. The RPA is on track to make full payments on 2015 Basic Payment Scheme claims as soon as possible within the payment window, making the majority of payments in December and the vast majority by the end of January 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Lavery on 2015-12-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what proportion of Overseas Development Aid her Department used to tackle the refugee crisis in the last 12 months; and how much her Department plans to allocate in future years to tackling that situation.
Justine Greening
My department has contributed nearly £16 million for the refugee crisis in Europe this year to date. In the long term we are focussed on using the UK’s aid budget to support refugees to have a viable option to stay where they are by tackling the root causes of migration.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rosie Cooper on 2016-01-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what guidance her Department provides to police forces on how to deal with a situation in which an emergency 999 call is erroneously directed to the wrong police force; and what procedures police forces have put in place to deal with such a situation.
Mr Edward Vaizey
I have been asked to reply on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
The 999/112 Liaison Committee, chaired by DCMS, provides a forum for representatives from Government; Communications Providers, including BT (which provides the 999 call handling agency) and Mobile Network Operators (MNOs); emergency services and Ofcom, to discuss 999 operational matters The LC’s main concern is the effective handling and transfer of emergency calls from the public, through call handling agents ,to emergency authorities.
The “Code of Practice for the Public Emergency Call Service (PECS) between Communications Providers, Call Handing Agencies and the Emergency Authorities” sets out protocols governing 999 calls. This includes guidelines for the Emergency Authorities to manage any occasional situation in which an emergency 999 call is misdirected.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Quin on 2016-02-08.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the average waiting time for a result to be given of a DEXA bone density scan in each NHS region in England; and what assessment they have made of the average waiting time for such results in (1) Scotland, and (2) Wales.
Lord Prior of Brampton
Data are not collected on the average waiting time for a result to be given for a dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) scan. Data are collected on the average waiting time from referral to test, and these are shown in the following table for the four NHS England commissioning regions for most recent period, which is November 2015. Health is a devolved matter in Scotland and Wales.
Table: average median waiting times in weeks for a DEXA scan from referral by NHS England commissioning region, November 2015
|
Region |
Number of weeks |
|
North of England |
2.1 |
|
Midlands and East of England |
1.7 |
|
London |
1.8 |
|
South of England |
1.8 |
|
England |
1.9 |