Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Baroness Tonge – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Baroness Tonge – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2016-07-19.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they are supporting the government of Rwanda in its work to provide civil and political rights for its citizens.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    Rwanda has made impressive gains in securing economic and social rights; we want to see these continue. We support the Government of Rwanda’s Vision 2020 development programme which sets out their commitment to “the rule of law and the protection of human rights”.

    We speak candidly with Rwanda, publicly and privately, and have been clear that Rwanda needs to do more to make these aspirations a reality. For example, we submitted recommendations on media freedoms and political space during the Universal Periodic Review on Rwanda. The Department for International Development’s work in Rwanda is underpinned by an agreement on four Partnership Principles, which include respect for human rights and promoting good governance. Our regular private discussions with the Government of Rwanda are reinforced at Ministerial level, including during visits to Kigali by the former Minister of State at the Department for International Development, my Rt Hon Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfied (Grant Shapps), in September and the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) in December last year.

    We are also delivering training in partnership with the Rwandan National Police on a range of topics from public order management to gender based violence. This training supports the security forces to carry out their role of protecting the population in a human rights compliant manner.

  • Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

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

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of changes in pharmacy funding on waiting times for NHS prescriptions.

    David Mowat

    The Government’s proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond, on which we have consulted, are being considered against the public sector equality duty, the family test and the relevant duties of my Rt. hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health, under the National Health Service Act 2006.

    Our assessments include consideration of the potential impacts on the adequate provision of NHS pharmaceutical services, including the supply of medicines, access to NHS pharmaceutical services, supplementary hours, non-commissioned services, individuals with protected characteristics, impacts on other NHS services, health inequalities, individuals with restricted mobility and access to healthcare for deprived communities.

    An impact assessment will be completed to inform final decisions and published in due course.

    Our proposals are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. We believe these efficiencies can be made within community pharmacy without compromising the quality of services or public access to them.

    Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive. We are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared with others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.

    We want a clinically focussed community pharmacy service that is better integrated with primary care and public health in line with the Five Year Forward View. This will help relieve the pressure on general practitioners and accident and emergency departments, ensure better use of medicines and better patient outcomes, and contribute to delivering seven day health and care services.

    The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England, Dr Keith Ridge has commissioned an independent review of community pharmacy clinical services. The review is being led by Richard Murray, Director of Policy at The King’s Fund. The final recommendations will be considered as part of the development of clinical and cost effective patient care by pharmacists and their teams.

    NHS England is also setting up a Pharmacy Integration Fund to support the development of clinical pharmacy practice in a wider range of primary care settings, resulting in a more integrated and effective NHS primary care patient pathway.

    The rollout of the additional 1,500 clinical pharmacists announced by NHS England will help to ease current pressures in general practice by working with patients who have long term conditions and others with multiple medications. Having a pharmacist on site will mean that patients who receive care from their general practice will be able to benefit from the expertise in medicines that these pharmacists provide.

  • Rob Marris – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Rob Marris – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rob Marris on 2015-11-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment she has made of the contribution of the energy sector to productivity between (a) 2005 and 2010, (b) 2010 and 2015 and (c) 2015 and 2020.

    Andrea Leadsom

    Information is available from the DECC UK energy sector indicators 20151 report on changes in the labour productivity of the energy sector; data from this report is presented in Table 1 below, covering the period 2005-2014. Projections to 2020 are not available.

    [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-energy-sector-indicators-2015

    “

  • Paul Flynn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Paul Flynn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-12-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for the Government’s nuclear non-proliferation strategy of the emergence of 3D printing technologies capable of constructing components for possible use in nuclear weapons.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    The Government keeps appraised of new technologies and their possible non-proliferation implications, both now and in the future. Although this technique could have some nuclear applications, currently there remain fundamental barriers to proliferation, such as the availability of fissile material.

  • Sue Hayman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Sue Hayman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sue Hayman on 2016-01-12.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress his Department has made on reducing levels of tax avoidance by large corporations; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr David Gauke

    The UK initiated the G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project and has already taken action to implement two of the internationally agreed outputs with domestic legislation to introduce country-by-reporting and rules to address hybrid mismatches.

    In addition, the UK played a key role in securing the successful EU agreement on automatically exchanging information on tax rulings, reached at the ECOFIN Council in October 2015.

    Complementary to international efforts to tackle this issue, we introduced the Diverted Profits Tax from April 2015 to counteract the diversion of profits from the UK by large multinational enterprises.

    In the summer Budget 2015 we legislated to improve the effectiveness of our Controlled Foreign Company (CFC) regime by removing the ability for companies to use UK losses and reliefs against their CFC charge.

  • Gavin Newlands – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Gavin Newlands – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Newlands on 2016-02-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what his Department’s policy is on the use of debt collection agencies to collect outstanding payments.

    Joseph Johnson

    The core Department’s policy is governed by HM Treasury’s ‘Managing Public Money’ guidance. This sets out that public sector organisations should always pursue recovery of debts. In practice there will be both practical and legal limits to how cases should be handled. So each case should be dealt with on its merits. Within BIS, the use of a debt collection agency would only be considered after all other methods of recovery had failed.

  • Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-03-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Civil Aviation Authority’s proposal to increase the fee for holding aerial displays on the viability of the aerial display industry.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The Civil Aviation Authority has consulted publicly on proposed air display and low flying permission charges. After this consultation, the Civil Aviation Authority would need to consult the Secretary of State, before making the scheme. When the Civil Aviation Authority consults the Secretary of State on any scheme, he will consider that scheme, including considering possible impacts on the viability of the aerial display industry.

  • Ruth Cadbury – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Ruth Cadbury – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ruth Cadbury on 2016-04-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information he holds on the number of women in England who were diagnosed with fibroadenomas in each of the last five years.

    Jane Ellison

    The number of women who were diagnosed with fibroadenomas in each of the last five years, and the proportion of women with fribroadenomas who went on to develop breast cancer in 2015, is not held.

    In addition, information on the number of women who had fibroadenomas surgically removed in each of the last five years is not held.

    There are several types of benign breast lump, including fibroadenomas. Although most lumps are not breast cancer, any unusual changes to the breasts should be checked by a general practitioner (GP) as soon as possible. If a GP finds a lump on examination, they will routinely refer the patient to be seen by a hospital specialist.

  • Byron Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Byron Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Byron Davies on 2016-05-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the Chief Medical Officer’s revised guidelines on alcohol consumption on consumer behaviour.

    Jane Ellison

    The National Institute for Health Research has awarded funding to The University of Sheffield Alcohol Research Group to evaluate the new drinking guidelines. The details will be worked through once the conclusions of the consultation are published.

  • Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-07-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 6 May (HL7878), when the Marine and Coastguard Agency will institute a prosecution of those responsible for that incident.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) will not be instituting any prosecution following the collapse of the mezzanine deck on the ST HELEN ferry at Fishbourne, Isle of Wight.

    Before a prosecution is commenced the matter must pass the two stage test as outlined in the Code for Crown Prosecutors. The MCA has confirmed that it will not pass both stages and have decided that it would not be in the public interest to pursue this further at this time.