Tag: Parliamentary Question

Maria Eagle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2015-11-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, for what reasons it is proposed to retire HMS Ocean in 2018; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Philip Dunne

When HMS OCEAN entered service in 1998 she had a specified service life, based on her build specification, of 20 years.

The decision to retire HMS Ocean is consistent with the intent expressed in paragraph 2.A.5 in the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2010. As part of the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 the Royal Navy will retain two landing Platform Dock vessels in the fleet.

01/01/2023
Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether his Department is taking steps to broker negotiated ceasefires to allow the creation of aid corridors across Syria; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The UK plays a key role in ensuring humanitarian access to Syria. The UK co-sponsored and lobbied hard for UN Security Council Resolutions 2165, 2191 and 2258 which enable the UN to deliver aid across borders, without the consent of the regime, to assist those in the hardest to reach areas.

The UK will consider options compliant with international law that might save lives in Syria. However, experience suggests that so-called ‘safe’ areas or corridors can prove difficult to demilitarise and protect against all threats. In fact, there is a risk that they can become targets. For an aid corridor to work, all parties to the conflict would need to agree to its establishment. In the absence of such consent, foreign military intervention may be necessary, under the authority of a UN Security Council resolution.

An estimated £275 million of humanitarian assistance funded by the UK for inside Syria has been allocated to the UN and NGOs for cross-border operations. We are now encouraging the UN to consider alternative means of assistance such as cash, to support vulnerable populations that are increasingly hard to reach. We continue to call on all sides to the conflict to respect International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and ensure free, unimpeded access for humanitarian agencies.

01/01/2023
Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-01-28.

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what the Government’s timetable is for introducing measures to place a duty on larger employers to publish information about bonuses paid to men and women as part of their gender pay gap reporting.

Caroline Dinenage

Eliminating the gender pay gap is a key priority for this government. We will shortly seek views on the draft regulations requiring large private and voluntary sector employers in Great Britain to publish information about differences in the pay and bonuses paid to male and female employees. The government wants to commence these regulations at the earliest opportunity. We have also pledged to extend these requirements to the public sector. Public bodies will be covered by different regulations, following a further consultation that we will issue soon.

01/01/2023

Emily Thornberry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when he expects each of the Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigates to be withdrawn from service.

Mr Philip Dunne

Current planning assumptions are:

Ship	Out of Service Date
HMS Argyll	2023
HMS Lancaster	2024
HMS Iron Duke	2025
HMS Monmouth	2026
HMS Montrose	2027
HMS Westminster	2028
HMS Northumberland	2029
HMS Richmond	2030
HMS Somerset	2031
HMS Sutherland	2032
HMS Kent	2033
HMS Portland	2034
HMS St Albans	2035

01/01/2023

Gordon Marsden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-03-22.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether Equivalent or Lower Level Qualifications are exempted under (a) degree and (b) Masters level apprenticeships.

Nick Boles

There are no centrally set entry requirements for apprenticeships; recruitment decisions lie with employers. As with any other job, they may set their own entry requirements for a specific apprenticeship vacancy at any level.

Apprenticeship funding supports individuals to progress to higher levels of learning. A graduate who has completed a degree is not usually eligible for funding to complete an apprenticeship at Level 6 (degree), but would be eligible for funding to progress to an apprenticeship at Level 7 (Masters). A graduate with a Master’s degree would not normally be eligible for funding for an apprenticeship.

The only exception to this is where the apprentice starts a new job role which is in a different occupation requiring a significant amount of new learning to take place, delivered over the minimum duration for the standard. In this case the apprentice would be eligible for funding for an apprenticeship at the same level, but no lower than, their current highest qualification.

01/01/2023
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering on 2016-04-22.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they have chosen not to implement provisions relating to joint audit and increased tendering as set out in EU Directive 2014/56/EU and Regulation 537/2014 on statutory auditing.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Government does intend to implement provisions relating to increased tendering as part of the implementation of the EU Audit Regulation and Directive. This is in line with the recommendations of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The provision on joint audit in the EU Regulation would act as an exemption from having to retender with the frequency envisaged by the CMA. The government consulted on the implementation of the audit directive including this option, and concluded the option should not be taken up.

Joint audit is not a practice followed in the UK, though it is expressly permitted by the Companies and legislation on some other entities. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has consulted on whether to take up this derogation. In response to our discussion document in December 2014 on auditor regulation, only 4 of 25 respondents supported its implementation.

It is unclear that increased joint audit would encourage competition. The option in the EU Regulation could result in prolonged audit engagements (up to 24 years) and fewer changes in auditor. This would be contrary to the objective of the CMA and the Regulation, which is to increase retendering and rotation of auditors not less.

The CMA considered the impact of joint audits on competition and concluded that promoting joint audits would have little effect on barriers to entry, expansion and selection. The CMA’s conclusions were based on views provided by a range of stakeholders. The CMA was not able to quantify the potential cost of imposing joint audits, but did state that they believed that across the market the costs would be potentially significant. They state that a lot of weight was placed on the views of investors, who were almost universally opposed to joint audits on the grounds of additional costs and risks to audit quality.

01/01/2023
Louise Haigh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many civil servants in his Department are paid through limited companies.

Mark Lancaster

No civil servants employed by the Ministry of Defence are paid through limited companies.

01/01/2023
Mark Hendrick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to implement the actions identified for it in the Government’s Ending Violence against Women and Girls Strategy 2016-2020, published in March 2016; and when a member of staff from her Department last attended a Violence against Women and Girls Stakeholder Meeting chaired by the Home Office.

Rory Stewart

DFID has made significant progress in scaling up efforts to address violence against women and girls, nearly doubling our programming, from 64 programmes in 2012 to 127 in 2016, and working with partners across all sectors. Our £36 million programme to end Child, Early and Forced Marriage is helping thousands of girls escape losing any choice or control over their future. We have committed £8 million to support AmplifyChange, an initiative to support civil society activists to end child marriage and address a broader range of gender issues. In 2015 we provided £2.25 million of support to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women and Girls which provides grants to organisations across the world to tackle gender-based violence.

ICAI published its review of DFID’s efforts to eliminate violence against women and girls on Tuesday 17 May 2016. This review gave DFID’s performance a ‘Green’ rating, the highest achievable. The UK and DFID’s new Secretary of State will continue to lead the global effort to improve the lives of women and girls.

The last Home Office chaired Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Stakeholder Meeting took place on July 11 2016. No officials from other departments were invited to this meeting. However, one of the action points arising from this meeting was to invite other departments in future. An official from DFID’s VAWG Team will attend the next meeting.

01/01/2023
Baroness Eaton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Eaton on 2016-10-10.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recommendation in the recent report from the charity Sense, Realising Aspirations for All, to break the link between welfare benefits and access to employment by making support voluntary and available to all disabled people, regardless of the benefits they claim.

Lord Freud

We welcome the Sense report, Realising Aspirations for All and its findings. We want all disabled and people with a long term health condition to fulfil their potential and achieve their aspirations.

We will soon publish a Green Paper on work and health and conduct a consultation to understand how every individual can have the opportunity to work and share in the economic and health benefits that work brings, regardless of their health condition or disability. We will continue to engage with Sense and other key stakeholders as part of the Green Paper consultation.

01/01/2023
Maggie Throup – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maggie Throup on 2015-10-30.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will request that NICE publishes its reasons for including a recommendation on the use of C-reactive protein testing for patients presenting with lower respiratory tract infection in primary care in its guidance on pneumonia but not in its pneumonia draft quality statement.

George Freeman

The prioritisation of topics for inclusion in quality standards is a matter for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). NICE has advised that its Quality Standards Advisory Committee considered the inclusion of a quality statement on the use of C-reactive protein testing for patients presenting with lower respiratory tract infection in primary care in its draft quality standard on pneumonia, but felt that this was not an area to be prioritised.

The minutes of Quality Standards Advisory Committee meetings are published on NICE’s website at:

www.nice.org.uk/get-involved/meetings-in-public/quality-standards-advisory-committee

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01/01/2023