The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mrs Anne Main on 2015-12-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will publish an analysis of the outcomes and costs of the third badger cull.
George Eustice
The Government has published a summary of badger control monitoring during 2015 on the GOV.UK website. The Government will publish its costs once they have been finalised.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-01-27.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department has made an assessment of the number of workers who would be affected if the exit payments cap for public sector workers was set at any other amount than £95,000.
Greg Hands
At the 2015 Spending Review the Government announced it will consult on further cross public sector action on exit payment terms. This consultation will provide a good opportunity to collect further information on the trends in the level of exit payments between the private and public sector.
Exit payment terms vary significantly across the private sector, and there will be examples of terms that match or even exceed those in the public sector. However, the Government has seen no evidence that redundancy terms such as employer-funded early retirement, which are widely available across the public sector and often cost employers tens, or even hundreds of thousands of pounds per person, are replicated to anything like the same extent in the private sector.
The precise number of those affected by the public sector exit payment cap will depend on the number and type of exits in coming years.
However, as the average cost of an exit in the public sector in recent years has been around £25,000 the vast majority of exits are below the level of the cap. For example, less than 2% of recent exits in local government were above the level of the cap.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burgon on 2016-02-19.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials of his Department have had on the implementation of the ring-fence between retail and investment banking since May 2015.
Harriett Baldwin
Since May 2015, in order to ensure the smooth implementation of ring-fencing, ministers and HMT officials have met with regulators, banks, banking organisations, trustees of bank pension funds and HMRC.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Turnberg on 2016-03-16.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the observations of the National Audit Office that there was a 7.2 per cent shortfall in nursing, midwifery and health visitor staffing levels in 2014.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department has set up Health Education England (HEE) to plan the future healthcare workforce for England. They are responsible for ensuring a secure workforce supply that reflects the needs of local service users, providers and commissioners of healthcare. There are already over 50,000 nurses in training. HEE has increased adult nurse training places by 14% over the last two years. HEE has also increased midwifery training places by 1.6% in the last 12 months and have confirmed their intention to maintain that number of places in 2017-18.
In addition to funding nurses through undergraduate training, HEE is running a return to practice campaign to attract nurses back to the National Health Service. This initiative has already yielded an additional 779 nurses available for employment now.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-04-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the processes and policies in place proactively to identify symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in service-people returning from war zones.
Mark Lancaster
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has a range of processes in place to look after the mental health of personnel both on, and returning, from operations, including Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) and the post-operational decompression period. Personnel are given briefings on the possible psychological after-effects of deployment, as well as advice on seeking help and treatment if required. Efforts are being made to reduce the stigma that can be attached to all mental health issues, including PTSD, and this may be encouraging more Service personnel to come forward.
The MOD has also been working closely with King’s College London on a two-year study, funded by the US Department of Defense, looking at a possible post-operational mental health screening tool. The study was undertaken using UK Armed Forces personnel, and the results are currently being analysed. When published, the study will help us to understand the efficacy of screening; to consider whether such a tool would benefit the UK Armed Forces; and provide evidence on which the US can gauge its current policy on mental health screening.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-05-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what funding her Department has allocated to help develop clean energy storage.
Andrea Leadsom
Energy storage is one way to provide flexibility to the energy system and to help make best use of our low carbon electricity generation. DECC has provided more than £18m of innovation funding since 2012 for development and demonstration storage technologies; including funding for four storage technology demonstration projects. In the Budget 2016 announcement, the government confirmed that it would allocate at least £50 million to help innovation in energy storage, demand-side response (DSR) and other smart technologies over the next five years.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-07-19.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the reduction in council housing rents on new council housing and the existing stock.
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Our decision on social rent reductions was based on the need to put welfare spending on a sustainable footing, whilst protecting the most vulnerable. The housing benefit bill for the social sector in England rose by a quarter over ten years, reaching £13.2 billion in 2014/15. We believe that local authorities and private registered providers will be able to find and make efficiencies to accommodate the new rent settlement. The Government remains committed to delivering 400,000 affordable housing starts by 2021.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-10-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 9 September 2016 to Question 44301, United Nations: finance, how much his Department contributed voluntarily to the missions referred to in each of the last five years.
Alok Sharma
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office pays the UK’s assessed contributions for Special Political Mission thematic cluster I, which covers special and personal envoys and advisers of the UN Secretary General. This is paid as part of our contribution to the UN Regular Budget, which is mandatory under the UN Charter.
The UK Government has also, on occasion, provided additional targeted voluntary funding. Information about these discretionary payments is not held in a single consolidated form, and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The Government identifies and monitors the value and impact of providing the voluntary funding on a case-by-case basis.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-11-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how he plans to define (a) disability and (b) employment for the purposes of measuring the Government’s progress towards halving the disability employment gap.
Justin Tomlinson
Progress against the disability employment gap commitment is a key factor in progress towards full employment. This is consistent with the Government’s manifesto commitment which said ‘as part of our objective to achieve full employment, we will aim to halve the disability employment gap’. The annual report on progress towards full employment will include an update on the Government’s progress towards halving the disability employment gap.
Disability is defined in the Equality Act 2010: “A person has a disability if (a) [they] have a physical or mental impairment, and (b) the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on [their] ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”
Employment in the UK is measured by the Labour Force Survey (LFS). Statistics on disabled employment are published quarterly by the Office for National Statistics, based on internationally agreed definitions.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of (a) GPs and (b) clinical commissioning groups have plans in place to identify unavoidable deaths.
Alistair Burt
The question asked about ‘unavoidable deaths’. Data on the proportion of general practitioners (GPs) and clinical commissioning groups that have plans in place to identify unavoidable deaths is not collected centrally.