The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2015-12-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they next intend to revise or update the Agricultural Land Classification Survey guidelines.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Government currently has no plan to revise or update the Agricultural Land Classification Survey guidelines, but will keep their suitability under review.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-01-20.
To ask the Prime Minister, if he will disclose a summary of the government advice on the legality of the drone strike that killed Reyaad Khan in the manner set out in Part 6 of the Cabinet Manual.
Mr David Cameron
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Ms West) on 21 January 2016, UIN 22720.
By long-standing convention under successive Governments the Law Officers’ advice is not published. The legal basis for the airstrike against Reyaad Khan is set out in the Government’s Memorandum to the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
The Government’s legal position in relation to UK airstrikes against Daesh in Syria is reflected in my response to the Foreign Affairs Committee Report on the extension of offensive British military operations to Syria.
The current Memorandum of Understanding together with the Justice and Security Act 2013 provides the necessary scope for the ISC to conduct robust oversight of those matters that are within its statutory remit.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb on 2016-02-08.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how much revenue would be raised if aviation fuel were subject to the same rate of tax as fuel for motor vehicles.
Lord O’Neill of Gatley
In accordance with its bilateral Air Service Agreements, the 1944 Chicago Convention and EU law, the UK does not tax aviation fuel. Consequently, no such assessments have been made.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2016-03-03.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the cost: benefit ratio of the Independent Commission on Freedom of Information.
Matthew Hancock
The total expenditure of the Commission will be published in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to (a) review and (b) improve the autism self-assessment framework.
Alistair Burt
Working with the Department, Public Health England regularly undertakes an autism self assessment exercise with local authorities and their partners to gauge progress in implementing the Autism Strategy. The results of the self assessment and the individual returns from areas are made public so that organisations and people can challenge locally if they think that more needs to be done. The assessment questions and the process for local agreement are reviewed each time, taking into account that general continuity is needed in terms of measuring progress. The February meeting of the cross government Autism Programme Board considered the changes proposed for the next exercise which were put forward following discussions with representatives of Government departments, local authorities, the National Health Service, the autism third sector and people with autism and family carers. Further refinement will be undertaken over the next few weeks before the self assessment exercise is launched in the summer.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Pursglove on 2016-05-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the recently announced steel support package on the steel industry in Scotland.
Anna Soubry
On 28th April, ownership of Tata’s mills in Dalzell and Clydebridge passed to Liberty. The package announced on 21st April is to support a sale of the remaining Tata sites. However, the Scottish plant will benefit from our wider action to help the steel industry, including compensating energy costs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-06-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many applications for refugee family reunion have been (a) made, (b) resolved, (c) granted and (d) refused by nationals from (i) Syria, (ii) Eritrea, (iii) Afghanistan, (iv) Iran and (v) Sudan in each of the last 12 quarters.
James Brokenshire
The information is provided in the table, based on the available published statistics which relate to the ‘Family: other’ category, which are known to very largely consist of family reunion cases .
The latest quarterly Home Office immigration statistics on entry clearance visas are published in ‘Immigration Statistics’, available from the Home Office website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-statistics
This is provisional management information that is subject to change. It has not been assured to the Standard of Official Statistics.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rachel Reeves on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much his Department spent on private school fees for children whose parents are stationed (a) in the UK and (b) overseas in 2015-16.
Sir Alan Duncan
The total cost of 179 diplomatic officers stationed in the UK in receipt of school fees is £6,005,124. The total cost of 173 diplomatic officers stationed overseas in receipt of school fees is £6,403.938. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office pays and supports a further 1108 children who are stationed with their parents and educated locally with a total cost of £14,207,444.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2016-10-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to his Written Ministerial Statement of 10 October 2016, HCWS174, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that relevant employment and support allowance claimants are not reassessed unnecessarily.
Penny Mordaunt
We will be working over the coming months with medical professionals and other stakeholders to develop a process and functional criteria that will help us identify those with the most severe health conditions or disabilities, for whom repeat work capability assessments can be stopped. This change will only apply to those placed in the Support Group and Universal Credit equivalent.
No proportion of Support Group claimants can be estimated until the criteria has been agreed. This change will come into effect by the end of 2017.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2015-11-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the new junior doctors’ contract on patients’ safety.
Ben Gummer
The proposals are to introduce a safer, fairer contract for junior doctors that will help improve their training experience to better support patient care every day of the week.
Our ambition for the National Health Service to be the safest healthcare system in the world is underpinned by reducing, not increasing, the number of hours junior doctors work each week. The new contract will include improved, legally (and contractually) enforceable safeguards – including that no junior doctor working full time will be expected to work on average more than 48 hours a week, unless they opt-out of the European Working Time Directive in which case it is maximum of an average 56 hours a week. The number of hours that can be worked in any single week by any junior will be limited to 72 (down from 91 currently) and there will be a limit of five consecutive long days or four consecutive nights.
We will also bring the working hours and service delivery of junior doctors within the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection regime. Putting patients first is the responsibility of employers and staff. Juniors must feel confident that when they raise safety concerns they are listened to. Where doctors are asked to work in conditions that they believe are unsafe, including being asked to work patterns that put patient safety at risk, they will be asked to use the reporting mechanisms available to them (including alerting their line managers/clinical supervisors, reporting through the local incident reporting system which will upload to the National Reporting and Learning System) to raise the issue with both the board of their trust, and reporting data will be available for the CQC to use during inspections. We would expect trust boards to look at any such report and decide how to respond to it; and we would expect the CQC, when it carries out an inspection, to look at how the board has responded to this and other data reporting safety incidents and concerns.