Tag: Parliamentary Question

Andrew Gwynne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will bring forward legislative proposals on the introduction of (a) call-in and (b) scrutiny arrangements for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

Mr Marcus Jones

The Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, when enacted, will require all combined authorities to establish at least one overview and scrutiny committee to scrutinise decisions and actions, and make recommendations to the authority. Such a committee will be able to call-in decisions of the combined authority and mayor and recommend that the decision be reconsidered.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority has – ahead of the legislative requirement – established such an overview and scrutiny committee. The Bill also requires the Secretary of State to make secondary legislation about membership of overview and scrutiny committees, which the Secretary of State intends to do as Parliamentary time allows. We are confident that with these legislative provisions each combined authority will have robust scrutiny arrangements commensurate with the powers the authority will exercise.

01/01/2023
Karen Buck – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karen Buck on 2016-02-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will rank primary schools in each London borough by the proportion of children who are eligible for the purpose of determining the pupil premium; and what type each such school is.

Mr Sam Gyimah

Information on the number of pupils eligible for the pupil premium is available in the final school level pupil premium allocations, which are published on the department’s website.[1] These figures can be used with the total number of pupils in each school (information which can also be found in the same publication) to calculate the proportion eligible for the pupil premium.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2015-to-2016-allocations – please click on ‘Pupil premium final allocations 2015 to 2016 by school in England’

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01/01/2023
Patrick Grady – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Patrick Grady on 2016-03-01.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions he has had with representatives of the government of Malawi on the content of the new tax treaty with that country in the last 12 months.

Mr David Gauke

Discussions with Malawi over a new tax treaty began some years ago, and substantive agreement has been reached at official level. We expect that the treaty will be concluded shortly.

01/01/2023
Tim Loughton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Loughton on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much Network Rail has paid to Southern Rail in compensation for late running and skipped stopping in each of the last three years.

Claire Perry

This information is published on Network Rail’s website – http://www.networkrail.co.uk/transparency/datasets/ – covering the years 2012-13 to 2014-15. 2015-16 is not yet available.

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01/01/2023
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Foulkes of Cumnock on 2016-04-28.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the corrected Written Answer by Lord Faulks on 13 April (HL5044), how many of those Writs were sent to Peers in (1) each region of England, (2) Scotland, (3) Wales, and (4) Northern Ireland.

Lord Faulks

A total of 808 Writs were sent to Life and Hereditary Peers across the regions of England and the counties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as follows:

East of England 61; East Midlands 15; North East 19; North West 26; South East 108; South West 49; West Midlands 19; Yorkshire & Humber 27; Central London 164; Greater London 221; Scotland 61; Wales 18; Northern Ireland 20.

01/01/2023
Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-06-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 on access to housing for post-release offenders.

Justin Tomlinson

The Government set out its assessment of the impacts of the welfare policies in the Welfare Reform and Work Act on 20^th July 2015. It set out its assessment of the impacts of the social rents policies in the Act on 28^th September 2015.

A link to the impact assessments is included:

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2015-16/welfarereformandwork/documents.html

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01/01/2023
Justin Tomlinson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Tomlinson on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what total reduction in government spending has been attributed to policies drawn up by the Behavioural Insights Team since 2010.

Ben Gummer

The Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) does not track the cumulative impact of all its work over time, only some of which focus on reducing spending or increasing revenue collection.

However, BIT has now run some 350 trials, each of which shows the impact of different policy interventions in different contexts. These show that the team has helped to save or bring forward hundreds of millions of pounds of revenue and has made efficiency improvements in many different areas of UK Government policy.

This includes:

-changing the messages in letters from HMRC to late tax payers was part of a group of trials that helped bring forward more than £200m of late tax debts;

-changing the messages in letters sent by Local Authorities to late payers of Council Tax is estimated to bring forward an extra £3m in one local authority alone;

-changing the way that Jobcentres support people back to work has been rolled out to some 25,000 Job Advisors and is expected to help hundreds of thousands of people back to work faster.

-informing GPs who overprescribe antibiotics that most practices prescribe fewer antibiotics than theirs reduces the number of unnecessary prescriptions by around 150,000 per year; and

-working with HMCTS to send personalised text messages to people who were delinquent in their court fines. This intervention, which significantly increased payment rates prior to a bailiff intervention, could raise £860,000 per week if rolled out nationally and prevent up to 150,000 bailiff interventions per year.

BIT also works with governments around the world and is seeing similar effects in its work in Australia, Singapore and with cities across the USA.

These findings, and many others, are published once a year in BIT’s Update Report. The next edition of this is due later this month [September 2016].

01/01/2023
Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-10-18.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment his Department has made of the implications of online and mobile applications which require automated access to a user’s banking details for (a) accessibility of banking, (b) digital inclusion, (c) users’ banking security and (d) consumer rights.

Simon Kirby

The government is committed to increasing competition in banking to improve outcomes for consumers. This includes establishing a competitive and innovative environment where banks deliver greater choice and value to their customers. A key element of this vision is ensuring the UK remains the world-leader for financial technology (FinTech).

The Competition and Markets Authority recognised the potential of FinTech and open banking in its retail banking market investigation by requiring the nine largest UK banks to develop and adopt an open banking standard for application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow access to customer account information as set out in the revised Payment Services Directive (PSDII) which comes into force in January 2018.

This will deliver a common standard for technology that allows the sharing of bank data, allowing authorised third parties to access information such as customer banking details and usage, prices and service quality.

Harnessing the potential of open banking means that customers will be able to more easily access high quality, low cost banking services, and improve digital engagement with financial services by helping customers better understand where they could get a better deal. PSDII will set out requirements for enhanced security and consumer protections for online and mobile applications accessing users’ banking details from January 2018. The government will be consulting on the transposition of this directive shortly.

01/01/2023
Michael Fabricant – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Fabricant on 2015-11-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the likely effect on (a) passenger and (b) freight traffic on the West Coast Mainline following completion of Phase 1 of High Speed 2; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The construction of High Speed 2 (HS2) will release capacity on the existing network, including the West Coast Mainline, reducing crowding, improving resilience and reliability across the network, and improving journey opportunities for passengers. This released capacity could also provide space for at least an extra 20 West Coast Main Line freight paths helping to meet forecast freight demand and taking lorries off the road network. Phase One of HS2 will also bring substantial benefits in its own right, providing additional capacity and improved connectivity.

01/01/2023

Caroline Lucas – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2015-11-30.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the average amount the Youth Justice Board will pay for each place for a child in (a) Medway secure training centre, (b)Oakhill secure training centre, (c) Rainsbrook secure training centre, (d) Cookham Wood young offender institution, (e) Feltham young offender institution, (f) Parc young offender institution, (g) Werrington young offender institution and (h) Wetherby young offender institution; and what the average amount the Youth Justice Board paid on average for each place for a child in each of those institutions was in (i) 2013-14 and (ii) 2014-15.

Andrew Selous

Secure Training Centres (STCs) typically cater for younger offenders with multiple or complex needs and therefore have smaller units and higher staff ratios than Young Offender Institutions (YOIs).

The Youth Justice Board calculates the average cost of custody per place per year based on assumed full occupancy of all youth secure establishments. Table 1 shows the average costs for a place per year at each of the specified STCs and YOIs for each year since 2013/14.

Table 1: Average costs per place per year by youth secure establishment

Establishment	2013/14	2014/15	2015/16
(a) Medway STC	£214,606	£157,110	£138,051
(b) Oakhill STC	£204,301	£210,926	£217,485
(c) Rainsbrook STC	£175,479	£181,194	£134,955
(d) Cookham Wood YOI	£76,051	£53,915	£81,089
(e) Feltham YOI	£53,690	£55,120	£68,548
(f) Parc YOI	£67,995	£68,611	£69,331
(g) Werrington YOI	£55,638	£57,090	£91,306
(h) Wetherby YOI	£46,688	£59,579	£70,505

Notes:

Prices not adjusted for inflation
Business rates are included for STCs (business rates are charged on non-domestic property).
Costs do not include VAT where this is applicable (STCs and Parc).
Advocacy service prices are included for STCs and YOIs. The advocacy service is an independent service that supports young people within the secure estate.
These costs do not include costs associated with escorting of young people between courts and secure accommodation.

In 2015/16 the YJB became responsible for commissioning education in public sector YOIs, which was previously funded through the Education Funding Agency. New YOI education contracts have also increased the number of education hours available to young people.

Costs at Medway and Rainsbrook STCs reduced between 2014/15 and 2015/16, following contract renegotiations and the removal of healthcare costs from these contracts. The Oakhill contract includes costs associated with healthcare, unlike the other two STCs.

01/01/2023