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Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Julian Knight – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Julian Knight – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Knight on 2016-05-25.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what studies and research his Department has undertaken or commissioned on the potential benefits of equity release on retirement incomes; and if he will estimate the potential effect on the public purse of a lower take-up rate of means-tested old-age benefits resulting from greater use of equity release.

    Harriett Baldwin

    Figures published by the Equity Release Council, an industry body, on the extent of equity release lending are available here:

    http://www.equityreleasecouncil.com/document-library/equity-release-market-report-spring-2016/

    The Government has not undertaken or commissioned any recent studies on the relationship between equity release and means-tested benefits.

    “

  • Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Thangam Debbonaire – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2016-07-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what support the Government is providing to Greece to ensure that refugees have access to clear information on the Dublin III regulation and its family unity provisions in a language they can understand; and what steps expert personnel deployed to Greece in May 2016 are taking to ensure that detailed and coherent information is provided to refugees who are in accommodation sites across mainland Greece.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    Home Office staff seconded to the Greek Government and the European Asylum Support Office are there to support the overall asylum system in Greece and improve the Dublin process. Two applicants have arrived in the UK since May 2016.

    Providing refugees with access to clear, detailed and coherent information is the responsibility of the Greek authorities. The UK believes that member states should meet their international obligations and provide due process and adequate care to those seeking protection within their territories.

    The Commission Implementing Regulation No 118/2014 clearly sets out the obligations for Member States to provide an information leaflet for applicants for international protection, including a specific leaflet for unaccompanied children.

    Following the EU-Turkey agreement and discussions with the European Commission and the Greek Government, the UK has offered a further 75 expert personnel to help with the processing and administration of migrants in reception centres, act as interpreters, provide medical support and bolster our existing team assisting the Commission to ensure effective and efficient coordination.

  • Amanda Solloway – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Amanda Solloway – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Amanda Solloway on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to remove the presence of asbestos on school sites in (a) England and Wales and (b) Derby North constituency.

    Nick Gibb

    The issue of asbestos in schools is a serious one. Policy on the effective management and removal of asbestos at Welsh school sites is devolved to the Welsh Government, but in England it is one of the department’s priorities in order to ensure that our schools are safe for children and teachers.

    The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which is the lead regulator on managing asbestos, advise that as long as asbestos is in good condition and unlikely to be damaged or disturbed, it is not a significant risk to health.

    The Department directly funds the removal of asbestos through schemes such as the Priority Schools Building Programme and provides capital funding for asbestos management and removal where appropriate for those schools that have identified that asbestos is in poor condition or poses a high risk of deterioration.

    We also provide support to those who are legally responsible for managing asbestos in schools by providing targeted guidance to schools on the effective management of asbestos in their schools.

    The duty holder has the legal responsibility of effectively managing asbestos in schools. In schools where asbestos poses a high risk of disturbance or is deteriorating, the duty holder should remove asbestos using capital funding that has been provided by the Department.

    The Department is not committing to the removal of asbestos in all schools, as blanket and accelerated removal of asbestos in schools is potentially more dangerous and may involve greater risk to school children and staff.

    It is, however, the aim of the government that, over time, as more school buildings are replaced and refurbished, all asbestos will be removed from schools.

  • Baroness Whitaker – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Baroness Whitaker – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Whitaker on 2015-10-27.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government which authorities are responsible for the monitoring of urban air.

    Lord Gardiner of Kimble

    In England, overall responsibility for monitoring ambient air quality lies with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. In addition the Environment Agency is responsible for monitoring emissions from large and complex industrial processes in England. This function is undertaken by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency in Scotland, Natural Resources Wales in Wales and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency in Northern Ireland. Under the Local Air Quality Management System, local authorities are responsible for reviewing and assessing ambient air quality.

  • Chi Onwurah – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Chi Onwurah – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-11-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 20 November 2015 to Question 16679, on railways: telecommunications systems, how much was spent from the public purse on the Quicksilver project before it was terminated.

    Claire Perry

    Project Quicksilver was a Network Rail programme that was initiated prior to the reclassification of Network Rail as a public body and was conducted from 2011 to 2015. Project Quicksilver covered two discrete programmes of work but was run by a single team – focused on mobile connectivity and commercial exploitation of the network. These two elements cannot be disaggregated.

    The industry was not able to find a solution that satisfied the commercial requirements of all parties to deliver the mobile connectivity improvements. As a result, Network Rail terminated the procurement.

    The total cost recorded by Network Rail was £6.86m.

  • John Healey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    John Healey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Healey on 2016-01-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many leases of what tenure are planned for the new homes to be built on the direct commissioning sites at (a) Northstowe, (b) Old Oak Common, (c) Daedelus Waterfront, (d) Connaught Barracks and (e) Lower Grayling Well.

    Brandon Lewis

    The holding costs for the site relate to the entirety of the site and are consistent with the legal and health and safety obligations of the Homes and Communities Agency as land owner.

  • Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-02-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his Department plans to do to ensure that healthcare staff and GPs are adequately trained to recognise the symptoms of sepsis.

    Ben Gummer

    NHS England is undertaking a number of steps to improve diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, which have been coordinated through a cross-system programme board run by NHS England.

    In April 2015 NHS England introduced a new national Commissioning for Quality and Innovation measure (financial incentive) to incentivise hospitals accepting emergency admissions to screen eligible patients for sepsis when they arrive, and to administer intravenous antibiotics within one hour for patients with severe sepsis or septic shock.

    Additionally NHS England has made available a voluntary audit tool for general practitioners (GPs) enabling them to assess their care of children with a fever under five years old against the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines, which can be a pre-cursor to sepsis. Primary care IT suppliers have provided data entry templates for the tool which prompts GPs to enter the appropriate observations thereby improving the quality of the patient care record, as well as promoting the use of the NICE guidance.

    NICE is currently consulting on a new Sepsis Clinical Guideline that will be published this year, which will make recommendations about the assessment, diagnosis and initial management of patients with sepsis.

    The Government has mandated Health Education England (HEE) to provide national leadership on education, training and workforce development in the National Health Service in England.

    It is the responsibility of the professional regulators to set the standards and outcomes for education and training and approve training curricular to ensure newly qualified healthcare professionals are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide high quality patient care.

    HEE will work with bodies that set curricula such as the General Medical Council and the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) to seek to ensure training meets the needs of patients.

    HEE is currently developing an awareness video that will target primary care staff on recognising sepsis in children. A separate piece of work involving the RCGP is focusing on an e-learning package on sepsis in primary care, to ensure that the primary care workforce is ably equipped to deal with sepsis in the general population, including children.

    HEE is currently undertaking a scoping exercise on training available for health professionals to recognise and manage sepsis in all patient groups. This survey scoped HEE local offices, NHS organisations, Academic Health Science Network, Ambulance Trusts and Royal Colleges on the resources currently available, which are being reviewed, and recommendations will be made in March 2016.

  • Andrew Murrison – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Andrew Murrison – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Murrison on 2016-02-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when his Department expects hospitals to catch up with any backlog caused by the junior doctors’ strike on 12 January 2016.

    Ben Gummer

    The National Health Service is making every effort to reschedule treatment as quickly as possible and according to clinical priority for those patients whose operations or appointments were cancelled as a result of the industrial action on 12 January 2016.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-03-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to his speech to the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Anti-Semitism on 15 March 2016, what legal changes he was referring to in that speech.

    Dominic Raab

    I refer the honourable member to the answer given to 31430 on 30th March 2016.

  • Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Lord Taylor of Warwick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to protect people against fraud as they are automatically enrolled into a pension scheme, in the light of the recent cuts to the pensions watchdog.

    Baroness Altmann

    The resources allocated to the Pensions Regulator to cover its regulatory responsibilities, together with those for automatic enrolment compliance activity, increased by £3.4m to £79.5m for the financial year 2016/17.

    Schemes that can be used by employers to meet their automatic enrolment duties are subject to specific quality requirements. The Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority both play an active role in monitoring schemes used for automatic enrolment to ensure that they meet these standards. The Pensions Regulator has also published a list of independently audited ‘master trusts’ pension schemes that employers may wish to use for automatic enrolment.

    Both Regulators carry out targeted activity to investigate and mitigate risks, including indicators of possible fraud.