Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-11-18.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many full-time equivalent staff were employed by HM Revenue and Customs to enforce compliance with minimum wage legislation in each of the last 10 years.

    Mr David Gauke

    The Government is committed to increasing compliance with minimum wage legislation and effective enforcement of it. Everyone who is entitled to the minimum wage should receive it. Employers who pay workers less than the minimum wage not only have to pay back arrears of wages at current minimum wage rates but also face financial penalties of up to £20,000 per underpaid worker.

    The Government has increased annual funding of National Minimum Wage enforcement by over 60% since 2010, meaning a £13.2m budget in 2015/16.

    This has enabled a significant expansion of resources dedicated to enforcing the minimum wage; there are currently 237 staff (224.05 full-time equivalent) in HM Revenue and Customs’ National Minimum Wage teams, up from 171 at the start of 2014/15.

    Previous years’ detail is provided in the table below:

    Year

    Funding allocated by BIS (or predecessor departments) (£m)

    Full-time equivalent staff

    2006/07

    5.8

    Not available

    2007/08

    6.8

    Not available

    2008/09

    7.6

    139.16

    2009/10

    8.3

    140.18

    2010/11

    8.1

    142.18

    2011/12

    8.3

    138.88

    2012/13

    8.3

    142.37

    2013/14

    8.3

    157.85

    2014/15

    9.2*

    183.47

    *Increased in-year

  • Daniel Kawczynski – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Daniel Kawczynski – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Kawczynski on 2015-12-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment his Department made of the potential effect on Libya of the suspension of the Temporary Financial Mechanism before that suspension occurred.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    The UK led thinking on the Temporary Financial Mechanism (TFM), established by the Contact Group in Doha in 2011 as a temporary response to the urgent financial needs of the new Libyan National Transitional Council, intended to be used until the new Libyan administration was able to take control of Libyan state assets and revenues that supported Qadhafi’s regime. The UK provided the funding to prepare the TFM and to establish operating procedures that would provide confidence that there was transparent and independent oversight of the funds, and that they would be used in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions.

    After National Transitional Forces (NTC) forces took control of Tripoli on 22 August 2011, the UK sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 2009. This established the UN Support Mission in Libya to support stabilisation in Libya, modified the asset freeze on four key listed state entities, provided for a new exemption to unfreeze their assets and mandated the Sanctions Committee to lift the remaining freeze as soon as practical (in consultation with the Libyan authorities). The TFM was used to provide a range of critical financial support, including the import of refined fuel, the treatment of injured Libyans, and family support payments to Libyans who had depended on government welfare payments.

  • Julie Cooper – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Julie Cooper – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-01-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, when she expects the Government’s response to the impact assessment of reductions to feed-in tariffs to be published.

    Andrea Leadsom

    The Government published an impact assessment for the feed-in tariff review on 17 December 2015, alongside the Government response to the consultation on this review.

    The impact assessment is available at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486084/IA_-_FITs_consultation_response_with_Annexes_-_FINAL_SIGNED.pdf

    “

  • Jeff Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Jeff Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jeff Smith on 2016-02-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policy on school admissions of the finding of the report, An Unholy Mess, published by the Fair Admissions Campaign in October 2015, relating to information made available on requirements for religious observance as part of the admissions process for certain religiously selective schools.

    Nick Gibb

    Admission authorities for all state-funded schools, including schools with a religious designation, are required to comply with the mandatory provisions of the School Admissions Code (the code) and other admissions law.

    Where an objection is made to the Schools Adjudicator, if the arrangements are found to be unfair or fail to comply with the code, the admission authority must make changes to ensure their arrangements comply within two months of a determination. This includes requiring schools to amend their supplementary information forms when they do not comply with the code.

    We support the right of schools with a religious designation to prioritise children of their faith designation but the code requires that any measure of religious activity used for admission purposes must be as laid out by their faith body.

    The Government will shortly consult on a package of changes to the School Admissions code which will both respond to concerns from parents and to the findings in the Chief Adjudicator’s Annual Report. That package will include measures to improve fairness and transparency.

  • Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Stuart C. McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stuart C. McDonald on 2016-03-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many care leavers who were aged 19, 20 or 21 in the years ending 31 March (a) 2013, (b) 2014 and (c) 2015 were former unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

    Edward Timpson

    Data on the number of care leavers aged 19 to 21 years is published in table F1 of the statistical first release ‘Children looked after, including care leavers and adoption’[1].

    Data is not published on the number of care leavers who were formerly unaccompanied asylum seeking children.

    [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2014-to-2015

    “

  • David Anderson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    David Anderson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-04-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many people her Department employs as statisticians.

    Nick Gibb

    As of 31st March 2016, the Department employs 129 people as statisticians.

  • 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 2016-05-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his Department’s policy is on the use of the NHS logo by organisations and people outside the NHS.

    George Freeman

    The National Health Service logo should only be used by NHS organisations, or on services and information that the NHS is involved with. This is to protect the NHS from being seen as the source of materials that have not originated from the NHS, nor had any involvement from the NHS.

  • Tania Mathias – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Tania Mathias – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tania Mathias on 2016-07-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, in which month he plans to make an announcement on airport expansion.

    Mr John Hayes

    The Government remains fully committed to delivering the important infrastructure projects it has set out, including delivering runway capacity on the timetable set out by Sir Howard Davies.

    The Government will carefully consider all the evidence before reaching a view on its preferred scheme.

  • Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-10-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the future role of open source software in industrial strategy (a) for the digital economy and (b) as an enabling platform; and what steps he is taking to support that software in relation to public sector procurement.

    Mr Nick Hurd

    The Government’s Open Standards Principles are helping to level the playing field for open source and proprietary software, and disaggregating government IT into smaller, more manageable components.

    The Government IT Strategy states ‘Where appropriate, government will procure open source solutions. When used in conjunction with compulsory open standards, open source presents significant opportunities for the design and delivery of interoperable solutions.’

    To support interoperability in the public sector, we have a preference for royalty-free software generated in an open and transparent manner, which is often open source.

  • Conor McGinn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Conor McGinn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Conor McGinn on 2015-11-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of his proposed changes to business rates on (a) Merseyside and (b) the UK.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    The Government intends to move to 100% business rates retention in England by the end of this Parliament. We have confirmed that as part of the new system there will continue to be redistribution of local tax revenue between authorities and protections in place for authorities that see their business rates income fall significantly. Over the coming months we will be working with local government on the details of the scheme.

    Ahead of final decisions it is too early to assess what the impact will be on individual areas or authorities, but before the start of the financial year, local authorities in Merseyside estimated that the total business rates income for 2015-16 would be £413.3 million.