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Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Paul Flynn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Paul Flynn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-11-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department has taken to promote Energy Efficiency Week; how her Department has worked with non-governmental organisations on such initiatives; and what the cost to the public purse was of those initiatives.

    Andrea Leadsom

    Big Energy Saving Week is a Great Britain wide consumer awareness raising campaign run ahead of winter in partnership with respected partner organisations Citizens Advice and the Energy Saving Trust (EST), with around £300,000 funding provided by DECC.

    The campaign was delivered 26-30 October 2015 and focussed on supporting consumers to understand how they can save money by switching tariff, supplier and payment method and improving energy efficiency, through hundreds of face to face outreach events run by Citizens Advice offices and a national, regional and social media campaign delivered by EST.

    The last campaign in October 2014 was a big success with over 500 events nationwide reaching an estimated 100,000 consumers face to face or through dedicated helplines with many millions more reached through a complementary media campaign.

  • Chi Onwurah – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Chi Onwurah – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2015-11-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, for what reasons the portrait of Oliver Porter by Sir Anthony van Dyck donated to the nation by the Duke of Northumberland is hung in Bowes Museum; and what discussions were held on hanging that portrait in a museum which is free to the public.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    Individuals donating work to the nation through the Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) Scheme, administered by the Arts Council, can specify which institution will receive it. In the case of the Portrait of Oliver Porter by Sir Anthony van Dyck, it was made a condition of the offer that the painting be allocated to the Bowes Museum. The painting is a significant acquisition for the North-East and will feature in the Bowes Museum’s forthcoming major exhibition, The English Rose – Feminine Beauty from Van Dyck to Sargent, which opens in May 2016.

  • Andrew Turner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Wales Office

    Andrew Turner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Wales Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Turner on 2016-01-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what recent discussions he has had with the Welsh Government on the cost efficiency of the NHS in Wales compared with England.

    Alun Cairns

    The Welsh Government is responsible for the NHS in Wales. It is up to the Welsh Government to decide how best to use their funding and deliver health services in Wales.

    The UK Government is happy to share good practice with the Welsh Government to help ensure people living in Wales receive high quality healthcare.

  • Sarah Champion – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Sarah Champion – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Champion on 2016-01-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what account her Department will take of women (a) with mental health needs, (b) who are homeless, (c) who are living in poverty and (d) who have other complex needs in its Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy.

    Karen Bradley

    The Government will shortly publish an updated Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy which will set out how we will support all victims of VAWG, including those with mental health needs, those who are homeless or living in poverty and those who have other complex needs, by doing more to prevent these crimes from happening, intervening earlier, and continuing to improve the protection for victims and to bring offenders to justice.

    The Government has already committed £40m for domestic abuse services including refuges between 2016 and 2020, provided a £2m grant to Women’s Aid and SafeLives to support a new domestic abuse early intervention project, protected funding of over £6.4m to 86 female Rape Support Centres for 2016/17, and committed to a further year of funding to support the local provision of 144 Independent Domestic Violence Advisers (IDVAs) and 87 Independent Sexual Violence Advisers for 2016/17.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will direct Highways England to give evidence to the public hearing on 18 March 2016 organised by the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner into closures and delays on the M6 on 4 and 5 February 2016.

    Andrew Jones

    Highways England is aware of the public hearing and has agreed to attend and give evidence.

  • Lord Addington – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lord Addington – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Addington on 2016-03-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the announced changes to the initial teacher training criteria, why the suggested content was not made compulsory.

    Lord Nash

    The initial teacher training (ITT) criteria document contains both statutory guidance and accompanying advice from the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL). Accredited ITT providers must have regard to the statutory guidance when carrying out their duties relating to ITT. The criteria are made under The Education (School Teachers’ Qualifications) (England) Regulations 2003 (S.I. 2003/1662). They set out criteria which providers must ensure that candidates meet when they seek to gain a training place, and programme design, management and quality assurance criteria that must be met by those ITT providers in the design and delivery of their programmes. There are criteria specific to employment-based ITT routes.

    The accompanying advice is designed to help training providers understand and interpret the statutory criteria. Ofsted uses the supporting advice when it inspects ITT providers under the relevant initial teacher education framework for inspection. The content of ITT is not specified by the criteria and supporting advice, except that providers must ensure that programmes are designed to enable trainee teachers to be assessed as meeting the relevant standards (the Teachers’ Standards). No changes have been made to the ITT criteria recently; the last change was made in June 2015 (Criterion C2.2). This removed the previously specified age ranges, allowing providers greater scope to work with schools to determine the age range that their programmes would be designed to cover, within the specified primary, middle, and secondary phases.

    On 16 March, NCTL combined the statutory guidance and supporting advice into a single document to improve clarity. Some routine and minor amendments were made to the supporting advice to assist ITT providers. These related to safeguarding arrangements, middle years programmes, and secondary subjects that are typically offered in schools in only one Key Stage. NCTL also included advice for ITT providers on the Government’s Prevent strategy.

  • Owen Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Owen Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-04-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will meet representatives of the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The Secretary of State has met with a number of his constituents who have raised this issue, and he will be meeting with Tim Loughton, who has been involved in the WASPI campaign, very soon. He is clear that there are no plans to change policy.

  • Lord Myners – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Lord Myners – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-06-07.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 6 June (HL Deb, col 626), on how many occasions since its inception has the Pensions Regulator used provisions for dawn raids, and how it determines the circumstances in which such provisions should be employed.

    Baroness Altmann

    The Pensions Regulator has a power to request information which it exercises regularly and successfully. This means that it is often not necessary to use the powers under section 73 (inspection) or section 78 (warrants) of the Pensions Act 2004.

    Under section 78, a justice of the peace may issue a warrant where there are reasonable grounds for believing that there are –

    • relevant documents which would be removed, or made inaccessible, from the premises, or hidden, tampered with or destroyed,

    or that

    • an offence has been committed, or
    • a person will do any act which constitutes a misuse or misappropriation of the assets of an occupational pension scheme or a personal pension scheme.

    This power is only used in extreme circumstances, and such cases usually involve suspicions of wider criminal activity. Since 2004, the Regulator has used its powers to either inspect premises or issue a warrant on five occasions.

  • Justin Tomlinson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Justin Tomlinson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Tomlinson on 2016-07-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the existing regulatory regime relating to the will writing industry.

    Sir Oliver Heald

    In 2013 the Legal Services Board (LSB) recommended that will writing be made a reserved legal activity, so that only authorised persons under the Legal Services Act 2007 could provide this service. The Government at that time considered that the evidence provided in the LSB report did not adequately demonstrate that reservation was the best solution to the identified problems in the will writing market, or that other measures had been sufficiently exhausted in seeking to address these problems.

    We will consider any recommendations from the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) when they publish their Legal Services Market Study. The CMA’s interim report published on 8 July made reference to a need to consider possible changes to the current regulatory framework.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-10-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he take steps to raise awareness among pregnant women of the (a) risks of alcohol consumption and (b) benefits of zero alcohol consumption.

    Nicola Blackwood

    The new United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers’ (CMO) low risk drinking guidelines provide the public with the most up to date scientific information to help people make informed decisions about their own drinking.

    The guideline for women who are pregnant or think they could become pregnant, is that the safest approach is not to drink alcohol at all, to reduce risks to the baby to a minimum.

    The UK CMOs’ low risk drinking guidelines can be found at Gov.uk at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/alcohol-consumption-advice-on-low-risk-drinking

    “