Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Kevin Foster – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Kevin Foster – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Foster on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what value of NHS property has been (a) acquired and (b) sold in each (i) parliamentary constituency and (ii) clinical commissioning group area in each of the last five years.

    George Freeman

    Information about the value of property and land sales for the National Health Service is held centrally only for 2013-14 and 2014-15. We do not hold information by clinical commissioning group or parliamentary constituency. Information about acquisitions of property by the NHS is not recorded centrally.

    (a) Value of property sold:

    2013-14

    2014-15

    NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts

    £179.9 million

    £155.8 million

    NHS Property services

    £24.9 million

    £57.8 million

    (b) Value of property acquired. We do hold this information for NHS Property Services and this is shown below:

    2013-14

    2014-15

    NHS Property Services

    £3.0 million

    £18.1 million

    NHS Trusts/Foundation Trusts

    Not recorded

    Not recorded

  • Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-12-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of lone parents in receipt of (a) jobseeker’s allowance and (b) income support moved into work after successfully applying for a vacancy advertised on Universal Jobmatch in the most recent month for which figures are available.

    Priti Patel

    The information requested is not available.

  • Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Catherine West – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine West on 2016-01-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the (a) number and (b) quality of Overseas Territories’ adoptions of public registers of beneficial ownership since his meetings with them on 15 June 2013 and his letter to them on 24 April 2014.

    James Duddridge

    The Government is in discussion with the Governments of the Overseas Territories on their plans to improve company transparency. The Territories have agreed to hold beneficial ownership information in central registers or similarly effective systems. Such systems will need to meet the following criteria: a) UK law enforcement and tax authorities must be able to access company beneficial ownership information without restriction, subject to relevant safeguards; b) These competent authorities should be able to quickly identify all companies that a particular beneficial owner has a stake in without needing to submit multiple and repeated requests; and c) Companies or their beneficial owners must not be alerted to the fact that an investigation is underway.

  • Stella Creasy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Stella Creasy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stella Creasy on 2016-02-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many UK citizens reported themselves to the British Consulate in Ibiza as victims of crime in each of the last five years; what the nature of those crimes was; whether those crimes involved sexual violence or harassment; and what prosecutions resulted from those reports.

    Mr David Lidington

    Consular staff routinely record all those cases in which we have provided assistance to British nationals oversees. However, our records do not specifically identify whether those requesting assistance were victims of crime.

    Since 2012, the British Consulate in Ibiza recorded the following cases which are those most likely to have involved victims of crime. Where the number of reported cases is less or equal to five, these are annotated as ‘Less than 5’ to avoid the risk of identifying the individuals concerned.

    It is not mandatory for victims to provide information about any potential prosecutions, so we do not hold information on the number of prosecutions that arose from these cases

    Rape & sexual assault
    2011 8
    2012 8
    2013 7
    2014 7
    2015 Less than 5

    Assault – General
    2011 16
    2012 36
    2013 14
    2014 Less than 5
    2015 0

    Domestic Violence
    2011 0
    2012 0
    2013 0
    2014 Less than 5
    2015 5

  • Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Ashworth on 2016-02-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department spent from the public purse on industrial tribunals in the last 12 months.

    Mr Desmond Swayne

    In the last 12 month period DFID has spent £84.30 on Industrial Tribunals.

  • 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 2016-04-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his oral contribution of 21 March 2016, Official Report, column 1269, whether his Department plans to proceed with the removal of housing benefit for people aged between 18 and 21 years old.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The Government will be taking forward its plans to remove the automatic entitlement to housing support for new claims in Universal Credit for 18-21 year olds who are out of work from April 2017; as announced in the 2015 Summer Budget. The planned changes will ensure that vulnerable young people who are in need of support for their housing needs continue to receive it whilst maintaining a system that is fair to the taxpayer

  • Wendy Morton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Wendy Morton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Wendy Morton on 2016-06-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what representations his Department has received from each (a) local authority, (b) Police and Crime Commissioner and (c) Police Chief Constable seeking further powers in relation to responsibilities to stop unauthorised encampments in the last 12 months.

    Brandon Lewis

    We regularly receive correspondence from individual local authorities and MPs, concerning the powers available to enforcement agencies and operation of the planning system. The Government takes the issue of unauthorised encampments and associated problems seriously and will continue to keep it under review.

  • Sarah Wollaston – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Sarah Wollaston – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times the National Maritime Operations Centre in Fareham turned down requests from other Category 1 Responders for assistance in the last two years; and for each such request (a) what type of request it was, (b) what reason was recorded for it being turned down and (c) which coastguard station turned it down.

    Mr John Hayes

    Her Majesty’s Coastguard does not specifically record occurrences when other Category 1 Responders or any other service requests assistance. Information may be held within the text narrative of an incident record but this would require a check of tens of thousands of records over the last two to five years.

  • Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-10-13.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in respect of the proposed Garden Bridge, whether the Department for Transport met each of the criteria set by the Treasury before funding was committed; if not, what action was taken to override the Treasury criteria; and what changes to procedures are in place to avoid any non-compliance with Treasury criteria.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    Government funding for the Garden Bridge project was initially announced by the former Chancellor of the Exchequer in his 2013 Autumn Statement. In a subsequent letter to the then Secretary of State for Transport, the Chancellor said that this funding had been committed on the basis that:

    • the Mayor of London would match it from Transport for London’s resources;
    • a satisfactory business case would be produced, demonstrating that the project provided value for money;
    • Transport for London would fund the Bridge’s ongoing maintenance; and
    • the Mayor would cover cost overruns or shortfalls in funding.

    The first criterion was met in full in advance of funding being transferred to Transport for London.

    In respect of the second criterion, a business case for the project was produced by Transport for London and assessed by the Department before any funding was transferred. The Department’s analysis suggested that the project had a wide range of possible benefit to cost ratios, and that whilst there were risk factors associated with such a unique project, it had a reasonable chance of delivering value for money. The funding was therefore made available with a number of conditions attached to it, including a cap of £8.25 million on the amount that could be spent before the start of construction. That particular condition was revised, with part of the funding now able to be used to underwrite the cancellation costs that would arise were the project to be cancelled. This followed a Ministerial direction by the previous Secretary of State for Transport in May 2016.

    In respect of the third criterion, funding of the ongoing maintenance costs will be a matter for the Garden Bridge Trust, but should the Trust be unable to cover these costs, the previous Mayor issued a Mayoral direction in June 2015 which approved the provision of guarantees by the Greater London Authority in relation to the Garden Bridge, subject to suitable terms and arrangements being agreed.

    In terms of the fourth criterion, the Government has made clear that there will be no more public funding for the project beyond what has already been committed.

    I receive regular progress reports from the chairman of the Garden Bridge Trust, and Department for Transport officials are in regular contact with their opposite numbers in Transport for London and the Garden Bridge Trust to discuss these and other matters. I do not consider any changes are necessary to these procedures.

  • Paul Blomfield – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Paul Blomfield – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2015-11-03.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to page 8 of the consultation document Tackling Exploitation in the Labour Market, published in October 2015, if she will publish research conducted by her Department that shows that there has been a shift from abuses of employment regulation towards increasingly organised criminal activity engaged in labour market exploitation over the last 10 years.

    Karen Bradley

    Operational information, which is not publically discloseable, received from the Gangmasters’ Licensing Authority indicates that, since the Authority began operations in 2006, it has seen an increase in the number of vulnerable people being exploited by organised criminals and criminal networks for profit in the sectors it regulates.

    Further information about the role of organised criminal activity would come from the proposed new role of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement who will have a role to gather information on worker exploitation and publish a strategic approach to tackling it.