The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lexden on 2016-06-08.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to continue the Official History Programme; and if so, how.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I refer the Noble Lord to the statement given by my Noble Friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 10 December 2015.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-09-05.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether consultants working for HS2 Ltd will be prevented from participating in any tender for main contractor roles in the design and delivery of HS2 in order to avoid any conflict of interest and to ensure a fair tender process.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
HS2 Ltd has a Conflicts of Interest Panel that considers actual, potential and perceived conflicts of interest on a case-by-case basis. This Panel is chaired by HS2 Ltd’s General Counsel. This Panel is supported by an in-house Compliance team.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Walmsley on 2016-10-20.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action is being taken to increase diagnosis of patients with atrial fibrillation.
Lord Prior of Brampton
NHS England’s Sustainable Improvement Team is taking action to promote the use of GRASP-AF (Guidance on Risk Assessment and Stroke Prevention for Atrial Fibrillation) within general practitioner (GP) practices in England. GRASP-AF is an audit tool developed by and trialled in the National Health Service which greatly simplifies the process of identifying patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF) who are not receiving the right management to help reduce their risk of stroke.
The Sustainable Improvement Team is also working with NHS RightCare, a programme committed to improving people’s health and outcomes, to help promote the use of GRASP-AF in the programme’s 65 first wave clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). NHS RightCare’s ‘Commissioning for Value’ packs help CCGs identify priority areas such as AF, and the GRASP AF tool provides a practical method of addressing any inequalities. NHS England’s intention is that the work with NHS RightCare will increase the number of CCGs using GRASP-AF in a systematic way.
Anonymised data from GRASP-AF can be uploaded to CHART Online, a secure web enabled tool that helps practices improve performance through comparative data analysis. This allows practices and CCGs to benchmark their management of AF with other practices across England and so help identify and reduce any variation in practice.
The use of GRASP-AF is voluntary and its use therefore varies across CCGs. Currently 2,248 GP practices have uploaded data from GRASP-AF to CHART online across 151 out of the 209 CCGs. Of these, 19 CCGs have all GP practices in their area uploading data.
In addition to the NHS action outlined above, all local authorities in England are required to offer the NHS Health Check programme, with the large majority commissioning general practice to provide them on their behalf. More than 15 million people aged 40-74 are, have been or will be eligible for an NHS Health Check between 2014 and 2018. The programme’s best practice guidance recommends that a pulse check is carried out as part of the process of taking a blood pressure reading and those individuals who are found to have an irregular pulse rhythm should be referred for further investigation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2015-11-09.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 9 November 2015 to Question 14749, if his Department will estimate the number of families whose income will be reduced as a result of proposed changes to tax credits.
Damian Hinds
This Government is committed to moving from a high welfare, high tax, low wage economy to a lower welfare, lower tax, higher wage society. As the Chancellor has made clear, the Government will set out at Autumn Statement how we plan to achieve the same goal of reforming tax credits, saving the money we need to save to secure our economy, while at the same time helping in the transition.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kirsten Oswald on 2015-12-08.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, which designated professional bodies have professional indemnity insurance requirements compliant with clause 2.3 of the Financial Conduct Authority handbook PRU-INV sch13.
Harriett Baldwin
This is a matter for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which is operationally independent from Government.
This question has been passed on to the FCA. They will reply directly to the Honourable Member by letter. A copy of the letter will be placed in the Library of the House.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-01-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what requests for information his Department made regarding the cutting to 15 minutes the length of delay after which compensation for train passengers will kick in.
Claire Perry
In our manifesto we committed to improve compensation for delayed rail passengers and the Spending Review reiterated this. We have already changed the system to get compensation paid in cash, not travel vouchers, and we are putting new compensation obligations like automatic delay/repay into future franchise specifications.
We will negotiate hard with rail operators to get even better compensation arrangements for passengers and are considering options on this at the moment.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kirsty Blackman on 2016-02-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2016 to Question 24107 on tribunals: Scotland, how many of those people whose data was breached were not made aware that that breach had occurred.
Mr Shailesh Vara
Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service takes its responsibility for data incidents very seriously and treats each case on its individual merits. Notifying individuals of data breaches or incidents is considered, but is not a mandatory action in every instance.
Informing people and organisations about a breach is not an end in itself. Notification should have a clear purpose, whether this is to enable individuals who may have been affected to take steps to protect themselves or to allow the appropriate regulatory bodies to perform their functions, provide advice and deal with complaints.
The above criteria is considered when deciding whether or not to inform individuals or organisations of a data breach. In relation to the incidents referred to in this PQ it is unclear, as no statistical information has been retained, as to whether or not individuals were notified.
Guidance on data breach notification is set out by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) in the link below:
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/principle-7-security/
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Martyn Day on 2016-03-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential terrorist and security threat to the corps of Royal Engineers who will be deployed in March to provide short-term engineering support to the multinational force and observers in Sinai.
Penny Mordaunt
As is the case with all operational deployments, a full risk assessment was conducted prior to the decision to deploy Royal Engineers to support the Multi-National Force Observers (MFO) mission in Sinai. This covered the full range of risks to our personnel and identified appropriate measures to mitigate risk.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ruth Cadbury on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans his Department has to increase capacity on public transport links to Heathrow Airport from central London.
Mr Robert Goodwill
The Elizabeth line will replace the existing two train per hour Heathrow Connect service from May 2018 providing a 4 train per hour service to Terminals 1 to 4, operating alongside the existing 4 train per hour Heathrow Express service. This will offer significant improvements in connectivity from and to Heathrow, particularly from the West End, the City and Canary Wharf.
Heathrow is also served by regular Piccadilly line services from central London. Upgrading this line is a matter for the Mayor and Transport for London who plan to introduce new modern signalling systems and new trains to provide 60% more capacity (the equivalent of up to 21,000 customers per hour).
For any improvements associated with airport expansion, the Government will agree the nature and scale of the surface access transport as part of its decision on its preferred scheme for additional airport capacity in the South East. The Government has also been clear that it expects the scheme promoter to meet the costs of any surface access proposals that are required as a direct result of airport expansion and from which they will directly benefit.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jack Dromey on 2016-05-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 27 April 2016 to Question 34842, how much of the £3.95 million spent on Cyber Streetwise in 2014-15 was spent on (a) media spend and production, (b) PR, partnership and social, (c) research and (d) website; and how much of the £4.1 million spent on Cyber Streetwise in 2015-16 was spent on (i) media spend and production, (ii) PR, partnership and social, (iii) research and (iv) website.
Mr John Hayes
Cyber Streetwise is a cross Government campaign, developed by private and public stakeholder partners and coordinated by the Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit. It is designed to measurably make the UK a safer place to interact and do business online by increasing individual and SME adoption of safe online behaviours.
Government experts estimate that a significant proportion of cyber security issues would be avoided by safer online behaviours. Cyber Streetwise supports this by increasing digital confidence by informing people about the key things that keep them safer online. It does this by:
• Delivering actionable and positive solution focussed advice on how to be secure.
• Creating arresting communications that highlight the consequences and cut through low interest.
• Reminding and reinforcing individuals and SMEs of the core protective behaviours at the point of risk/incidence.
Currently our prioritised protective behaviours are: using strong passwords made up of three random words; installing security software on all devices; and regularly downloading software updates. Government and Industry experts agree that adopting these 3 behaviours will provide SMEs and individuals with the best protection against cyber-crime.
The impact of Cyber Streetwise on behaviours is evaluated via regular quantitative tracking research. Since its launch in January 2014, it is estimated that 2 million adults have adopted safer online behaviours that will better protect them.
The spend for Cyber Streetwise in 2014/15 and 2015/16 is as follows:
• 2014/15 – £3.95m excl VAT
• 2015/16 – £4.1m excl VAT