Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-04-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department has issued to councils on the payment of homecare workers for their travel time.

    Alistair Burt

    It is for providers to ensure that they are complying with legislation and paying workers for the time they are legally entitled to be paid for.

    The Care Act 2014 is clear that local authorities should ensure that care workers are paid at least minimum wage, and are paid for travel time between appointments.

    We are working with local authorities and the care sector to improve social care commissioning, including supporting the sector to commission in a way that promotes quality, including meeting legal requirements on staff pay in relation to travel time.

    There is clear Government Guidance on the issue of payment for work related travel time. It can be found in full on this website:

    http://www.gov.uk/minimum-wage-different-types-work/overview

    “

  • Oliver Colvile – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Oliver Colvile – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Oliver Colvile on 2016-05-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people with epilepsy there are in Plymouth.

    Jane Ellison

    There are no national measures or means by which the Department monitors frequency of patients reviews, either by consultants or nurses. Guidance is issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence however this does not replace the skills and knowledge of health professionals in managing patients. The arrangements for the management and follow up of people with epilepsy are a local matter and decisions on the frequency with which patients are seen should be made on a case by case basis, taking into account the individual circumstances of each patient.

    NHS England advises that the maximum wait for outpatients to receive a neurology appointment is 12 weeks currently. Additionally 92% of patients are being seen under the specified ‘Referral To Treatment’ waiting times of 18 weeks which is within the national target.

    The information on the number of people with epilepsy in Plymouth is not available in the format requested.

  • The Earl of Listowel – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The Earl of Listowel – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Earl of Listowel on 2016-07-11.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was the value of Discretionary Housing Payments made to care leavers up to the age of 25 in each local authority area in England in 2015–16.

    Lord Freud

    The information requested is not available.

  • Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he expects NICE to publish guidance on the use of bisphosphonates for the indication of preventing secondary breast cancer.

    Nicola Blackwood

    The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) guideline on early and locally advanced breast cancer: diagnosis and management (CG80) recommends the use of adjuvant bisphosphonates for the management of breast cancer treatment-induced bone loss in specified clinical circumstances. This guideline is currently being updated and the use of adjuvant bisphosphonates has been identified as one of the key areas that will be covered in this update. NICE expects to publish its updated guideline in July 2018.

  • David Nuttall – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    David Nuttall – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Nuttall on 2015-11-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the annual budget of the tobacco policy team in his Department is; and what proportion of that budget was spent on external grants or contracts in the last year.

    Jane Ellison

    The Tobacco Control policy team programme budget spend for 2014/15 was £848,000 of which £648,000 was spent on grants and contracts.

  • Lord Young of Cookham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Young of Cookham – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Young of Cookham on 2015-12-14.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, following the Spending Review 2015, they have undertaken any analysis of the relationship between the value of business rates collected by local authorities and the local level of deprivation according to the English Indices of Deprivation.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    Under the current rates retention scheme, and under the new 100 percent scheme to be introduced by the end of the Parliament, there is, and will continue to be, a measure of redistribution of local tax income. This ensures that those authorities with higher relative spending needs compared to their tax base will receive additional funding through the redistribution mechanism; and means that any comparison of local business rates income and levels of deprivation would be misleading.

  • Christina Rees – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Christina Rees – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Christina Rees on 2016-01-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the costs and benefits of the current funding regime for insolvency litigation between 26 February 2015 and 17 December 2015.

    Dominic Raab

    Since the passage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) 2012, it has always been the government’s stated intention that the exemption for insolvency cases would be temporary. Commencement of Part 2 of LASPO’s conditional fee (or ‘no win no fee’) arrangement reforms for insolvency, was announced in December and will apply from April this year. The aim of LASPO’s reforms was to control the cost of civil litigation.

    Ministry of Justice Officials discussed Professor Walton’s report with him, but the Ministry of Justice did not agree with his conclusions. Officials have also met representatives of insolvency practitioners who use no win no fee arrangements to fund these cases, as well as those who fund them in other ways.

  • Lord Trefgarne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Lord Trefgarne – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Trefgarne on 2016-02-22.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what powers are available to ministers to order the release of prisoners duly sentenced and held in England and Wales.

    Lord Faulks

    Prisoners are held in accordance with the type and length of sentence they are given by the courts and legislation prescribes when and how they are to be released. The majority are released automatically, with standard determinate sentence prisoners released at the half-way point in their sentence. Some prisoners are released at the discretion of the independent Parole Board – for example, all prisoners serving an indeterminate sentence and some extended sentence prisoners – once they have reached the point in their sentence when they are eligible to be considered for parole.

    Legislation also gives the Secretary of State discretion to release sentenced prisoners in certain circumstances. In practice, these decisions are taken on behalf of the Secretary of State by prison governors or other officials in the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). For example, some shorter sentenced, low risk offenders may be considered for release before their automatic release date under the Home Detention Curfew (HDC) scheme, at the discretion of prison governors.

    There is also a statutory power for the Secretary of State to release any sentenced prisoner if there are exceptional circumstances which justify release on compassionate grounds. Decisions on whether to grant early compassionate release are taken on a case-by-case basis by senior officials in NOMS.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-03-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with motor vehicle insurance companies on reducing the level of insurance premiums.

    Andrew Jones

    The Department for Transport has held a number of recent meetings with the motor insurance industry, for example to discuss young driver safety and technology measures which impact on the cost of insurance.

    The Autumn Statement 2015 announced the Government will bring forward measures to reduce the excessive costs arising from unnecessary whiplash claims, and as the industry is competitive we expect average savings of £40 to £50 per motor insurance policy to be passed onto customers. Some insurers have already committed to pass on all savings to consumers as a result of the proposed changes.

    The pricing of insurance products is a commercial matter for individual insurers in which the Government does not seek to intervene.

  • Tristram Hunt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Tristram Hunt – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-04-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how many jobs in (a) his Department and (b) each of his Department’s non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    No posts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, or any of the Department’s non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies have been abolished in, or relocated from, East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and none will be abolished in, or relocated from, East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.