Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government under what conditions they would refer an incident or a series of incidents of suspected mass killings or alleged human rights abuses to the UN Security Council for a determination on whether genocide was occurring as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    The Government believes that recognition of genocides should be a matter for international courts, not political bodies. It should be a legal, rather than political determination, decided by international judges after consideration of all the evidence available in the context of a credible international judicial process.

  • Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-05-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether lease renewal and rent review will remain trigger points for the market rent only option procedure, as set out in Part 6 of the withdrawn Pubs Code etc. Regulations 2016.

    Anna Soubry

    Yes. Lease renewal and rent review will remain trigger points for the ‘Market Rent Only’ option procedure in the revised regulations.

  • Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-07-21.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when his Department plans to publish its response to the recommendations in the final report of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, published in May 2016.

    Nicola Blackwood

    The Department is finalising the cross-Government response to the recommendations contained in the final report of the Review on Antimicrobial Resistance. The response will be published shortly.

  • Henry Bellingham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Henry Bellingham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Henry Bellingham on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the cost of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) has been to date; and who is on the Board of the IHAT.

    Mike Penning

    As of 30 September 2016, the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) has cost £34.7 million.

    There is no Board of the IHAT. Its senior command team comprises the Director, who reports to the Provost Marshal (Navy), the Head of the Royal Navy Police, for investigative purposes; the Deputy Head, a Commander in the Royal Navy Police; the Legal Adviser, a Captain in the Royal Navy; and the Assistant Head, a civil servant who is responsible to the Director for resourcing and administrative issues.

  • Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb on 2015-11-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of research on the links between the risk of cancer and radiation spikes during the refuelling of nuclear power plants, whether nuclear power plants are currently required to report hourly or half-hourly radioactive emissions, and if not, whether they plan to require nuclear power plants to collect and publish hourly or half-hourly radioactive emissions statistics.

    Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

    Radioactive discharges from nuclear power plants are subject to permitting by the UK and devolved environmental agencies. Permitted discharge and notification levels are set out in individual site permits. These limits are set well within the levels required to comply with the public radiation dose constraints that have been set out in UK and devolved legislation in line with international standards.

    The environmental and food standards agencies jointly monitor actual levels of radioactivity in the environment and report annually in Radioactivity in Food and the Environment (RIFE). The results of this programme indicate that discharge levels from nuclear plants are well within the permitted limits.

  • Andrew Percy – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Andrew Percy – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2015-12-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average response time was for a 101 call in each year since that service’s launch; and what the average response time was for 101 calls made to the Humberside Police from (a) North Lincolnshire and (b) East Yorkshire in the last 12 months.

    Mike Penning

    The Home Office does not hold data centrally on the average response times for 999 calls. Information on average 101 call waiting times since April 2014, provided by forces, including Humberside Police, can be found at: www.Police.uk

    The Home Office does not hold information on call waiting times for individual forces which pre-dates April 2014 or about calls made to forces from local areas. This information is held by forces.

    “

  • Lord Dholakia – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Lord Dholakia – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Dholakia on 2016-01-26.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of prisoners they plan to test for blood-borne viruses in each of the next five years, in the light of the introduction of opt-out testing in prisons.

    Lord Prior of Brampton

    Public Health England (PHE) working in partnership with NHS England and the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) have been implementing opt-out testing for blood-borne viruses (BBVs) since 2013/14 through a phased implementation programme using ‘pathfinder prisons’ with plans for the programme to be available in every adult prison in England by the end of financial year 2016/17. All consenting eligible adult prisoners will be offered the opportunity to test.

    Prisoners eligible for testing include those not known to be infected with BBVs who have not been tested recently and/or who had risk behaviour since their last test. Therefore over the next five years and beyond, we plan to offer tests for BBVs to all adult prisoners who fall into these categories. Phased implementation of the BBV opt-out testing programme in prisons has been informed by evaluation of pathfinder prisons. Preliminary data from suggests a near doubling of BBV testing following the introduction of the opt-out testing policy. Offer, uptake and outcome of testing is being collected by both the Health & Justice Indicators of Performance at prison level as well as through PHE’s sentinel surveillance study.

  • Lord Jones of Cheltenham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Lord Jones of Cheltenham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Jones of Cheltenham on 2016-02-23.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people living in each of the countries of the Commonwealth are in receipt of a UK state pension which is (1) frozen, or (2) uprated annually.

    Baroness Altmann

    The Government has a clear position, which has remained consistent for around 70 years: UK state pensions are payable worldwide and uprated abroad where we have a legal requirement to do so for example in the European Economic Area or countries where we have a reciprocal agreement that allows for uprating. There are no plans to change this.

    Details of the numbers of people in receipt of the state pension, and whether they live in countries where the state pension is frozen or uprated, is included at Annex A. Countries where the UK state pension is up-rated are identified by an asterisk by the name of the country.

    The Government’s view is that the UK will be stronger, safer and better off in a reformed EU. Of course there is uncertainty about how a vote to leave the EU could impact on access to pensioner benefits for UK pensioners living in other parts of Europe. These questions would need to be answered as part of the process of negotiating the UK’s exit if there is a vote to leave. We could only consider the detail of access to pensions and benefits for people in receipt of UK state pensions who are resident in Europe as part of the process for leaving the EU.

  • Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-03-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to his counterparts in countries that are members of the International Syria Support Group on reported Russian violations of the ceasefire in Syria.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    The UK has been providing regular reports on violations of the Cessation of Hostilities (CoH) to the International Syria Support Group’s Ceasefire Task Force, of which we are a member. The Ceasefire Task Force meets twice weekly to consider such reports and to discuss measures to bring all parties into compliance with their obligations under the CoH.

  • Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the findings of Human Rights Watch in its recent report Nepotism and Neglect, which identifies the failure of the authorities in Bangladesh to respond to the effects of arsenic in the drinking water of Bangladesh’s rural poor; and whether they will raise that issue with the government of Bangladesh.

    Baroness Verma

    The UK Government along with other donors, discusses issues such as safe drinking water with members of the Government of Bangladesh. Water quality testing, which focussed upon arsenic, has been a major part of DFID’s support for ensuring access to clean arsenic free water in rural Bangladesh. DFID has also supported arsenic testing by assisting the Government of Bangladesh to establish a national water-point database. The UK works with the Government of Bangladesh to use the database to identify water points which exceed the arsenic national standard can be identified and corrective necessary action taken.

    DFID has also delivered large scale results on water, sanitation and hygiene education through our strategic partnership with BRAC. This has given 699,000 people access to clean drinking water, including in arsenic prone areas, through deep tube wells, piped water supply systems and pond sand filters to over the last 5 years.