The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Ashworth on 2016-05-09.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the budget is for the Inter-Ministerial Group on Corruption.
Matthew Hancock
Budget for work to tackle corruption are held by departments. The work of the Inter-Ministerial Group is to co-ordinate and lead departmental activity.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Countess of Mar on 2016-06-29.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Altmann on 16 June (HL502), what provision is made for claimants suffering severe myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome who are housebound or bedbound and who are unable to attend a face-to-face consultation.
Baroness Altmann
A home consultation can be offered where a claimant is unable to travel to a consultation as a result of their health condition or impairment.
Situations where a claimant may need a home consultation can include where a person’s diagnosis suggests a significant disability that may make travel extremely difficult or the claimant provides evidence from a health professional that they are unable to travel due to their health condition or impairment.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch on 2016-09-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria they will use to decide whether the National Food Crime Unit should have direct enforcement powers.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The review of the National Food Crime Unit (NFCU) will consider the following issues:
– Current and likely future reactive demand from food crime;
– Current and likely future proactive opportunities to disrupt and prevent food crime;
– Gaps between reactive/proactive demand and current response;
– The current and future role of local authorities, the police service, other government departments/agencies and the wider food crime response landscape, including the international response and cross border collaboration post European Union exit;
– Value for money of current and potential responses; and
– The current form and function of the NFCU, and whether this meets current and future demand.
In the first Food Crime Annual Strategic Assessment, the NFCU highlighted the limitations of current intelligence and reporting, and the difficulties in estimating the scale and impact of food crime. The review will therefore take these limitations into account when considering the current and future demands and opportunities, and make reasonable judgements where evidence is incomplete or lacking.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2015-11-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how her Department plans to ensure that police forces and partner agencies are supported to undertake wildlife criminal investigations.
Mike Penning
The Government understands the importance of tackling wildlife crime. The Home Office is providing specific funding of £136,000 to support the work of the National Wildlife Crime Unit this year, with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs providing similar funding.
The funding for the National Wildlife Crime Unit is in addition to the funding that central Government provides to the police in England and Wales to tackle all types of crime (including wildlife crime), which in 2015-16 will be over £8 billion. In addition, the police receive around a quarter of their total funding from the police precept component of council tax. The deployment of police resources is a matter for individual Chief Constables and local Police and Crime Commissioners.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Roberts of Llandudno on 2015-12-10.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government to which countries unsuccessful asylum seekers were deported in each year between 2010 and 2014, and in each of those years, how many unsuccessful asylum seekers were deported to each of those countries.
Lord Bates
The data on removals and voluntary departures by type and destination are available in the latest Home Office release, Immigration Statistics: July to September 2015, in table rv.06. This publication is available from GOV.UK on the statistics web pages at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/home-office/series/immigration-statistics-quarterly-release.
Deportations are a specific subset of removals which are enforced either following a criminal conviction or when it is judged that a person’s removal from the UK is conducive to the public good. The deportation order prohibits the person returning to the UK until such time as it may be revoked. It is not possible to separately identify deportations from enforced removals. It is not possible within these figures to say at what stage in the asylum process individuals have reached at the time of their removal, including whether their claim has failed at that point.
The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics on the number of persons removed or departed voluntarily from the UK and on persons refused entry to the United Kingdom within Immigration Statistics.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-01-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent representations he has received from charities and families on the effectiveness of the operation of the Fatal Accidents Act 1976.
Caroline Dinenage
One piece of Ministerial correspondence has been received in the last six months concerning the family of a deceased person affected by the 1976 Act.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2016-02-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the Saudi Arabian government on tackling the spread of Daesh in the Middle East.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
We regularly hold discussions with Saudi Arabia about the threat from Daesh. Saudi Arabia has been at the forefront of international efforts to defeat Daesh and was one of the first countries to participate in air strikes against Daesh in Syria. The King and the religious establishment continue clearly and publicly to condemn Daesh and its poisonous ideology, and to emphasise that Daesh do not in any way represent the teachings of Islamic faith.
The Saudi Arabian Government is working to reduce the threat that religious extremists pose in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. It has a comprehensive set of laws in place to prevent terrorist financing, which it enforces vigorously. We welcome the recent announcement of the creation of the Islamic Military Coalition which, among other things, aims to help Islamic countries to counter the threat from terrorism. Regional and Arab countries are best placed to tackle extremism and confront Daesh on the ground.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-03-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what reports his Department has received on alleged mistreatment and torture of British citizens in detention in the United Arab Emirates since 2011.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Consular Directorate is aware of 37 cases of British nationals who have made allegations of torture or mistreatment in detention in the United Arab Emirates since and including 2011. The FCO takes all allegations or concerns of torture and mistreatment seriously and takes action appropriate to the circumstances of each case, including raising these with the Emirati authorities where we have permission from the individual.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Bridgen on 2016-04-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has taken in response to the findings of the first set of operational data collected by NHS England on wheelchair services; and what steps he is taking to ensure that short-term wheelchair loans are available for people waiting for provision of NHS wheelchairs.
Alistair Burt
The national wheelchair services data collection was introduced by NHS England in July 2015 and requires clinical commissioning groups to submit quarterly data on their wheelchair services. Data has so far been published for quarter two and quarter three 2015/16. This is a new collection and therefore does not yet provide an opportunity to draw national or regional comparisons. The vast majority of short term wheelchair loans are provided through charities such as the Red Cross and not via the National Health Service.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-05-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 5 May 2016 to Question 36169, how many taxi journeys his Department paid for in each of the last five years.
Mr Mark Francois
The Department records all travel spend under the category of travel and subsistence costs. This is reported in DCLG annual accounts. We are unable to break down the travel and subsistence costs to identify the number of taxi journeys in the last 5 years. This would involve manually analysing individual supplier transactions and could only be done at disproportionate cost.