The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gerald Howarth on 2016-07-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many tenants who receive social security benefits have paid cash for properties sold under the Right to Buy scheme to date.
Brandon Lewis
The information requested is not held centrally.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Mullin on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the main reasons for rejection of applications for Tier 1 entrepreneur visas have been in each of the last four quarters.
Mr Robert Goodwill
The Home Office does not hold the specific information in the format requested. To obtain the information would involve examining individual case records and would incur disproportionate cost.
All visa applications are considered on their individual merits and in line with the Immigration Rules.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-11-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of participants in (a) the Mandatory Intervention Regime, (b) Community Work Placements and (c) Daily Work Search Review under the Help to Work scheme have been sanctioned since April 2014.
Priti Patel
Information on how many participants in Mandatory Intervention Regime and Daily Work Search Review, who have been sanctioned since April 2014, is not available
The number of Community Work Placements individuals with an adverse benefit sanction applied due to Failure to Participate in the Community Work Placement is 7,880 (between April 2014 and June 2015). This represents 15% of the total number of individuals referred to Community Work Placements in this time period.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Caulfield on 2016-01-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government plans to take to support whole person care across the cancer pathway over the next 15 years.
Jane Ellison
The independent Cancer Taskforce’s five-year strategy for cancer, Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes, published in July 2015, recommends improvements across the cancer pathway with the aim of improving survival rates. NHS England has appointed Cally Palmer as NHS National Cancer Director. She will lead on the implementation of the strategy, as well as new cancer vanguards to redesign care and patient experience.
She is currently setting up a new Cancer Transformation Board to lead the roll-out of the recommendations of the new strategy, and a Cancer Advisory Group, chaired by Dr Harpal Kumar, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, will oversee and scrutinise their work. Timeframes and phasing for implementation will be dependent on the final financial settlement reached as a result of the spending review.
We announced in September 2015 that Health Education England (HEE) is developing a new national training programme for an additional 200 staff to get the skills and expertise to carry out endoscopies by 2018. The content of the next mandate from the Government to HEE is currently being determined.
A commitment to whole-person care for patients, including those living with and beyond cancer, is embedded throughout the cancer taskforce report. In addition, the cancer vanguards have been established to explore new models of care, with a focus on delivering more person-centred care.
Ensuring the National Health Service is able to support the availability and use of effective treatments and medicines for rare cancers is a key priority. Cancer 52, an organisation which specifically represents patients with rarer cancers, was represented on the independent Cancer Taskforce. The Taskforce’s report made many recommendations relevant to rarer cancers, focussing in particular on improving access to diagnostic testing, including fast, direct general practitioner access to key blood tests, and increasing patient access to the most advanced treatments.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mrs Sharon Hodgson on 2016-01-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans her Department has to improve children’s character and resilience.
Edward Timpson
All schools should develop character traits like self-confidence, motivation and resilience in their students. These traits support academic attainment, are valued by employers, and encourage young people to make a positive contribution to British society.
At the Character Symposium in January 2016[1], the Secretary of State for Education outlined her vision for character education. She announced that the Department intends to promote character education through the building and strengthening of our evidence base. We will facilitate this via an online digital platform which will share evidence, innovation, and examples of best practice in character education. We will also promote character education to schools and organisations through a new round of character awards.
To support schools in this, we are already investing £5 million in character education. This figure includes £3.5m of grants for 14 projects and £1m to the Education Endowment Foundation to build research the most effective ways that character can be developed.
Of course, many schools and organisations are already supporting children to develop their character, through programmes such as National Citizen Service. We will be investing over a billion pounds over the next four years to make NCS a rite of passage and to ensure that 60% of 16 year olds can take part by 2021.
School sport can also help children and young people develop positive character traits such as fair play, leadership and resilience. It can teach them how to bounce back from defeat, how to respect others and how to work together in teams to achieve a goal. PE remains a compulsory subject at all four key stages in the new national curriculum which came into force in September 2014.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/nicky-morgan-opens-character-symposium-at-floreat-school
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-02-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with his counterparts in other EU member states on the potential effect of a UK withdrawal from the EU on cultural, sporting and media initiatives currently supported by the EU within the UK.
Mr Edward Vaizey
Ministers meet with a range of EU counterparts in the course of normal business. The Government’s view is that the UK will be stronger, safer and better off remaining in a reformed EU.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2016-03-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to help arts and cultural organisations apply for funding from the EU’s Creative Europe programme.
Mr Edward Vaizey
The Creative Europe Desk UK, which is part-funded by DCMS, raises awareness of the opportunities offered by the EU’s Creative Europe programme; encourages the UK’s creative sectors to engage in the programme through taking part in supported international initiatives and networks; and provides advice and support to UK-based applicants of Creative Europe. The Desk is led by the British Council and the BFI with a consortium of partners in the UK (Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Welsh Government).
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Viscount Waverley on 2016-04-14.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the event of the UK leaving the EU, how they intend to change the status of domicile, if at all, in relation to UK citizens living in EU member states.
Lord O’Neill of Gatley
Domicile in the UK is an English common law concept which is distinct from citizenship and nationality. It is not dependent on EU law nor on the UK’s membership of the EU.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-05-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average hourly earnings were of his Department’s (a) BME and (b) non-BME employees in (i) 2015 and (ii) 2016.
Justin Tomlinson
The Department for Work and Pensions pays employees an annual salary and does not pay an hourly rate.
The Department uses a grade structure to determine salary rates. The grade structure is underpinned by Job Evaluation and Grading Support (JEGS), an analytical job evaluation tool which meets all requirements of legislation and EHRC statutory codes of practice on Equal Pay. The use of JEGS and its application in determining the appropriate grade for a role enables us to determine where employees are doing equal work based on “work rated as equivalent”.
DWP Equality data is published on an annual basis on https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about/equality-and-diversity this includes the average pay by indicated ethnicity each year up to 2015.
The main factor influencing the DWP pay gap is the difference in distribution of staff within each of these groups across the grades. DWP continues to regularly review ways to address the pay gap.
This report is usually published in July each year and looks at data over the previous financial year. The report for 2016 is not yet available.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevan Jones on 2016-07-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what discussions he has had with the Royal Navy about further extending the out-of-service dates for the Type 23 frigate.
Harriett Baldwin
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my predecessor (Philip Dunne) on 27 June 2016 to Question 39922 to the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mrs Flick Drummond).