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Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Lord Condon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Condon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Condon on 2016-05-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many of the 10 most recently appointed Chief Constables in the UK were not internal candidates from the appointing police force, and over what period of time those appointments have taken place.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    Three of the ten most recently appointed chief constables in England and Wales were not internal candidates from the appointing police force, although eight of the chief constables have served as a chief officer outside of the force.

    These appointments have taken place over the period from June 2015 to March 2016.

  • Norman Lamb – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Norman Lamb – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2016-07-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will consider the introduction of a programme to reduce or write off student loans for top graduates entering teaching or social work in areas (a) of high social need and (b) struggling to recruit to such professions.

    Nick Gibb

    Recruiting sufficient, high-quality teachers is central to the Government’s ambition to deliver educational excellence everywhere. High-quality teachers are the single most important factor determining how well pupils achieve in schools. That is why we have already committed to spend over £1.3 billion on teacher recruitment up to 2020. This includes continuing to provide generous tax-free teacher training bursaries to graduates, which are worth up to £30,000 for academic year 2016/17.

    More trainee teachers started training in 2015/16 than in 2014/15, and a record proportion of new trainees held a first class degree. For courses beginning in 2016/17, so far around 26,000 people have secured a teacher training place, and we have already recruited in excess of targets in primary and several secondary subjects.

    We review the financial incentives for teacher training every year, and we will continue to test new approaches to recruiting teachers, such as the STEM teacher supply package announced in March 2015.

    Recruiting and retaining high quality social workers is essential to ensure we deliver high quality services to vulnerable children and families. As already announced, the Government will consult on the future funding of social work education in order to ensure that there will be an adequate supply of social workers with the right skills and training. This is part of a wider, ongoing programme which has seen investment of over £700m since 2010 in social worker training and improvement programmes, including support for a range of routes to expand entry into the profession such as Frontline, a scheme specifically aimed at bringing top graduates into social work, and Step Up.

  • Madeleine Moon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Madeleine Moon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Madeleine Moon on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether the UK has ratified Montenegro’s accession to NATO; and if he will make a statement.

    Sir Alan Duncan

    The Government laid Montenegro’s Protocol of Accession before Parliament on 29 June 2016, under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. Following the summer recess, the Protocol completed its Parliamentary scrutiny period on 15 September. We are currently finalising the process to confirm the UK’s acceptance of the Protocol and allow us to deposit it with the US Government (depositary for the Treaty), as stipulated by the North Atlantic Treaty. We expect to complete this shortly and look forward to welcoming Montenegro as the 29th NATO Ally, once all current NATO Allies have ratified according to their own national processes.

  • Lord Harris of Haringey – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Lord Harris of Haringey – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Harris of Haringey on 2015-11-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for each of the last three years, what was the estimated cost to the public purse of people being imprisoned for defaulting on payment of their council tax.

    Lord Faulks

    This information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. The department routinely publishes average costs per prisoner and prison place based on actual net resource expenditure for each private and public sector prison, and in summary form the whole of the prison estate in England and Wales on an annual basis after the end of each financial year. These can be found on Gov.uk.

  • Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-12-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people with both TB and HIV receive joined-up care.

    Jane Ellison

    The Department recognises that joined up care for people with tuberculosis (TB) and HIV, as with other areas of comorbidity or coinfection management, is important. In NHS England’s specialised services, service specifications exist for HIV and for infectious diseases and both make reference to the importance of referral pathways and network arrangements to meet the needs of patients.

    Separate to NHS England’s commissioning of joined up care for people with TB and HIV, treatment and care services for co-infected sufferers take account of the reference guideline, “British HIV Association guidelines for the treatment of TB/HIV coinfection 2011”, which recommends that patients with both HIV and TB are managed by a multidisciplinary team with expertise in both TB and HIV. A link to this guideline is at:

    http://www.bhiva.org/documents/Guidelines/TB/hiv_954_online_final.pdf

    The role of a TB specialist nurse and multidisciplinary team is essential in the management of co-infected patients.

    “

  • Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-01-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to reduce delays in payment of tax credits and other benefits as a result of administrative errors; and if he will make a statement.

    Priti Patel

    Tax Credits are the responsibility of HMRC.

    The Department for Work and Pensions is committed to ensuring payments are made in a timely manner and benefit payment times are improving year on year.

  • Lord Black of Brentwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Lord Black of Brentwood – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Black of Brentwood on 2016-02-23.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 23 July 2015 (HL1549) and 12 February (HL5902), why there has been a delay in publication of proposals to repeal section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 which, according to Written Answer HL1549, was due by the end of 2015.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The Government is still considering its response to the balance of payments consultation which asked a number of questions on a range of topics. We will publish a response in the coming months.

  • Huw Irranca-Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Huw Irranca-Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Huw Irranca-Davies on 2016-03-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether she plans to take forward talks on reaching an intergovernmental agreement with Ireland on expanding electricity interconnection capacity in response to the conclusions of the National Infrastructure Commission’s report on Smart Power, published in March 2016.

    Andrea Leadsom

    The Government is ambitious for the market to deliver an increase in electricity interconnection capacity where projects demonstrate value for money and provide benefits to consumers. We are primarily focused on facilitating developer-led delivery. Already one interconnection project to Ireland, Greenlink, has been approved by Ofgem in the first round of cap and floor applications. More projects, including to Ireland, can apply to Ofgem’s second cap and floor application window which opens this month.

  • Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-04-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, for what reasons the Government did not meet Olivier Bancoult, Chair of the Chagos Refugees Group, during his recent visit to the UK.

    James Duddridge

    I am not aware of any invitations to the government to meet Mr Bancoult during his recent visit to the UK. Officials who were asked whether they might wish to meet Mr Bancoult were concerned about the propriety and appropriateness of doing so at a time when he is litigating against the Government.

  • Lord Oates – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Lord Oates – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2016-05-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the current gap in donor funding to tackle the food shortages in Ethiopia, and what steps they are taking to encourage other donor countries to meet their obligations.

    Baroness Verma

    Britain is working closely with the Government of Ethiopia and the international community to ensure adequate funding for drought response activities. Britain’s overall funding for the drought to date is £145 million, making the UK the second largest donor.

    In December, the Government of Ethiopia and the United Nations launched an appeal for 2016 to fundraise $1.4 billion (~£923 million) to respond to the drought in Ethiopia. By the beginning of May, 66% of the required funds had been raised.

    DFID is working closely with other donor governments to monitor the response and to lobby for support for the Government of Ethiopia and the UN appeal. Most recently, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Hurd discussed the current crisis with EU Commissioner Stylianides and in particular how to encourage others to step-up. DFID has also been working closely with the Ethiopian Government to support their leadership of the humanitarian response. To date, the Government of Ethiopia has allocated $381 million (~£269 million) to address the crisis. This is commendable.