The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Chapman on 2016-02-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what plans his Department has for the introduction of two tier special forces in the Joint Force 2025 announced in the Strategic Defence and Security Review involved in training, assistance advice and mentoring to UK partners.
Penny Mordaunt
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It is the long standing policy of the Government not to comment on Special Forces. |
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paula Sherriff on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what consultations have taken place on privatisation of railway stations currently owned by Network Rail; and which stakeholders have been so consulted.
Claire Perry
Network Rail is exploring new models for station management and ownership with the goal to bring improvements for both passengers and the communities they serve. They have engaged Citigroup as advisors to consider a range of potential options but no decisions have been taken at this early stage. Any decisions on such potential future options will take account of the findings of Nicola Shaw’s report into the longer term shape and financing of Network Rail.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Marlesford on 2016-03-22.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what has been the cost to the public purse in each of the last five years of the winter fuel allowance; and what would be the tax receipt if it were subject to the same tax as retirement pensions.
Baroness Altmann
The Government has committed to keeping the Winter Fuel Payment for the lifetime of this Parliament. The cost over the last five years is as follows:
|
2010/11 |
2011/12 |
2012/13 |
2013/14 |
2014/15 |
|
£m 2,759 |
2,149 |
2,144 |
2,140 |
2,117 |
The Government has not estimated the corresponding tax receipts had the Winter Fuel Payment been taxable.
There is a total of 11.4 million pensioners in the UK.
National Statistics, published by HMRC, show that in 2013/14, there were 6.12 million taxpayers whose main source of income is from pensions, of which 90 per cent pay the basic rate of tax and 6 per cent pay the higher rate of tax.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Henig on 2016-04-27.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many candidates have applied for admission to the Direct Entry Inspector programme since its inception, and of those, how many were successful.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The direct entry to superintendent scheme has been running since 2014; over the three years of its operation it has had a total of 2,049 applications.
The first direct entry scheme to inspector launched this year. There were 1,647 ap-plications and the selection process is ongoing. The first cohort are expected to start in November.
Details of success and retention for the direct entry to superintendent scheme are outlined in the table below.
|
Year |
Applications |
Successful at the assessment centre |
Started the scheme |
In post at 1 April 2016 |
|
2014 |
867 |
13 |
9 |
8 |
|
2015 |
542 |
7 |
6 |
6 |
|
2016 |
640 |
– |
– |
– |
Assessment centres for the 2016 inspectors’ and superintendents’ schemes will take place this summer.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-06-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress has been made to date on Recommendation 2 of the NHS England Five Year Forward View for Mental Health.
Alistair Burt
The Government is working with delivery partners to carefully consider the Taskforce’s recommendations and aims to publish a strategic Implementation Plan in the autumn that will set out how Government and partners will deliver the recommendations.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Adams on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 2 August 2016 to Question 42624, what the evidential basis is for the conclusion that a decrease in the prominence of copyright infringing websites in search engine results has resulted in a decrease in infringement.
Joseph Johnson
Publically available research from industry clearly shows a decrease in traffic to the most high profile Bit Torrent indexing websites following changes to search engine algorithms to demote websites which have been the subject of large numbers of copyright infringement notices. While it is not possible to say exactly how this equates to changes in infringement, traffic levels to these websites are likely to be highly correlated with levels of infringing activity.
The work of the Ministerial roundtable group on search and copyright is supported by research from OFCOM, which gives the group a periodic snapshot of the prominence of copyright infringing websites in search results for various search terms.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jeff Smith on 2016-10-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many students have studied at least one arts subject at A-level in Manchester, Withington constituency in each of the last five years.
Nick Gibb
The number of A level examination entries (including arts[1] subjects) by local authority and state funded schools are published in the A level and equivalent results statistical first releases (SFR)[2],[3],[4],[5],[6].
The information requested by parliamentary constituency is not available.
[1] Arts subjects are included under the categories Art and Design, Media, Film and Television Studies and Music.
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/revised-a-level-and-equivalent-examination-results-in-england-academic-year-2011-to-2012 (Table 12a)
[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-england-2012-to-2013-revised (Table 13a)
[4] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-2013-to-2014-revised (Table 13a)
[5] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-2014-to-2015-revised (Table 13a)
[6] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-level-3-results-2015-to-2016-provisional (Table 10)
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Peter Kyle on 2015-10-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the closure of Goodwood Court medical practice in Hove on patient access to primary care in that town.
Ben Gummer
We are advised by NHS England that Goodwood Court Medical Practice in Hove closed in June 2015 after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) took immediate action to remove the practice’s registration with the regulator. This was in order to protect the safety and welfare of patients following the findings of a CQC inspection at the practice.
NHS England subsequently agreed an interim contract with doctors from the Charter Medical Centre to ensure ongoing care could be provided to affected patients following the closure of the Goodwood Court practice.
The current arrangements with Charter Medical Centre, for the care of former Goodwood Court patients, are due to come to an end on 31 March 2016.
NHS England has recently written to patients and local stakeholders asking for their views which will help to inform future care for patients of Goodwood Court.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian C. Lucas on 2015-11-25.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions his Department has had with education and training providers in (a) Wrexham and (b) Cardiff on future capacity to train HM Revenue and Customs staff.
Mr David Gauke
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) announced the planned locations of its future Regional Centres based on a number of key principles that will enable it to deliver more for less. In addition to cost, HMRC has taken account of the quality of local transport links, the local labour market and future workforce supply, and the need to retain the staff and skills it requires to continue its transformation. These changes will reduce HMRC’s estates costs by around £100 million a year by 2025.
HMRC estimates that Liverpool will be home to between 2,800 and 3,100 full time equivalent employees. Consolidation into the Regional Centre is expected to begin in 2019-20. HMRC plans to open the Regional Centre in Cardiff in 2019-20. It is likely that the office at Plas Gororau in Wrexham will close in 2020-21. HMRC will be holding one-to-one discussions with each of its people to discuss the next steps.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2016-01-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the effect of the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive 2000 on how floods have been controlled in the UK.
Rory Stewart
Implementation of the Water Framework Directive is devolved within the UK.
Implementation of the Directive promotes, through river basin planning, an integrated approach to managing water and promotes local decisions in catchments to take account of the particular circumstances. Where parts of rivers are managed for certain uses (including flood protection), they are formally designated as ‘heavily modified’ and the management of those rivers must take account of those uses. In England, 1,105 of 3,767 rivers are designated as heavily modified; 781 of them because of their important role in providing flood protection.
Many of the actions needed to protect and improve the quality of the water environment (for instance restoring peat land, wetland creation and sustainable management of soils) also help to reduce flooding. The Directive also promotes sustainable flood risk prevention and flood management schemes. Consideration of natural flood management measures to slow, store and filter flood water can deliver additional social and environmental benefits when used along with traditional hard defences, and can increase resilience of communities to extreme events, both floods and drought. The ‘Slowing the Flow’ project in Pickering is an example of this.