The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-10-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent representations she has received from the National Union of Teachers on the effect of children’s centre closures.
Caroline Dinenage
We have no record of having recently received representations from the National Union of Teachers on the effect of children’s centre closures.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2015-10-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to support and promote the (a) use and (b) continued production and purchase of existing off-patent drugs.
George Freeman
Existing arrangements allow patients to access the medicines which are appropriate for their care, including off-patent drugs. Doctors may prescribe any drug, whether within the terms of its license or not, where it best meets the individual clinical needs of a patient. Medicines are already prescribed legally, safely and appropriately outside their licensed indications to large numbers of National Health Service patients.
The Department works closely with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, NHS England, the pharmaceutical industry and others in the supply chain to help ensure continuity in the supply of medicines to patients.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2015-11-25.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many complaints about Concentrix HM Revenue and Customs received from tax credit claimants in the last financial year.
Mr David Gauke
HM Revenue and Customs received 159 complaints about Concentrix from tax credit customers during the last financial tax year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Christian Matheson on 2016-01-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what initial assessment she has made of the implications of the incident at Porter Ranch, California, for safety and engineering procedures and standards in the UK onshore unconventional gas extraction sector.
Andrea Leadsom
In the UK, we have an entirely different regulatory system to the US.
We have over 50 years of experience in safely conducting surface activities and constructing onshore gas wells, regulated by the Health & Safety Executive and Environment Agency.
Our tough regulations ensure on-site safety, prevent water contamination, mitigate seismic activity and air pollution. To reinforce our already robust regulations, the Infrastructure Act 2015 introduced a range of further requirements that must be met before an operator can carry out hydraulic fracturing in a responsible, sustainable and safe manner. These include the assessment of environmental impacts, groundwater monitoring, community benefits and prohibiting hydraulic fracturing in specified protected areas.
The UK has one of the best track records in the world when it comes to protecting our environment while also developing our industries – and we’ve brought that experience to bear on the shale gas protections.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2016-02-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2016 to Question 23665, in which 33 different languages his Department has Operational Level (C1) examination pass speakers employed in the last five years up to the end of 2015.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
Records show that up until the end of 2015, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had officers with a C1 pass in the following languages:
Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Czech, Dari, Dutch, Farsi, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Mandarin, Pashtu, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese.
The FCO Language Centre was re-opened in September 2013 to renew the focus and investment in languages as a core diplomatic skill to ensure that we get the right people with the right skills in the right jobs to deliver our foreign policy objectives. The Language Centre gives us a strong platform to grow our language skills as an organisation and develop a pipeline of talent to fill language slots on a continuous basis.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gerald Kaufman on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when he intends to answer the letter to him dated 12 January 2016 from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton, with regard to Ms S Lyons.
Justin Tomlinson
Our records show that this correspondence, regarding the overpayment of Tax Credits, was transferred to Ministerial colleagues at HM Treasury on 26 January 2016.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-03-21.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much central government infrastructure investment was in each region of the UK since 2010.
Greg Hands
Historic data for regional infrastructure investment by government is not currently available. However historical capital expenditure figures including government’s infrastructure investment can be obtained from the following link :
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/country-and-regional-analysis-2015
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Northbourne on 2016-04-27.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of whether their proposal to change the status of all secondary schools in England to academies would mean that maintained schools no longer have an obligation to deliver sex and relationship education.
Lord Nash
Maintained secondary schools must continue to meet their existing statutory duties. All maintained secondary schools are required to teach sex and relationship education and we expect academies to teach it as part of a broad and balanced curriculum.
As announced in February, we will continue to keep the status of PSHE under review and work with a group of leading headteachers and practitioners to identify further action we can take to ensure that all pupils receive high quality, age appropriate PSHE and sex and relationship education.
When any school, including academies, teaches sex and relationship education, they must have regard to the Secretary of State’s statutory Sex and Relationship Education Guidance (2000). The guidance makes clear that all such lessons should be age-appropriate and that schools should ensure young people develop positive values and a moral framework that will guide their decisions, judgments and behaviour.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-06-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department has issued to parents on recommended amounts of sleep for children.
Jane Ellison
NHS Choices provides guidance for parents on the amounts of sleep for children at different ages as well as advice and support for parents and children about sleep hygiene. There is no national guidance on evidence-based recommended sleep duration for children because of the significant variation between children and the focus of advice to parents is on good bedtime routines and how to prevent and respond to common sleep problems.
The Start4Life Information Service for Parents includes advice on how to ease babies into good sleeping habits and dealing with common sleep problems. Content for the service is regularly updated and Public Health England (PHE) will continue to address the issue of sleep in children under five via the Start4Life Information Service for Parents.
PHE has also developed specific advice resources on sleep issues for children and young people with the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the MindEd programme.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Lammy on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what budget his Department has set for paying staff (a) on secondment from external companies and (b) engaged as external contractors or consultants for each year from 2016 to 2020.
Mr David Jones
The new Department for Exiting the European Union is properly resourced. Detailed work is underway to establish the final budget required to fulfill the Department’s functions, set-up and responsibilities. This budget will be voted on by Parliament at the Supplementary Estimate.