The below Parliamentary question was asked by Vicky Foxcroft on 2015-09-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the effect of domestic violence on children.
Karen Bradley
The Government recognises the life changing impact domestic abuse can have on the lives of children. That is why we have expanded the Troubled Families Programme to reach up to an additional 400,000 families from 2015/16, including those affected by domestic abuse.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the likely change in the number of UK residents aged 100 years and over between 2015 and 2025.
Mr Rob Wilson
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2015-09-16.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to ensure remittances flow through secure and accessible channels to Somalia.
Harriett Baldwin
The Treasury has worked closely with industry and regulators to ensure that remittances continue to flow from the UK to Somalia.
The Treasury plays a leading role in the Action Group on Cross-Border Remittances, which brings together participants from industry, Government, regulators and international partners to maintain a continued dialogue on the withdrawal of banking services from the money service business sector, in order to develop a shared understanding of the expectations of all parties and help support remittance flows.
Over the past two years, the Action Group has overseen a number of initiatives to boost compliance in the Money Service Business (MSB) sector, and to give greater confidence to banks offering services to this sector:
The group has worked closely with the supervisors to develop revised guidance for the MSB sector, and for those offering banking services to the sector, including a statement from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in April 2015 clarifying the FCA’s expectations with regards to Banks’ management of money-laundering risk.
The National Crime Agency has worked collaboratively with the banking and MSB sectors to improve understanding and manage risk.
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the supervisor of MSBs, more than doubled the number of compliance visits to MSBs in 2014, and launched an e-learning product to improve MSBs’ understanding of their obligations under the Money Laundering Regulations.
Alongside this work in the UK, the Government is also supporting targeted capacity building in Somalia, delivered through the World Bank. This includes a specific focus on improving regulation of the Somali remittance sector and supporting the drafting and introduction of necessary financial crime legislation. This goes hand-in-hand with our longer term programme to support the formalisation of the financial sector in Somalia.
These actions both in the UK and Somalia are intended to safeguard the vital remittances that flow between the two countries. The Action Group continues to monitor UK-Somalia remittance corridor closely and is reassured that there is currently no evidence to date of an interruption in the flow of remittances between the UK and Somalia, or any significant increase in remittance costs. This is a resilient and responsive market and the Government remains committed to supporting it and the diaspora communities that rely on these services.
Updates on the work of the Action Group can be found on the gov.uk website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/action-group-on-cross-border-remittances
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department spent on redundancy schemes in each financial year from 2010-11 to 2014-15.
Mr Philip Dunne
The table below shows the annual costs for military and civilian Voluntary Early Release Scheme and redundancy payments for the last five financial years.
|
Financial Year |
MOD Annual Report and Accounts Figures (£million) |
|
2010-11 |
£189.22 |
|
2011-12 |
£293.79 |
|
2012-13 |
£180.82 |
|
2013-14 |
£218.72 |
|
2014-15 |
£141.68 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by MiDavies on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many confirmed cases of bovine tuberculosis there were in each of the last five years.
George Eustice
Statistics on the incidence of tuberculosis in cattle within Great Britain are published monthly on GOV.UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/incidence-of-tuberculosis-tb-in-cattle-in-great-britain.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by George Howarth on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the (a) number of people with sight loss in the UK and (b) likely number of people who will have sight loss in 2050.
Alistair Burt
The Department has made no recent estimate of the number of people with sight loss, the likely number who will have sight loss in the future, or of the costs in treating sight loss and eye health issues.
Information on the number of patients who are blind or have sight loss is not collected centrally. However information is available on the number of people who are registered by local authorities as blind or partially sighted. At March 2014, the number of people on the register of blind people was 143,000 and on the register of partially sighted people 147,700.
Registration as blind or partially sighted is voluntary so the numbers registered are likely to be an underestimate of the total number of people living with sight loss. Research funded by the Royal National Institute of Blind People, published in 20091, estimated there were almost 2 million people in the United Kingdom living with sight loss and that this number would double to 4 million by 2050.
Information is collected centrally and published on NHS expenditure on `problems of vision’ across both primary and secondary care. In the latest year for which data has been published2 for both primary and secondary care, 2012/13, primary care trust expenditure was £2.3 billion. The Department expects NHS England to commission services for eye health to meet any increased demand, as it would in any other area of healthcare. The ‘Five Year Forward View’3 sets out the vision for how services may be organised going forward.
1 http://www.rnib.org.uk/sites/default/files/FSUK_Report.pdf
2 http://www.england.nhs.uk/resources/resources-for-ccgs/prog-budgeting/
3 http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5yfv-web.pdf
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the (a) financial implications for her Department and (b) potential risks to Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) and the public of proposals to give PCSOs powers of arrest.
Mike Penning
The Home Office has no plans to give powers of arrest to police community support officers (PCSOs); we have therefore made no assessment of the consequences of making such a change.
On Wednesday 9 Septemer 2015, my Right Honourable friend the Home Secretary launched a consultation on reforming the powers of police staff and volunteers. The proposals set out in the consultation document seek to make police staff and volunteers more flexible in their roles by enabling Chief Constables to designate them with a wider range of powers, ensuring that they have the police powers necessary to do their job. The consultation also proposes a list of core powers that will be exclusively available to Constables, including Special Constables, and this list includes the power of arrest.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what procedures are in place in his Department to consider the implications of a decision by the Court of Appeal that a sentence has been unduly lenient; and what steps his Department takes in relation to the judge in the case concerned as a result of such a ruling.
Mike Penning
Whether or not a judge has correctly applied the law is a matter for the Court of Appeal alone. It is the responsibility of the Government to uphold the independence of the judiciary and that includes the judicial decision making process.
The unduly lenient scheme currently allows anyone to ask for a Government Law Officer to consider referring a sentence to the Court of Appeal for consideration that it was unduly lenient. The scheme applies to all indictable-only offences and a specified selection of either-way offences sentenced at the Crown Court.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Pritchard on 2015-09-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans his Department has to amend the Blue Badge scheme to allow badges to be awarded to those with severe cognitive disabilities.
Andrew Jones
The Disabled Persons (Badges for Motor Vehicles) (England) Regulations 2000 allow badges to be awarded to people with any permanent and substantial disability which causes inability to walk or very considerable difficulty in walking, which may include those with cognitive disabilities. The Government has no plans to amend the eligibility rules for Blue Badges.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Griffiths on 2014-06-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the total value of (a) public service contracts and (b) grants that were awarded by local authorities to voluntary sector organisations in the last year for which figures are available.
Brandon Lewis
[Holding Reply: Monday 30 June 2014]
Our most recent estimates suggest that local authorities in England gave £1.1 billion in grants to voluntary bodies in 2012-13. A further £23.9 billion was spent on public service contracts, which would include those awarded to both voluntary and private sector bodies (a breakdown between the two is not available). These figures are based on updated methodology and returns, and are not comparative to the previous figures supplied to my hon. Friend.