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Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Philip Davies – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Philip Davies – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the marginal cost was of one extra prisoner being accommodated in each prison in England and Wales when each prison is functioning at its operational capacity in the latest period for which figures are available.

    Jeremy Wright

    The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) does not have information on the marginal cost of a prisoner for each prison. The calculation of a marginal cost would normally apply where a permanent change to a prison’s operational capacity is taking place.

    Prisons are not expected to operate above their operational capacity and ensuring that this capacity is set to reflect the provision of safe and decent accommodation and the operation of suitable regimes ensures that levels of crowding in prisons are carefully managed.

    Sensible measures have been taken to ensure that we have sufficient capacity to deal with any temporary increases in population. These include creating additional places in prisons in a safe and decent way and ensuring that prisons reflect the needs of the current population. Any short term increases in capacity will only be those sites where additional prisoners can be safely and decently accommodated and where a senior prison manager has certified that the additional prisoners will be held in safe, secure and decent accommodation.

    We will end this Parliament with more adult male prison places than we inherited, more hours of work in prisons than we inherited, more education for young detainees than we inherited and a more modern, cost effective prison estate than we inherited.

  • Chris Bryant – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Scotland Office

    Chris Bryant – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Scotland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Bryant on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, if he will estimate the cost to the public purse of extending entitlement to court fees exemptions to all claimants of universal credit once universal credit has been fully rolled out in Scotland.

    David Mundell

    The Scottish Government is responsible for defining the entitlement criteria for these passported benefits. They will need to consider the current eligibility criteria and make arrangements to ensure that they can continue to deliver these benefits as Universal Credit is introduced.

    There is ongoing engagement between the Scottish Government and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that any solution is simple, fair, easy to understand and affordable.

  • Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission

    Chris Ruane – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, what the postal vote matching rates were during the data matching dry run in each (a) local authority area and (b) constituency in the UK.

    Mr Gary Streeter

    The Electoral Commission informs me that the data for local authorities is available on its website here: http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/excel_doc/0020/163145/Confirmation-dry-run-2013-Results-Local-Authority.xls

    The Commission does not hold the data in a way that is broken down by constituency.

    “

  • Eilidh Whiteford – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Eilidh Whiteford – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Eilidh Whiteford on 2014-06-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the statement by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, giving evidence to the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee on 26 June 2014, that ‘there isn’t any doubt that there are some people who’ve gone to foodbanks because they have been subject, for example, to sanctions or delays in receiving benefits’.

    Esther McVey

    The evidence David Mundell, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland provided to the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee on the 26 June highlighted the underlying complexity to the use of foodbanks.

    The Government has already commissioned a report on food security by Warwick University, which was published in February 2014. The Government has no immediate plans to produce or commission further research, but will keep this under review.

    Benefit clearance times are steadily improving with 92% of benefits being processed on time (within 16 days) nationally which is 6 percentage points higher than in 2009/10.

    We have in place a robust system of safeguards that seek to ensure sanctions are only applied to those claimants who wilfully fail to meet their requirements. It remains the case that the vast majority of claimants do comply and are not sanctioned – each month only around 5% of JSA claimants are sanctioned and fewer than 1% of ESA claimants. Reduced payments are made where necessary to prevent hardship.

  • Graham Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Graham Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graham Jones on 2014-06-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many hydraulic fracturing licences are pending approval in (a) England, (b) Lancashire and (c) Hyndburn constituency.

    Michael Fallon

    There is no “hydraulic fracturing licence”. DECC issues Petroleum Exploration and Development Licences (PEDLs). However, PEDLs are not specific to shale gas and do not give permission for operations, but grant exclusivity to licensees in relation to hydrocarbons (including shale gas but also other forms) within a particular area. All operations, such as drilling, hydraulic fracturing or production, however require planning permission, and applications are subject to public consultation. They also require access agreement with relevant landowner(s), Environment Agency permits, HSE scrutiny, and DECC consent before operations can commence. DECC is not currently considering any applications for hydraulic fracturing in the UK.

  • Andrew Turner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Andrew Turner – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Turner on 2014-06-25.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent steps he has taken to support businesses with five or fewer staff.

    Mr David Gauke

    The Government’s long term economic plan is backing small businesses as they set up and grow. As part of this plan we are cutting taxes and reducing red tape to help businesses. In particular, the Employment Allowance was introduced in April 2014, and allows businesses and charities throughout the UK to deduct up to £2,000 off their employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) bill each year. Over 60% of the total benefit of the policy is expected to go to businesses with fewer than 10 employees, and a business employing three people on the median full-time private sector wage of £25,800 in 2014-15 will see their typical NICs bill cut by over 25 per cent.

    In addition, Autumn Statement 2013 announced the extension of the Small Business Rate Relief until April 2015, taking 350,000 small businesses out of business rates.

    The British Business Bank was launched in October 2013 to make finance markets work better for small firms, allowing them to prosper, grow and support the UK economy. Over the next five years, the Bank aims to unlock up to £10 billion of financing for viable smaller businesses. Business Bank programmes facilitated a total of £782m of new lending and investment in the fiscal year 2013/14, to over 30,000 businesses. This represents more than a doubling of activity on the previous year. The Business Bank also supported £100m of new Venture Capital investment in 2013/14. StartUp Loans is a £322m scheme to help individuals to access finance and support to start a business. Over 18,000 loans totalling more than £90m have been made since the launch in April 2012.

    These measures are all part of our economic plan that is building a stronger, more competitive economy.

  • Hilary Benn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Hilary Benn – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2015-01-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assistance has been (a) requested from or (b) offered by his Department to South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils following the fire at their offices in Crowmarsh Gifford.

    Penny Mordaunt

    Following the fire at the council offices on 15 January local business continuity arrangements were immediately put into place. Telephone calls were made to Councillor John Cotton, leader of South Oxfordshire District Council, and Councillor Ian Hudspeth, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, on the day to offer support and no central government assistance was requested. I would like to pay tribute to Oxfordshire County Council’s Fire and Rescue Service, and to neighbouring fire and rescue services that supported them, for their response to this incident, and to council officials who have maintained essential council services. Officials from Fire, Resilience and Emergencies Directorate have been in contact with Oxfordshire’s Chief Fire Officer, Dave Etheridge.

  • Caroline Flint – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Caroline Flint – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Flint on 2015-01-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, with reference to page 45 of his Department’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2012-13, what proportion of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s budget was spent on decommissioning and cleaning up nuclear plants in (a) 2012-13 and (b) 2013-14.

    Matthew Hancock

    As defined for the purposes of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Annual Report and Accounts, the proportion of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s expenditure through its Site Licence Companies that was used for decommissioning was 35% in both 2012-13 and 2013-14. The remainder of this budget was spent on waste and nuclear materials management, commercial operations and support costs.

  • Naomi Long – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Naomi Long – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Naomi Long on 2015-01-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whether it remains her policy that the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry chaired by Sir Anthony Hart is the most appropriate place where all allegations surrounding Kincora should be examined.

    Mrs Theresa Villiers

    It remains my view that the Inquiry chaired by Sir Anthony Hart is the best forum to consider the allegations surrounding Kincora.

  • Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Stephen Timms – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-01-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what conclusions about effective approaches to universal credit in work conditionality he has drawn from the labour market trials which started between May 2013 and January 2014; and if he will make a statement.

    Esther McVey

    The purpose of the initial Jobcentre Plus-led trials tested within Jobcentre Plus were to help inform and shape the design of larger-scale Randomised Controlled Trials that we plan to run in Universal Credit from April 2015, from which conclusions about effective in-work support will start to be drawn.