Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Jonathan Lord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Jonathan Lord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Lord on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect of noise from Heathrow Airport on people living in the Woking constituency; and if he will make an assessment of the potential effect of an increase in such noise as a result of the construction of a third runway.

    Mr John Hayes

    The Airports Commission shortlisted three airport expansion schemes, two at Heathrow and one at Gatwick. The Government accepted the Commission’s shortlist in December 2015 and is considering all of the evidence, including on noise, very carefully before reaching a view on its preferred scheme.

  • Ben Howlett – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Ben Howlett – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ben Howlett on 2015-11-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what timetable he proposes for legislative reform of the regulation of health care professionals.

    Ben Gummer

    This Government is grateful for the work of the Law Commissions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in reviewing the regulation of health and (in England) social care professionals.

    The Law Commissions made 125 recommendations to reform the existing complex and burdensome regulatory system. The joint four UK country response to the Law Commissions was published on 29 January 2015 which accepted wholly or in part the vast majority of its recommendations.

    The Department is currently reviewing how best to take forward the work of the Law Commissions. We hope to be able to provide an update on this work soon.

  • Lord Truscott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Lord Truscott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Truscott on 2015-12-21.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the current weekly costs of the Chilcot Inquiry.

    Lord Bridges of Headley

    The Iraq Inquiry, which is independent of Government, publishes its annual costs after the end of each financial year. The Inquiry’s costs for FY 2014/15 were £1,358,500, providing an average weekly cost in the last financial year of £26,125.

  • Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Lester of Herne Hill – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lester of Herne Hill on 2016-01-27.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 25 January (HL5200), whether they have had regard to the preaching and teaching of Wahhabism in mosques and Muslim education bodies in Britain as part of their work on their Counter-Extremism Strategy.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    We published our Counter Extremism Strategy in October 2015 which sets out a range of measures to deal with the broad challenge of extremism. We have placed a duty on specified authorities to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being radicalised.

    We consider vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values as extremist, whatever guise these are expressed under. This includes when religions are hijacked by those wishing to promote extremism. As my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in July last year “extremist ideology is not true Islam”.

    HM Government’s Counter Extremism Strategy and counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST, set out our approach to tackling the full range of factors that allow extremist and terrorist groups to grow and flourish. These include directly challenging ideologies, including those which have a theological basis.

    The Prime Minister recently commissioned a review into the funding of extremism in the UK. This will include an assessment funding that comes from overseas. The review is due to report in spring 2016.

  • Owen Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Owen Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2016-02-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in how many current Child Support Agency arrears cases there is (a) a current or ongoing liability for a child and (b) no such ongoing liability.

    Priti Patel

    As at December 2015, there were 418,300 CSA cases with a current liability and arrears and 748,600 CSA cases with no liability and arrears.

    Information on Caseload Status is set out on Page 54 of the CSA Quarterly Summary of Statistics which can be accessed online at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/child-support-agency-quarterly-summary-statistics–2

    Note

    1. Figured rounded to nearest 100.
    2. Figures include 1993 and 2003 Schemes.

    “

  • Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-03-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people had retrospective claims for winter fuel payments agreed for 2013-14.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The information requested is not collated centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

    The majority of Winter Fuel Payments are made automatically from information already held by the Department. We invite claims mainly from men under 65 who meet the eligibility criteria, as the largest group not identified and paid automatically. Claims can be made up to and including 31 March and are not accepted after that date.

  • Kate Hoey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Kate Hoey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of Disclosure and Barring Service checks took (a) longer than eight weeks, (b) 12 weeks or more and (c) six months or more in each of the last three years; and if she will make a statement.

    Karen Bradley

    The Disclosure and Barring Service is a non-departmental public body which provides access to appropriate criminal record information for employers through its disclosure service for England and Wales. It also makes independent barring decisions about people who have harmed, or where there is considered to be a risk of harm to, a child or vulnerable person within the workplace. Given the sensitive nature of this work and the reliance on police forces to provide locally held intelligence, it would not be appropriate to introduce competition.

    Whilst no assessment has been made of the affect of timeliness on the number of job opportunities which may have been lost, the impact which delays may have on applicants is recognised. The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner and is working closely with those forces whose performance does not meet turnaround time targets. In very exceptional cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant, the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the relevant police force.

    The average end to end time taken to complete a DBS check, including the time taken by police forces, is listed in following table.

    Financial Year

    Average calendar days for a disclosure to be processed

    13/14

    11.5

    14/15

    14.4

    15/16

    14.5

    The proportion of checks which took longer than (a) eight weeks (b) 12 weeks and (c) six months is listed in the following table.

    Financial Year

    Disclosures which took longer than 8 weeks

    Disclosures which took longer than 12 weeks

    Disclosures which took longer than 6 Months

    % of Disclosures

    % of Disclosures

    % of Disclosures

    13/14

    2.6%

    0.8%

    0.0%

    14/15

    4.9%

    2.1%

    0.1%

    15/16

    5.2%

    3.5%

    0.3%

    “

  • Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Maria Eagle – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2016-05-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, when his Department plans to publish the draft BBC Charter.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The government is in the process of drafting the Royal Charter and we expect to publish a draft version in the coming months.

  • Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Danny Kinahan on 2016-07-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with the Consumer Council on UK ferry operators and their pricing structures.

    Mr John Hayes

    I have held no such recent discussions. The level of charges on ferries across the Irish Sea is a commercial matter for the companies concerned, subject to normal competition law.

  • Andrew Stephenson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Andrew Stephenson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Stephenson on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to (a) educate bus passengers about over-staging and (b) help them to report cases of over-staging.

    Andrew Jones

    The destination printed on a bus ticket should not have any effect on the amount of reimbursement that the bus operator receives for carrying concessionary passengers.

    This is because reimbursement paid to operators is not based on the full commercial adult fare for a typical journey, but on the average equivalent full fare – taken from a “basket of fares” – that each concessionary traveller would have paid in the absence of the scheme.

    Reimbursement payments are also subject to audits of ticket sales data and, if required, ‘on-bus’ surveys of patronage.