Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Baroness Helic – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Baroness Helic – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Helic on 2016-09-05.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Locarno Group was last convened.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    The Locarno Group was formed in 2011. It consists of former senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials and functions as a high-level advisory group for the Foreign Secretary – offering strategic support and challenge on foreign policy issues.

    The Locarno Group has met formally on eight occasions, most recently on 26 January 2015.

  • Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Anne-Marie Trevelyan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anne-Marie Trevelyan on 2016-10-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the annual cost to the public purse is of sponsoring students at Wellbeck Defence Sixth Form.

    Mark Lancaster

    The total annual cost to the public purse of sponsoring students at Wellbeck Defence Sixth Form College is £13million.

  • Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to promote Small Business Saturday.

    Anna Soubry

    The Department is fully supportive of the Small Business Saturday campaign and recognises the role it plays in highlighting the importance of small businesses to their local area and the UK as a whole.

    This is the third year we have worked with Small Business Saturday. I attended the UK campaign launch event on July 16th and support is being co-ordinated across government to further promote the campaign in the run up to December 5th.

  • Michael Tomlinson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Michael Tomlinson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Tomlinson on 2015-12-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent steps his Department has taken to help councils to house refugees.

    Richard Harrington

    Those who have been granted refugee status or humanitarian protection must qualify under local rules set by the relevant local authority and have sufficient priority under the local authority’s allocation scheme to be eligible for social housing, just as anyone else.

    At the Spending Review the Government committed £129 million to assist with local authority costs over years 2-5 for those local authorities who are resettlling refugees under the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme. This is unringfenced funding and it will be for local authorities to decide how to use the funding to support the refugees they resettle.

  • Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Gregory Campbell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2016-01-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department plans to take in 2016 to ensure that young people under 16 understand road safety issues from the perspectives of pedestrians, cyclists and car users.

    Andrew Jones

    THINK! supports pedestrian road safety education though engaging intermediaries – e.g. teachers, road safety professionals & parents – who are able to deliver road safety messages using free resources, to children and teenagers in a credible and impactful way. THINK! is reviewing their education offer in order to ensure materials and road safety messages are up-to-date and relevant for the current generation.

    THINK! is also working closely with partners at the RAC and the Scouts Association to develop road safety resources for out-of-school groups, to ensure road safety is continued to be taught in and outside the classroom.

    The Department is providing £50 million over the next four years to support Bikeability cycle training in schools in England (outside London). This funding will help to increase children’s road awareness, encourage active travel and improve future motorists’ empathy for more vulnerable road users.

  • Angela Rayner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Angela Rayner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angela Rayner on 2016-02-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure cost transparency from pooled retail pension funds.

    Justin Tomlinson

    It is important that savers know what costs and charges they are paying. As a first step towards achieving this, most occupational pension schemes offering money purchase benefits are now required to report the charges levied on members and, as far as they are able, transaction costs, via an annual Chair’s Statement. The Chair’s Statement, which must be given to beneficiaries and recognised trade unions on request, must also report the trustees’ view on the extent to which these costs present value for members.

    Similarly, the Financial Conduct Authority have made rules requiring Independent Governance Committees to report annually on the value for money offered by workplace personal pension schemes, taking into account scheme charges and transaction costs.

    The government is committed to ensuring that members of pension schemes are also able to obtain information about all the costs and charges which they bear. Last year, the Government and the FCA jointly carried out a call for evidence on disclosure of transaction costs in pension schemes, and we are currently planning our next steps.

    Many pension schemes which invest in pooled funds do so via institutional versions of retail funds, for which costs other than the disclosed investment management fee will be similar. Retail funds will be covered by the Packaged Retail Investment and Insurance Products (PRIIPs) Regulation, which will apply from the end of 2016 and provides for enhanced minimum standards of disclosure.

  • Derek Twigg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Derek Twigg – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Derek Twigg on 2016-03-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many agency nurses were employed by each hospital trust in Merseyside and Cheshire in each year since 2010.

    Ben Gummer

    The Department does not collect this data centrally.

  • Andrew Bridgen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Wales Office

    Andrew Bridgen – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Wales Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Bridgen on 2016-03-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, what assessment he has made of the financial accountability of government in Wales.

    Guto Bebb

    In order to become truly accountable to the people of Wales it is vital that the Welsh Government takes more responsibility for raising, through taxation, the money that it spends.

    We will, as part of the Wales Bill, remove the requirement for a referendum before the devolution of powers to vary the rates of income tax in Wales.

  • Philip Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Philip Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2016-05-04.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many and what proportion of (a) male and (b) female offenders were found guilty in (i) magistrates’ courts and (ii) Crown courts for each category of offence in the latest year for which figures are available.

    Mr Shailesh Vara

    The number of offenders found guilty at magistrates’ courts and in the Crown Courts, by offence category and sex, in England and Wales, in 2014 (the latest available), is available on the Ministry of Justice website at the below link, from which the percentage of male and female offender can be calculated.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2014

    “

  • Sarah Wollaston – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Sarah Wollaston – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-06-20.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what mechanisms he plans to put in place to ensure ministers receive impartial nursing advice after the proposed closure of the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions policy unit in his Department.

    Ben Gummer

    The Department leads the health and care system in England, working closely with a range of organisations on whose expertise it draws, including the nursing and midwifery expertise in NHS England and Public Health England. The Department’s approach to ensuring that nurses are consulted about future policies is to flexibly access professional advice from a wide range of sources, including arms-length bodies, regulators, stakeholders and professional bodies.

    The Department’s policy teams will establish new networks and relationships with stakeholders and partners and collaborate with the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) to ensure systems are in place to secure advice when developing evidence based policy. These changes do not affect the role of the CNO, who as CNO of the Department already advises, and will continue to advise all Ministers and the Department on the range of nursing and midwifery issues.

    The Department is changing the way it works to deliver its essential work for the Government while achieving efficiency savings. All of the changes we are making through the resulting DH2020 programme are being done transparently and communicated to staff.