Tag: Parliamentary Question

Angus Robertson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angus Robertson on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, who authorises the public release of photographs of aircraft that are intercepted during Quick Reaction Alert flights.

Mr Mark Francois

Photographs are routinely taken during Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) interceptions. There is strong public and media interest in the RAF Quick Reaction Alert deterrent capability. MOD policy is to release a limited amount of non-sensitive information on QRA launches, sometimes including photographs. This provides the public with strong examples of how the RAF is able to respond to this kind of incident. It also provides public awareness of the RAF’s ability to defend the UK through the effectiveness of its air defences and to maintain the full deterrence value of the QRA mission. Media enquiries regarding QRA launches also often include requests for photographs.

Consequently, RAF Operations Staffs in coordination with MOD officials, including the MOD Directorate of Media and Communications, will occasionally consider these photographs for public release.

Photographs of a recent QRA mission were released on 25 April 2014. The previous release of photographs of intercepted aircraft from a recent mission was in March 2010; additionally for other QRA information releases in the last three years, MOD have utilised stock images from the Defence Image Library.

November 1, 2022
Yasmin Qureshi – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Yasmin Qureshi on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if his Department will assess the achievements of Kidney Research UK’s Peer Educator model to support sign-up to the NHS Organ Donor Register in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities; and if his Department will take steps to support rollout of Kidney Research UK’s Peer Educator model across the UK.

Jane Ellison

The Department, as part of its support for the National Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Transplant Alliance, is funding Kidney Research UK to run a Peer Educator Project to raise awareness of the lack of donors and increase the numbers on the organ and bone marrow/stem cell registers within the Pakistani Muslim community in Birmingham. Subject to Parliamentary business, the project will be officially launched by the Public Health Minister on 26 June 2014 and will build upon the success of an earlier Department funded Peer Educator project. The project will be fully evaluated and further lessons learned will be used to inform the roll out of any future Peer Educator projects in other BAME locations across the country.

November 1, 2022
Ian Lavery – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Lavery on 2014-04-29.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will place in the Library a copy of the business case for the outsourcing of compliance checks on tax credits claims.

Nicky Morgan

From April to July 2013, HMRC carried out a trial to test whether it would be feasible to increase the number of compliance checks on tax credits claims, through the use of private sector resource. HMRC will publish the evaluation of the trial and the customer research report in due course.

It is not appropriate to place the business case in the public domain given the commercial sensitivities and the risk of prejudice to HMRC’s ability to tackle tax credits error and fraud.

In terms of the external costs of the trial, I refer the Hon Member to the Thirty-Fourth Report of the Committee of Public Accounts [2013/14] into HMRC Tax Collection: Annual Report & Accounts 2012–13, which may be found at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubacc/666/66602.htm. All internal HMRC operating costs are published annually in the HMRC Annual Report and Accounts.

“

November 1, 2022
Jim Shannon – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with NHS trusts on the prescription of medicines for psoriasis.

Norman Lamb

We have had no such discussions.

Information on the prescription of medicines for psoriasis is available from a range of sources including the British National Formulary, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and NHS Choices.

November 1, 2022
Charlotte Leslie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Charlotte Leslie on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information patients are entitled to as to whether a medical operation will be undertaken by a fully surgically qualified member of staff.

Dr Daniel Poulter

It is the responsibility of the individual National Health Service trust or NHS foundation trusts to ensure that patients are treated by suitably qualified staff.

The Department encourages patients to make an informed decision before having medical operations. As part of this, patients can ask to have information on the clinical staff that will be conducting any medical operation and the Department would expect that the trust should provide this information to them.

The NHS Constitution sets out patients’ rights when using NHS services, these include:

– The right to be treated with a professional standard of care, by appropriately qualified and experienced staff, in a properly approved or registered organisation that meets required levels of safety and quality; and

– The right to be involved in discussions and decisions about your health and care, including your end of life care, and to be given information to enable you to do this. Where appropriate this right includes your family and carers.

One of the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) core 16 quality and safety standards, is that providers must ensure that those carrying on a regulated activity, such as medical operations, must have the qualifications, skills and experience necessary for the work to be performed. The CQC can take action against healthcare providers if they are concerned about them employing inappropriately qualified staff.

In addition, the General Medical Council (GMC) holds the central registers of doctors’ qualifications. The medical register shows who is properly qualified to practice medicine, whilst the specialist register shows doctors who have completed specialist training, including surgical training. Patients may visit the GMC website to search the Medical Register online.

On patient consent, the GMC’s guidance, Consent: patients and doctors making decisions together states patients must be provided with the information they have requested on:

“the people who will be mainly responsible for and involved in their care, what their roles are, and to what extent students may be involved.”

This means that as part of the consent process, doctors are expected to give honest answers to any questions from patients, including questions about their qualifications to carry out the particular procedure in question. This is specifically expressed in the GMC’s document, Good Medical Practice, paragraph 66, where it says“You must always be honest about your experience, qualifications and current role.”

November 1, 2022
Gregory Campbell – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whether invoices for legal or other work carried out in connection with the Savile Inquiry have been submitted for payment since January 2013.

Mrs Theresa Villiers

No invoices have been submitted for payment in respect of legal work in connection with the Saville Inquiry. An invoice was submitted in March 2013 for hosting of the Inquiry website.

November 1, 2022
Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what additional staffing requirements will arise in HM Prison Hull and HM Prison Chelmsford from the re-opening of closed wings; what the cost of this re-opening will be; and where any additional staff be sourced from.

Jeremy Wright

We will always have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts and continue to modernise the prison estate so that it delivers best value for the taxpayer

This Government has a long term strategy for managing the prison estate. We will have increased the adult male prison capacity so that we have more places than we inherited from the previous Government.

The retention of significant spare prison capacity over and above what is required is expensive and cannot be justified given the current financial climate. The mothballing of spare capacity at HM Prisons Chelmsford and Hull saved the taxpayer £3.6m in the financial year 2013-14. This compares to the significantly lower cost of maintaining this accommodation on a mothballed basis, so that it could be reactivated if necessary.

We have reviewed the refurbishment requirements at both sites and believe that, with minor investment, they can now be reopened on a contingency basis without carrying out a full refurbishment. These costs are anticipated to be around £132k by the time they have reopened. From the end of March to date, around £12k has been spent on Chelmsford, and around £107k has been spent on Hull.

The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Hull is around 65 members of staff – of which approximately 40 are uniformed. The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Chelmsford is around 30 members of staff – of which approximately 20 are uniformed grades. This means we are able to create additional places at an average cost of £7k per place (subject to final benchmarking review), as opposed to the average cost of a prison per place of £26,139.

The staffing requirement will initially be met by short term detached duty from other prisons, before looking to redeploy staff permanently where surpluses exist – and if necessary through external recruitment.

Subject to certification, Hull will create 282 places and Chelmsford 148 places, with prisoners due to start arriving this summer.

The reactivation of these places is a prudent and good value for money response to an increased prison population. Under the previous administration, police and court cells were turned into temporary prisons, with over 50,000 prisoners held in these cells in 2007-08 alone.

November 1, 2022
David Nuttall – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Nuttall on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many investigations are being carried out by the Claims Management Regulation Unit under regulation 35 of the Compensation (Claims Management Services) Regulations 2006.

Mr Shailesh Vara

The CMR Unit aims to conduct all investigations in a proportionate and efficient manner. This means determining as quickly as possible whether a CMC under investigation is in breach of the conditions of its authorisation. If following an investigation it is clear that those conditions have been breached and there is a public protection issue, any proposed enforcement action will be expedited.

(1) 6 June 2013 was the earliest date from when the Claims Management Regulation (CMR) Unit began an investigation under regulation 35, which remains unresolved but no enforcement proceedings have yet commenced.

(2) Information is available for the period, 12 months to 18 June 2014. The CMR Unit conducted 46 investigations under regulation 35, which took an average of 5 months, 21 days before enforcement proceedings were taken, and an average of 2 months, 8 days before being closed without the requirement for enforcement proceedings.

(3) As at 18 June 2014, the CMR Unit was investigating 24 CMCs under regulation 35.

November 1, 2022

Sadiq Khan – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much has been spent purchasing additional prison places from existing privately run prisons in each month since 1 January 2014; from which prisons such additional spaces have been purchased; how many additional spaces were agreed; for how long each such additional space has been purchased for; and what the cost was for each space agreed.

Jeremy Wright

The Ministry of Justice has purchased the following Additional Prisoner Places (APPs) in existing privately run prisons since February 2014.

We are unable to provide the cost of APPs at each prison as this information is commercially sensitive.

We have presented the information below setting out at which prisons the APPs have been purchased since February 2014, and the duration of these places.

Prison	Number Places	Duration
Altcourse	100	11 months
Dovegate	73	11 months
Forest Bank	96	11 months
Lowdham Grange	32	6 months
Peterborough (male only)	48	6 months
Parc	63	9 months

Total Number of Places	412

November 1, 2022

Yasmin Qureshi – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Yasmin Qureshi on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what representations he has received from (a) charities, (b) hon. Members and (c) other individuals on the provisions available to support child victims and witnesses.

Damian Green

My Department from time to time receives representations about provisions to support child victims and witnesses. In recent months, my officials have held discussions with NSPCC and Barnardo’s on the subject, and a number of honourable Members and members of the public have written to Ministers.

November 1, 2022