Tag: Parliamentary Question

Luciana Berger – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what (a) amount and (b) proportion of Public Health England’s marketing budget has been allocated to each of the six Big Ambitions referred to in its 2014-15 business plan.

Jane Ellison

The core Public Health England (PHE) marketing budget for 2014-15 is £53 million. The allocation to each of the six big ambition areas is as follows:

Ambition	Campaign	Budget for 2014-15	Percentage of total budget
Tobacco	Smokefree	£11,689,200	21.72
Obesity	Change 4 Life	£9,360,000	17.39
Dementia	Vascular dementia programme and dementia friends	£5,460,000	10.14
Best start in life	Start4Life and Information Service for Parents	£3,450,000	6.41
Alcohol	Alcohol	£2,000,000	3.72
Tuberculosis (TB)		£0	0.0
		£31,959,200	59.38

The current assessment of the evidence shows that a national marketing campaign on TB would not be a cost effective investment so there is no marketing budget allocation to this ambition area.

In addition to the individual campaign costs stated above an additional £3.3 million is also spent on call centres and £2.6 million is also spent on infrastructure costs such as evaluation. The final budget will be subject to clearance by the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group.

PHE’s 2014-15 Marketing strategy is due for publication in early July and will provide more detailed information on the full marketing programme.

November 1, 2022

Andrew Percy – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the level of illegal use of cellular devices in UK prisons; and if he will make a statement.

Jeremy Wright

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) takes the issue of mobile phones in prisons very seriously and is committed to addressing the risks they present to both the security of prisons and the safety of the public.

NOMS has implemented a multi-layer approach: to minimise the number of mobile phones entering prisons, to find phones that do get in and to disrupt mobile phones that cannot be found. A range of technology has been rolled out to prisons to strengthen searching and security, including portable mobile phone signal detectors, Body Orifice Security Scanners (BOSS chairs), high sensitivity metal detecting wands and short range portable mobile phone blockers.

In 2012 prisons reported 7,301 seizures* of mobile phones and/or SIM cards. All figures provided have been drawn from live administrative data systems which may be amended at any time. Although care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.

*One seizure may constitute a handset containing one SIM card or media card, a handset only, or a SIM card only.

November 1, 2022
Iain McKenzie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Iain McKenzie on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to reimburse people who have had to pay to upgrade to the premium one-day service to secure a (a) new or (b) renewed passport; and if she will make a statement.

James Brokenshire

There are no plans to reimburse customers who choose to use the four hour
premium service.

On 12 June, the Home Secretary announced in the House of Commons that where
people have an urgent need to travel, and their application has been with Her
Majesty’s Passport Office for longer than the standard processing time of three weeks
through no fault of their own, they will be able to upgrade their application
without charge. After their application has been through the proper checks, the
processing, printing and delivery of the new passport will be fast-tracked for
free. To qualify, customers must be booked to travel within the next 7 days.
Customers will be asked to provide details – such as flight numbers and the
name of the travel company – to confirm their travel plans.

This policy came into effect immediately after being announced and will be
available until further notice. This policy will not be applied
retrospectively.

November 1, 2022
Charlotte Leslie – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department takes into account the differences in the positions of men and women in preparing for retirement when devising its policy on pensions.

Steve Webb

Yes. The Department for Work and Pensions is committed to fully meeting our legal obligations under the Public Sector Equality Duty, which is part of the Equality Act 2010. We have embedded equality analysis into the processes we use to develop, deliver and evaluate our policies, practices and services. This ensures that we continue to assess the likely and actual effects of what we do on people with protected characteristics to help inform our decision making processes.

November 1, 2022
Julian Huppert – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julian Huppert on 2014-06-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department takes to ensure that asylum seekers in COMPASS accommodation are able to register complaints quickly and easily.

Karen Bradley

The COMPASS contracts lay down requirements for the management of enquiries and
complaints received in respect of accommodation services provided to asylum
seekers.

COMPASS providers have a complaints service in place through which the asylum
seeker, their representative, the voluntary sector or local authorities can
raise concerns or issues direct. Providers also provide asylum seekers with a
detailed briefing on how they can raise a complaint as part of the move in
process. Asylum seekers can raise a complaint in a confidential way, and with
the assistance of an interpreter when required.

The complaints process is subject to performance management under the Key
Performance Indicators regime. Providers are required to report their
performance in terms of dealing with complaints on a monthly basis. In
addition, the Home Office has a team of 17 contract compliance officers who
also closely monitor complaints made to providers or made direct to the Home
Office as part of their contract compliance and assurance role.

Any failure of the critical service levels may result in financial penalties.

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 many full time equivalent prison officers were employed and how many such staff were off sick at HM Prison Northumberland on Saturday 29 March 2014.

Jeremy Wright

The information requested could not be obtained within the timescale. I will write to the Member in due course.

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, on what earliest date a still unresolved investigation by the Claims Management Regulation Unit under regulation 35 of the Compensation (Claims Management Services) Regulations 2006 was begun; and on what earliest date such an investigation was begun but no proceedings have yet commenced.

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 many acts of prisoner on prisoner violence there have been in HM Prison High Down in each month since September 2013.

Jeremy Wright

The number of assaults on staff and prisoner on prisoner assaults at HMP High Down between September 2013 and December 2013 can be found in Table 1. The monthly figures between September 2013 and December 2013 are broadly in line with the average number of assaults at HMP High Down over the last 5 years. Assault statistics by establishment are published annually in April with the latest statistics published covering up to 2013.

There are many factors that can drive changes in the number of assaults at individual establishments from one month to the next, including changes in admissions rates and composition of the prison population. Short-term monthly figures do not give a good indication of trends, and a view over a long time period should be taken when considering trends.

Table 1: Number of assaults, HMP High Down, September 2013 to December 2013

September

October

November

December

Assaults on staff

2

3

3

5

Prisoner on prisoner assaults (including fights)

19

11

12

8

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, how many child victims and witnesses have given evidence from a remote site in each of the last five years.

Damian Green

We must do everything we can to support child witnesses and help them give their best possible evidence to bring offenders to justice.

The department does not hold data on the number of child victim and witnesses that use video links to give evidence (either a court building, or from a remote site).

The list below sets out the number of courthouses in each of the seven HMCTS Regions in England & Wales; criminal justice is a devolved matter for Scotland and Northern Ireland. These facilities enable any victim or witness to appear by video link from a different court location to that of the trial court; it is also possible for third party users to access the court system through a secure bridge.

HMCTS Region	Number of courthouses enabled for remote video link.
Wales	22
London	32
South East	52
South West	35
Midlands	40
North West	31
North East	37
Total	249

November 1, 2022

Emma Lewell-Buck – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emma Lewell-Buck on 2014-04-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether he has (a) discussed with and (b) received any representations from the Fire Brigades Union regarding the adoption of a firefighters’ pension scheme which would allow members to retire on the basis of length of service rather than age.

Brandon Lewis

The Government is reforming all public service pension schemes to ensure that they remain fair to workers and sustainable for taxpayers. The transitional protection arrangements for the firefighters’ pension schemes are set out in the Proposed Final Agreement which was published in May 2012. The transitional protections use age to calculate a member’s entitlement to protection. More firefighters are protected from changes than any other large public service workforce.

There has been recent correspondence with the Fire Brigades Union on the scope and timing of discussions on this issue. Copies of this correspondence can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firefighters-pension-scheme-reforms.

“

November 1, 2022

	September	October	November	December
Assaults on staff	2	3	3	5
Prisoner on prisoner assaults (including fights)	19	11	12	8