The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prisoners have requested chemical castration in each of the last five years.
Jeremy Wright
The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and NHS England do not provide for chemical castration of prisoners.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of young people participating in the Youth Contract have been offered permanent employment by their employer once they have completed their placement since the commencement of that programme.
Esther McVey
From April 2012 to November 2013 there have been 99,640 18-24 year olds who have started a work experience placement and 41,360 18-24 year olds who have started Sector based work academy pre-employment training. [Youth Contract official statistics: February 2014]Research found that 22% of WE participants who completed their placement were offered a job by placement organisers (from a base of 824 survey respondents who completed placement).
42% of sbwa participants who had a placement and completed it were offered a job by their placement organiser (from a base of 126 who completed a placement).
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether he has carried out an equalities impact assessment of the changes to disabled students’ allowances which were announced on 7 April 2014.
Mr David Willetts
The announced changes to Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) will be subject to a full equality analysis to determine the impact of these changes on students with protected characteristics. The equality analysis will be given full consideration before regulations are laid before the House.
These changes will apply to all full-time, full-time distance learning, part-time and postgraduate students in higher education applying for DSA for the first time from the 2015/16 academic year. DSAs are not available to further education students, as the Government provides Learning Support funding to further education colleges and providers to help meet the additional needs of learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Katy Clark on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will support the introduction of legislation at EU level to ensure that pay between assignment contracts does not result in agency workers being paid a lower wage than other employees.
Jenny Willott
There are no proposals for change to the relevant legislation on agency workers at EU level at this stage.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graeme Morrice on 2014-04-25.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department has any plans to end the employee trade union membership dues check-off system.
Andrea Leadsom
In HM Treasury these arrangements are kept under review.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mary Macleod on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent representations he has received on the potential merits of extending the Right to Acquire to homes built before 1997.
Kris Hopkins
My Department has received a number of recent representations from individual housing association tenants to extend the Right to Acquire to homes built before 1997, to enable them to buy the home in which they currently live.
The Right to Acquire is offered on a different basis to the Right to Buy, including the level of discount, to reflect the different tenancy and type of landlord. Housing association properties which were not part of a stock transfer have been provided through various forms of finance, including private money. However, the Government is committed to keeping the policy under review and we are open to further representations on this matter.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jack Lopresti on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to ensure that mortgage lenders are aware of the Armed Forces Help to Buy scheme.
Mr Philip Dunne
As announced by the Secretary of State for Defence in September 2013, the Forces Help to Buy scheme was launched on 1 April 2014. The Department has worked closely with the Council of Mortgage Lenders throughout the development and roll-out of the scheme. There have also been consultations with a range of other bodies, such as the Building Societies Association, the Association of Mortgage Intermediaries and the Financial Conduct Authority, as well as with individual mortgage lenders.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sharon Hodgson on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he is taking to improve the rate of return of Children and Families Court Advisory and Support Service satisfaction surveys by children between the ages of five and eight.
Simon Hughes
Cafcass does not carry out satisfaction surveys with the children it works with. They have other child-friendly ways of gaining feedback from children, which does include a feedback form. They have different versions of the form for children and young people. One encourages young people to write out their feedback to Cafcass in response to various questions, while the feedback form for younger children asks them to circle the feelings and emotions they have about Cafcass. These are therefore qualitative rather than quantitative. This feedback is collected and acted on at a local level rather than a national one. Complaints are monitored at a national level but addressed at the local level.
Cafcass does not provide a return to the UK Statistics Authority; however they have published anonymised comments from feedback forms as part of their Annual Reports to draw out their direct work with children.
Cafcass commissioned the Family Justice Young People’s Board to review the means by which Cafcass encourages feedback from the children and young people it works with. This review resulted in four recommendations which Cafcass has taken forward including ‘feedback trees’ and changes to the feedback forms.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has assessed the comparative sustainability of sourced materials and manufacture of smart phones from (a) Apple, (b) Fairphone, (c) Huawei, (d) Lenovo, (e) LG Electornics, (f) Nokia and (g) Samsung in its role in promoting sustainable procurement policies across Government.
Dan Rogerson
Defra has not undertaken a comparative assessment of mobile phones from these manufacturers, and does not provide procurement standards across Government or guidance specific to mobile phones.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether hydraulic fracturing will be permitted to take place under property where the owner’s consent has not been given.
Michael Fallon
Shale gas and oil operations involve hydraulic fracturing in wells drilled over a mile below the surface. At that depth it is highly unlikely that there will be any negative impact closer to the surface.
Like most other industrial activities, oil and gas operations require permission from landowners to access their land in order to reach mineral deposits.
Operators prefer where possible to agree this through negotiation with the landowner, but there is an existing legal route by which they can apply for access where this cannot be negotiated. In this respect, it is already possible for an operator to gain access to land for the extraction of oil or gas without a landowner’s permission through the courts.
The Government is considering whether these existing procedures used to obtain access are fit for purpose in relation to underground land. We have not yet made a decision on what actions we may take.