UKPOL.CO.UK

Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Diana Johnson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Diana Johnson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2014-04-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been convicted of an offence contrary to section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Act 2004 in each of the last four years.

    James Brokenshire

    The table below provides the number of defendants proceeded against for
    offences under Section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004 in England and
    Wales from 2009 to 2012.

    [INSERT TABLE HERE]

    The statistics on defendants proceeded against for offences under Immigration
    Acts 1971 to 2007 in England and Wales are supplied by the Ministry of Justice
    for the Home Office to publish annually within Immigration Statistics. Annual
    data is available in the latest release, Immigration Statistics: October
    December 2013, table pr_01, from the Library of the House and from the GOV.UK
    website at:
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-october-to-dec
    ember-2013

  • Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bob Ainsworth on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much funding his Department allocated to the Conflict Pool for South Asia in each of the last three years.

    Mark Simmonds

    The Conflict Pool is part of an HMT settlement which is distinct from departmental budgets. It is tri-departmentally managed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence, and the Department for International Development. In financial year 2013/14, the South Asia allocation was £20m. In the two preceding years, it was £15.5m per annum. The allocation for this financial year will be laid before Parliament shortly in a Written Ministerial Statement.

  • Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Bob Ainsworth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bob Ainsworth on 2014-04-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the level of funding per head of the population for transport in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England in each of the last five years.

    Stephen Hammond

    The most recent data available for regional expenditure is the Country and regional analysis for 2013, published by HM Treasury.

    Table A.15 shows UK identifiable expenditure on services by function, country and region, per head, 2008-09 to 2012-13, of which: Transport

    The extract below gives identifiable expenditure per head for the West Midlands and England. Committed spend is not analysed at a lower level.

    2008-09

    2009-10

    2010-11

    2011-12

    2012-13

    West Midlands

    283

    258

    218

    206

    202

    England

    317

    348

    317

    288

    267

    The Department for Transport is not the only public body responsible for transport and a large proportion of expenditure is covered by local government bodies.

  • Diana Johnson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Diana Johnson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with the Scottish Executive about the timetable for publication of the Penrose Inquiry.

    Jane Ellison

    The timetable for Lord Penrose to complete his report and publish it, is a matter for Lord Penrose himself to decide. Lord Penrose has publicly announced that he will publish his report in the autumn of 2014, but we do not know the exact date. We are keeping in touch with the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Well Being of the Scottish Government.

  • John Whittingdale – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    John Whittingdale – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Whittingdale on 2014-04-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what representations he has received about the implications of the proposed EU Package Travel Directive on insolvency protection for consumers; and if he will make a statement.

    Jenny Willott

    BIS officials are in regular contact with a variety of organisations which have a particular interest in the implications of the proposed Directive, including the elements covering insolvency protection for consumers. Those organisations are among the 42 which responded to this Department’s Call for Evidence on the Proposal for a New Directive on Package Travel and Assisted Travel Arrangements. Responses commenting on the insolvency protection proposals were received from a wide range of organisations, representing the interests of the travel trade, consumers, tourism, and legal firms.

  • Pete Wishart – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Pete Wishart – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Pete Wishart on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of people who cancelled holidays in 2014 due to delays in passport applications.

    James Brokenshire

    Her Majesty’s Passport Office do not collect this data.

  • Nia Griffith – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Nia Griffith – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nia Griffith on 2014-04-10.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of fiscal policy on the number of young people claiming jobseeker’s allowance for over 12 months since May 2010.

    Nicky Morgan

    Long-term youth unemployment is falling, the number of young people who have been claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance for over a year has fallen for 17 consecutive months.

    But no young person should be left behind in the recovery. We have delivered 1.7 million apprenticeships starts so far this Parliament. We will abolish employer National Insurance contributions for under 21s which will help to support jobs for almost 1.5 million young people in employment. And we are supporting up to 500,000 young people into education and employment through the Youth Contract.

  • Michael Fabricant – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the House of Commons Commission

    Michael Fabricant – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the House of Commons Commission

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Fabricant on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, whether the Commission plans to modify the Parliamentary wifi system to enable automatic log-in by BlackBerry and other devices without the need to enter a username and password manually each time.

    John Thurso

    There are no immediate plans to change the current method of connection. PICT is aware of the restriction that the current arrangement places on users, and will look afresh at the authentication needed for known users of the guest Wi-Fi service, “Internet Direct”.

  • Lord Berkeley – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Lord Berkeley – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2014-04-09.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Earl Attlee on 30 April 2012 (WA 420), what is their policy on grants and state aids for harbour dredging; under which United Kingdom Government and European Union funding programmes grants are permitted; what account they take of the effect of any grant on competition with other ports in the area or region; under what circumstances grants for dredging are available for a single beneficiary which will be the main commercial beneficiary; and whether, in any application for a grant for port development, any dredging element must be identified and justified separately.

    Lord Bates

    The Government’s policy, as confirmed in the National Policy Statement for Ports, is that the ports industry in England and Wales is generally successful in funding investment, including in capital dredging, on a commercial basis without need for support from public funds. Consequently there is a general presumption against such grants, which can displace and deter private sector investment and distort competition, whether for single or multiple beneficiaries. There may, however, be occasional exceptions, as in the case of the Regional Growth Fund grant awarded for dredging in Liverpool Bay and the Mersey Estuary. This was based on an exceptional regional economic regeneration justification. In any such case, the prospective impact on competition with other ports would be taken into account during consideration of the application.

    Dredging costs, along with other port costs, could potentially be eligible for grants from European funding schemes such as the Connecting Europe Facility and Trans-European Networks – Transport (CEF/TEN-T). The Government would normally expect any grant application for UK or EU funds to show disaggregated costings, including clear identification of any dredging element that may be present.

  • Valerie Vaz – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Valerie Vaz – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2014-06-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many telephone lines with the prefix (a) 0845, (b) 0844 and (c) 0843 his Department (i) operates and (ii) sponsors; how many calls each such number has received in the last 12 months; and whether alternative numbers charged at BT local rates are available in each such case.

    Mr Shailesh Vara

    There has been a 79% fall in the Department’s use of higher-rate numbers since 2009.

    The Department has received no revenue from higher rate telephone numbers for the period under review.

    The information held centrally for the public use of (a) 0845, (b) 0844 and (c) 0843 telephone numbers operated (i) and (ii) sponsored by the Ministry of Justice are as follows:

    (a) 0845 numbers – 32

    (b) 0844 numbers – 2

    (c) 0843 numbers – 0

    The majority of these numbers are operated by the County Court Business Centre (CCBC).

    Information on volumes for calls to higher-rate telephone numbers for the last twelve months is not systematically collected by the service providers, and to obtain it would incur disproportionate costs.

    Nineteen higher rate numbers in the CCBC are in the process of being replaced by 0300 numbers. The four 0845 numbers receiving the highest volumes of calls in the CCBC are being discontinued on 1 August 2014, and when enquirers call these numbers they are being advised to contact an alternative 0300 number.

    As stated in previous answers to parliamentary questions, the Department’s approach is not to use higher rate numbers and instead, wherever possible, to assign 0300 numbers, for which the tariff is similar to calling an 01 or 02 (geographic) number, whether the caller is using a fixed line or a mobile phone.