The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Lammy on 2016-06-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the mental health services budget is for people living in Tottenham.
Alistair Burt
We are advised by NHS England that allocated funding for mental health services in the Haringey Clinical Commissioning Group area, which includes the Tottenham constituency, is £34.192 million, of which £31.326 million is allocated to Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Natalie McGarry on 2016-09-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what recent steps he has taken to decide the immigration system to be implemented upon the UK leaving the EU.
Mr Robin Walker
My Department is working closely with the Home Office and other Government Departments to identify and develop options to shape our future immigration system, including considering how best to control the number of people coming to the UK from the following Brexit. We are already fully engaged with the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to ensure a UK-wide approach to our negotiations. My ministerial collegues and I have also discussed the next steps with a range of organisations, including the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress and key business groups.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2016-10-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how his Department plans to distribute money awarded by the European Solidarity Fund to flood-affected communities in the event that funds are awarded.
Andrew Percy
The Government will determine how best to use any additional benefit received from the European Union Solidarity Fund once the amount of any award is known.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Teverson on 2015-11-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are considering making further reductions in the maximum university visa refusal rate in relation to Highly Trusted Sponsor status.
Lord Bates
Highly Trusted Sponsor status was replaced with Tier 4 Sponsor status in April 2015.
The maximum permitted visa refusal rate for Tier 4 sponsors was reduced from 20% to 10% in November 2014 to make sure that the colleges and universities who directly benefit from student migration help prevent abuse, and to ensure that institutions are only offering places to genuine students with an appropriate level of English.
Since the new rate was introduced, visa applications from students wishing to study at the UK’s world-class universities have continued to rise. Latest figures show that visa applications from university students are now 17 per cent higher than they were in 2010, and visa applications to Russell Group universities are 33 per cent higher than in 2010.
We will continue to keep the visa refusal rate under review but we have no imminent plans to change the maximum permitted rate.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Farron on 2015-12-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much his Department has spent on advertising the Right to Buy scheme in each month of 2015.
Brandon Lewis
My Department has run two targeted campaign bursts during 2015 to make sure eligible council and housing association tenants are aware of their opportunity to buy their home at a discount, through the Right to Buy scheme and to give them up-to-date information on changes to the discount rates and eligibility criteria.
We are currently in the middle of a burst of the campaign so figures for October and November are provisional and may not reflect all costs incurred. The monthly breakdown of invoiced expenditure for 2015 is:
January – £5,100
February – £68,600
March – £299,300
April – £0
May – £100
June – £0
July – £200
August – £600
September – £64,700
October – £155,000
November – £171,200
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Benyon on 2016-01-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will take steps to incentivise small-scale on-farm anaerobic digestion systems.
George Eustice
Defra and DECC officials are working together on a review of the support for renewable energy schemes through both Feed in Tariffs and the Renewable Heat Incentive. This includes the support for farm-scale anaerobic digestion. Consultations on the schemes will be published in the coming months.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-02-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will ensure that all proposed Local Government Pension Scheme asset pool governance structures have an equal number of scheme member representatives.
Mr Marcus Jones
The governance structures of the new pooling arrangements are matters to be determined locally and submitted as part of the detailed proposals we have asked funds to submit by 19 July.
The pool governance structures should provide funds with the assurance that their investments are being managed appropriately by the pool, in line with their stated investment strategy and in the long term interests of scheme members.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-02-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the recommendations on page 13, paragraph 2, of the Mental Health Taskforce report, published in February 2016, what steps he is taking to ensure all local areas have a multi-agency suicide prevention plan.
Alistair Burt
We welcome the recommendation by the independent Mental Health Taskforce that every area should have a local suicide prevention plan in place delivered through multi-agency groups.
We will be working with Public Health England to engage and support local authorities that do not have a local multi-agency suicide prevention plan to put one in place.
I will be meeting soon with Departmental officials and our delivery partner organisations on suicide prevention to explore ways in which we can work together to re-invigorate the National Suicide Prevention Strategy, including improving local delivery of its aims.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effects on healthcare of the introduction of a registry of patients with inflammatory bowel disease in England; and what support his Department has provided for that registry.
Jane Ellison
The IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) Registry provides a United Kingdom-wide repository of anonymised IBD adult and paediatric patient data for prospective audit and research purposes. Patients must consent for their data to be added to the registry. The Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) has allocated transitional funding this year to incorporate IBD audit data collection into the IBD Registry, providing an enhanced system for data capture and quality improvement that will be available to every hospital in the UK. This will allow the entry of data locally and support service improvement. Initially the focus will be for IBD patients receiving biologic treatments, but the system will address other key aspects of IBD care in the future.
The second step of data collection will be to focus on new patients with IBD to begin to understand the incidence of IBD in the UK. This picture will build up over a number of years and be dependent on the engagement of clinicians.
No specific assessment of the potential effects on healthcare due to the introduction of a registry of patients with IBD in England has been made. However, the data provided through the register can support National Health Service services in areas such as the assessment of local IBD populations as well as in measuring incidence and outcomes with services in other parts of the UK.
Although there is no direct Department funding, HQIP have given £290,000 for a year’s transition funding to join the audit data with the registry.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends faecal calprotectin testing as an option to help doctors distinguish between inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, and non-inflammatory bowel diseases, such as irritable bowel syndrome.
The NICE IBD Quality Standard states that general practitioners (GP) and GP practices should ensure that testing is offered and clinical commissioning groups should ensure the diagnostic services are in place to support this.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-05-04.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 28 April 2016 to Question 35476, whether the apprenticeship levy will be at the rate of 0.5 per cent on employers’ pay bills over £3 million in (a) 2017-18, (b) 2018-19 and (c) 2019-20.
Greg Hands
Tthe government has confirmed that the apprenticeship levy will be set at a rate of 0.5% of company paybill and every employer will have a £15,000 allowance to offset against their levy liability. In practice, this means only employers with paybills greater than £3million will pay the levy. As with all policies, the government will keep the apprenticeship levy under review.