Tag: Parliamentary Question

Michael Tomlinson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Tomlinson on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what proportion of green belt land in the East Dorset District Council area has been redesignated in the last five years.

Brandon Lewis

The Department does not hold information centrally on the amount or type of land held by community land trusts.

The Department’s annual Green Belt statistics monitor the amount of land designated as Green Belt in England and any changes to the designated area since the previous year. The statistics record the change by local planning authority.

Of the local planning authorities for which information was requested, the following have made changes to the Green Belt in the last five years:

East Dorset reduced the area of designated Green Belt in 2014-15 by 160 hectares to 16,720 hectares, a reduction of 1 per cent; and

Purbeck increased the area of designated Green Belt in 2012-13 by 460 hectares to 8,200 hectares, an increase of 6 per cent.

01/01/2023
Lord Mawson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Mawson on 2016-01-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the proportion of the rail network in England and Wales that has a reliable wireless internet signal.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

Our current assessment forecasts that between 68% and 85% of the UK rail network will have mobile network coverage by the end of 2017.

01/01/2023
Dan Jarvis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what proportion of senior civil servants in his Department are women.

Joseph Johnson

Within the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills HQ, 46% of senior civil service posts are held by women. At Director General and Director level, 51% of posts are held by women.

01/01/2023
Imran Hussain – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Imran Hussain on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the protection of minors applying for indefinite leave to remain on the settlement protection route whilst their applications are decided.

James Brokenshire

UK Visas and Immigration has taken significant steps to enhance support and protection for minors who apply for indefinite leave to remain. Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 requires the Home Office to carry out its existing functions in a way that takes into account the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children in the UK.

As part of its commitment to Section 55, all UK Visas and Immigration employees have received training in order to assist them to identify potential vulnerable minors during the consideration of indefinite leave to remain applications.

UK Visas and Immigration has also implemented a vulnerable minor, and adult, policy along with a National Referral Mechanism for potential victims of human trafficking, a web link to the internal guidance is below: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/victims-of-trafficking-guidance-for-competent-bodies

01/01/2023
Daniel Kawczynski – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Kawczynski on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to promote provision of international support to the Government of National Accord in Libya in (a) governing effectively, (b) managing that country’s security situation, (c) achieving political unity and (d) achieving international recognition.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The UK has been at the forefront of international support to Libya; promoting political participation, strengthening security, and supporting economic growth. We have allocated up to £14 million in the new financial year to support Libya and to tackle some of the challenges emanating from that country, such as migration and the terrorist threat.

We hosted a meeting with the UN in London in October 2015 to create the international community support plan. Representatives of 40 countries, UN agencies, and international bodies, as well as a number of independent Libyan experts attended. We co-hosted with the UN a follow-up meeting in Tunis on 12 April, with Government of National Accord representatives in attendance.

01/01/2023
Lord Myners – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-05-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will investigate the case for sales of gift vouchers by retailers to be backed by cash collateral held in independent escrow.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Her Majesty’s Government has asked the Law Commission to consider the treatment of gift vouchers and pre-payments in the event of retailer insolvency. The Government will consider carefully any recommendations that may emerge on this question once the Law Commission’s report is published in the summer of 2016.

01/01/2023
Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-06-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the effect on the role of chief nursing officer will be of the decision to abolish the nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals policy unit.

Ben Gummer

As part of the DH 2020 plan, the Department is making significant changes to the way it works. The Department’s approach is to flexibly access professional advice from a wide range of sources, including arm’s length bodies, regulators and professional bodies, rather than from a fixed standing team of internal advisers.

These changes do not affect the role of the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), who as CNO of the Department already advises, and will continue to advise all Ministers and the Department on the range of nursing issues.

All staff in the Department, including staff in the current nursing, midwifery and allied health professions policy unit are eligible to apply for new roles in the organisation or to apply for a voluntary early severance scheme.

01/01/2023

Andy McDonald – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy McDonald on 2016-09-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the cost to his Department was of each re-tendering exercise held for franchises for (a) long distance and (b) regional passenger rail services in each year since 2005-06.

Paul Maynard

Prior to the re-launch of the Franchising Programme in spring 2013, the costs of different franchising projects were not individually recorded.

The cost of each re-franchising project since the re-launch is as follows:

Franchise	Cost (£M)	Notes
Essex Thameside	4.815	1
Thameslink, Southern & Great Northern	7.288
East Coast	8.429	2
Northern	8.668 (to date)	3
TransPennine Express	7.577 (to date)	3
East Anglia	7.413 (to date)	3

These figures include adviser costs (financial, technical and legal advisers), pay costs for the project team, “non-pay” costs (such as bidder day seminars, public consultations, etc), and VAT where applicable, for the duration of the procurements.

Note that the sums invested in each re-franchising project are dwarfed by the (Resource) Support for Passenger Rail Services benefits to the Department from the re-franchising – £200 for every £1.

Notes

NOTE 1: The Essex Thameside figure represents the work done after the relaunch of the Franchising Programme. There was a significant amount of work completed prior to the pausing of the programme in autumn 2012 which is not included here.

NOTE 2: The Intercity East Coast costs were not charged to the public purse, but were covered by the Performance Bond that National Express put forward following its default of the previous East Coast contract.

NOTE 3: The figures for Northern, TransPennine Express (TPE) and East Anglia are the latest figures (as at the end of August 2016). East Anglia is still a ‘live’ project. Whilst Northern and TPE have concluded, there are still some residual costs that may affect the final figures.

01/01/2023

Thangam Debbonaire – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Thangam Debbonaire on 2015-11-10.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps the Government is taking to support international efforts to improve tax transparency and accountability.

Mr David Gauke

A major focus of the UK’s G8 Presidency was tax transparency and combatting offshore tax evasion. As part of this the UK promoted the development of a new global standard for reciprocal automatic exchange of financial account information in order to effectively tackle the global problem of tax evasion. Due in large part to the UK’s leadership, over 90 countries and jurisdictions have now committed to the new global standard – known as the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) – and will begin automatically exchanging information under the standard by 2017 or 2018. The receipt of large amounts of information on offshore accounts under the CRS will mark a step change in HMRC’s ability to crack down on tax evasion.

During our G8 Presidency, we also drove forward the international work on country-by-country reporting (CBCR), calling on the OECD to develop a template for CBCR reporting as part of the OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. The OECD template is aimed at providing tax authorities with information on the global allocation of profits and taxes paid and accrued by multinationals, as well as indicators of economic activity in each country. The UK was one of the first countries to commit to implementing the OECD template for CBCR with legislation in the Finance Act 2015.

The final package of measures developed under the BEPS project was published by the OECD on 5 October 2015, and endorsed by G20 Finance Ministers at their meeting on 8 October and the G20 Leaders at their summit on 15-16 November. The UK welcomes the outcomes of the BEPS project and will give full consideration to the OECD’s recommendations.

In addition, the UK has actively supported the revision of the Directive on Administrative Cooperation, to ensure the effective exchange of information about cross-border tax rulings between EU Member States. This directive was agreed in October 2015, and will come into force from 1^st of January 2017.

01/01/2023
Brendan O’Hara – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Brendan O’Hara on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many Reaper drones are currently deployed in (a) Iraq and (b) Syria.

Penny Mordaunt

To safeguard operational security I am withholding operational information on the number of RAF Reaper aircraft deployed.

01/01/2023