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Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Jo Stevens – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Jo Stevens – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jo Stevens on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many drones have been intercepted operating over prisons in England and Wales (a) in 2015 and (b) from January 2016 to date.

    Mr Sam Gyimah

    There were 33 incidents relating to drones reported by prisons in 2015. This includes finds, interceptions and sightings of drones in and around prisons in England and Wales. The Ministry of Justice intends to routinely publish information on prison drone incidents in the future and 2016 data will be provided in due course as part of the publication schedule.

    We remain vigilant to all incidents involving drones and take the threat they pose to prison security very seriously. A range of methods to counter the threat posed by drones are being trialled and evaluated for their effectiveness across the prison estate. We have already introduced new legislation to further strengthen our powers, making it illegal to land a drone in prison or to use a drone to drop in contraband. Anyone found using a drone in an attempt to get contraband into prisons can be punished with a sentence of up to two years imprisonment. We take a zero tolerance approach to smuggling of contraband into prisons and work closely with the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to ensure those caught are prosecuted.

    Note: All figures have been drawn from live administrative data systems. Care is taken when processing and analysing the returns, but the detail collected is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system.

  • Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb on 2015-11-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bates on 9 November (HL3457), what specific steps they are taking to help Syrian refugees in the Jungle” camp at Calais who wish to claim asylum in the UK.”

    Lord Bates

    Migrants in Calais in need of protection, including Syrians, should claim asylum in France. Other than in very limited circumstances under the Dublin Regulation, where a migrant who has lodged an asylum application in another Member State has close family ties to the UK, the UK has no responsibility to help refugees who are in other EU Member States to come here to claim asylum. Consequently, there is no provision in the Immigration Rules for them to do so. However, Border Force officers and representatives from the French Government carry out regular joint communications visits to the camps, informing all nationalities of migrants of their options to seek support, including claiming asylum, in France.

    The UK Government is spending £1.1 billion in and around Syria on humanitarian aid, caring for refugees and helping the Governments of Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey to cope with the huge numbers of refugees they have received. After the United States, Britain is the biggest donor country in the region. The Government has also expanded the Syrian Resettlement Scheme. This scheme is helping the most vulnerable people in the region by offering them protection in the UK. The Government intends to resettle 20,000 Syrians in need of protection during this Parliament.

  • Lord Oates – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Oates – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2015-12-22.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the total annual cost of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s political advisers, including both special advisers and members of the Council of Economic Advisers.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    Details of Special Adviser numbers and remuneration across Government departments, including for Special Advisers and Members of the Council of Economic Advisers in HM Treasury, were published in December on the gov.uk website.

  • Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-01-25.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department has made any revisions to (a) the amount his Department forecasts will be required for the diffuse mesothelioma payments scheme and (b) the number of people his Department forecasts will apply to receive payments from the scheme in the first 10 years of its operation since it last published those figures.

    Justin Tomlinson

    The Department makes revisions to the DMPS financial forecast annually for the purposes of calculating the levy. A Ministerial written statement (HCWS460) was tabled in the House of Commons on 12 January 2016 and provides details of the DMPS levy for 2015/16.

    Similarly, the Department forecasts the number of applicants annually. In 2014/15, there were 410 applicants to the DMPS. The next set of official DMPS statistics will be released 28 January 2015 and will contain six months’ worth of data on applications for 2015/16. Assumptions could be derived from those figures for the remainder of the year.

    No revisions have been made to longer term forecasts since the DMPS Impact Assessment was published 6 March 2014. This can be found at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/286525/mesothelioma-payment-scheme-ia-mar-2014.pdf

    “

  • Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Justin Madders – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Justin Madders on 2016-02-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what his policy is on the commissioning of a national molecular diagnosis service.

    George Freeman

    The Independent Cancer Taskforce recognised the need for more accessible molecular diagnostic provision in their report ‘Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes’, published in July 2015.

    NHS England is currently working with partners across the healthcare system to determine how best to take forward the recommendations of the Taskforce.

  • Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-03-16.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps the Government is taking to reduce the time taken on investigations into still births.

    Ben Gummer

    The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Green-top Guideline 55 on Later Intrauterine Fetal Death and Stillbirth (2010) guidance for obstetricians and midwives states that all stillbirths should be reviewed in a multi-professional meeting using a standardised approach to analysis. This will enable the identification of substandard care and establish whether any future preventative measures are required. Results of the review should be discussed with the parents.

    The Government is investing £500,000 to develop and roll out by March 2017 a new web-based system to be used consistently across the National Health Service so staff can review and learn from every stillbirth and neonatal death.

    All stillbirths should also be reported to the MBRRACE-UK collaboration (Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK) which undertakes national surveillance of late fetal losses, stillbirths and infant deaths.

  • Tommy Sheppard – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Tommy Sheppard – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tommy Sheppard on 2016-04-14.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with G4S on that company’s adherence to the terms of the (a) Fourth Geneva Convention and (b) UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights related to the detention of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    The UK considers Palestinians arrested in the OPTs and detained in Israel as contrary to Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The UK Government encourages British companies to show respect for human rights in their operations in the UK and internationally and we have made this clear in meetings with G4S.

  • Baroness Hodgson of Abinger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Baroness Hodgson of Abinger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Hodgson of Abinger on 2016-05-23.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports of increased malnutrition and starvation in Yemen.

    Baroness Verma

    The United Nations report that 14.4 million people in Yemen are facing food insecurity, of which 7.6 million are facing severe food shortages, as cited in the UN’s 2016 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan. The UK government uses this UN report as one if its primary data sources. A number of humanitarian organisations have recently highlighted the acute food security and livelihood needs in Yemen, and the fact that food insecurity is likely to continue at a critical level in the coming months.

    The security situation in Yemen is impacting the ability of humanitarian organisations to access populations to deliver assistance, and to make assessments of their needs. The UK continues to remind all parties to the conflict to take all reasonable steps to facilitate rapid and safe access for humanitarian agencies to all people in need in Yemen. This is essential to ensure that the international community has an accurate understanding of the levels of need in the country, including food insecurity.

    The UK is the 4th largest donor to the crisis in Yemen and has more than doubled its humanitarian support over the last year to £85 million for 2015/16. We work through UN agencies and NGOs, including the World Food Programme who provide emergency food support to over 570,000 people, through direct delivery of food or the provision of cash or food vouchers. We have also provided £21.7 million in 2015/16 to UNICEF for the provision of health and nutrition services through hospitals and mobile clinics. We are also funding the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism to improve the supply of essential commercial goods, including food, into Yemen.

  • Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Danny Kinahan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Danny Kinahan on 2016-07-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many school buildings under wave 1 of the Priority Schools Building Programme received additional funding for those buildings; and for what that additional money was used.

    Edward Timpson

    Under the first phase of the Priority School Building Programme (PSBP), third parties have chosen to contribute funding at 133 schools. The majority of the third party funding is for additional places beyond the capacity requested in the PSBP application.

    The Department provides basic need funding to local authorities for the provision of additional places to meet basic need. Between 2011 and 2015, the Government allocated over £5 billion of basic need funding to local authorities for new school places and will be spending a further £7 billion between 2015 and 2021.

    By co-ordinating PSBP projects and the provision of additional places we are able to drive value for money for the public purse.

  • Margaret Ritchie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Margaret Ritchie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ritchie on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what discussions he has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on funding for inquests into the killings allegedly carried out by the British Army’s Military Reaction Force.

    James Brokenshire

    The Government committed, in our manifesto, to work to reform the system of legacy inquests in a way that enables the UK Government to fulfil its international obligations. The current system was not designed to cope with a large number of highly complex cases that involve sensitive information. Since taking up office I have been meeting regularly with the Executive parties and a large number of other stakeholders as part of work to progress reforms around legacy issues. I will continue to engage with the Northern Ireland Executive and others and consider any proposals that the Executive puts forward that would lead to effective reform of the inquest system.