Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Margaret Ritchie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Margaret Ritchie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ritchie on 2016-09-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent progress has been made on the accelerated decommissioning programme for nuclear waste in the UK.

    Jesse Norman

    The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s (NDA’s) strategy was last updated and published in April of 2016. Progress is monitored in the NDA’s annual report and accounts, supplemented with quarterly progress reports on its business plan, as well as regular updates for priority programmes and major projects. All these documents are available on the NDA’s website.

    Some of the highlights include good progress on priority projects, such as regular retrieval of waste from legacy facilities at Sellafield, removal of all spent nuclear fuel from the Oldbury nuclear power station and the ongoing defueling of the nuclear power station at Wylfa on Anglesey following its closure in December 2015.

  • Nigel Huddleston – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

    Nigel Huddleston – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Huddleston on 2016-10-24.

    To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps the Government is taking to increase the number of women on boards and at senior executive levels of FTSE companies.

    Caroline Dinenage

    We have more women on boards than ever before and no all-male boards in the FTSE 100. We have established the new, independent Hampton-Alexander Review which will have a particular focus on improving gender representation in the all-important executive layer of the FTSE companies.

    I fully endorse the business-led target of 33% women on FTSE 350 boards by 2020 and would like to go further.

  • Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2015-11-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 28 October 2015 to Question 12951, whether all directly employed and contracted staff of his Department are contractually permitted to write to him about their employment conditions or pay without having investigatory proceedings instigated against them.

    Mr Philip Hammond

    Staff directly employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) may write to me on any issue without investigatory proceedings being instigated against them. The FCO obliges its contractors to adhere to all employment legislation and encourages its contractors to have appropriate measures in place to manage its employees. No disciplinary measures were taken against Interserve cleaners who wrote to me.

  • Jamie Reed – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Prime Minister

    Jamie Reed – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Prime Minister

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2015-11-27.

    To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his Oral Statement of 26 November 2015, Official Report, columns 1489-94, what assessment the Government has made of the potential increased displacement of people in Syria of his proposal to extend military operations to that country; and what the implications of that assessment are for the Government’s policy on the number of Syrian refugees.

    Mr David Cameron

    Coalition airstrikes have been on-going since September 2014. Airstrikes may cause some local level internal displacement and disruption; but it is the conflict that is the main cause of suffering and displacement of civilians in Syria.

    The UK has been at the forefront of the response to the crisis in Syria and the region. We have pledged over £1.1 billion, our largest ever response to a single humanitarian crisis. We are the second largest bilateral donor after the US. UK support has reached hundreds of thousands of people in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. By the end of June 2015, UK support inside Syria and in the surrounding region had, for example, delivered almost 20 million food rations that feed one person for a month; over 2.5 million medical consultations; and relief items for 4.6 million people.

    The UK is supporting refugees to remain in host countries in the region, and supporting host countries to accommodate them As part of this, we are working in partnership with host countries to help them to expand job and education opportunities for refugees in a way that will enable them to better support themselves and give them skills for the future, and we are helping host countries to cope with the impact of refugees on local services.

    We will continue the work parallel with proposals to expand military operations in the country.

  • Helen Goodman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Helen Goodman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Goodman on 2016-01-04.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will publish minutes of his meetings with Rupert Murdoch in June and September 2015.

    Harriett Baldwin

    Treasury Ministers and officials have meetings with a wide variety of organisations in the public and private sectors as part of the process of policy development and delivery. Details of ministerial and permanent secretary meetings with external organisations on departmental business are published on a quarterly basis and are available at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/hmt-ministers-meetings-hospitality-giftsand-overseas-travel

    “

  • Kevin Brennan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Kevin Brennan – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevin Brennan on 2016-01-28.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will consider allowing public bodies to continue to have the right, under the Local Government Pension scheme, to allow individuals to access an unreduced pension on compassionate grounds under the proposed public sector exit payments cap.

    Greg Hands

    The Government consulted on implementing a public sector exit payment cap in July 2015. The Government response to this consultation was published on 16 September 2015. This response provides detail on which organisations and types of payments the Government intends to capture within the scope of the public sector exit payment cap. This accords with the Government’s manifesto commitment to end tax payer funded six figure payoffs for public sector workers.

    The response document can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/464367/Public_sector_exit_payments_response.pdf

    The exit payment cap will apply to payments made as a result of an employee leaving their employment. It will not affect any pension a person has earned through their years of service or have any impact on accrued pension rights or pension lump sum entitlements on retirement. It will capture contributions, made by the employer, to fund early access to an unreduced or partially reduced pension. This is because such costs are ultimately funded by the tax payer.

    The Government has been clear that early retirements relating to ill health are outside the scope of the cap and will not be affected. Additionally, any payments directed by a Court or Tribunal will not be included in the scope of the cap.

    Exits on compassionate grounds are not such a clearly defined concept as exits related to ill health or redundancy. There will generally be a large degree of employer discretion on the terms of such exits, and on any payments. In these cases there will be discretion available to relax the cap in individual cases, subject to relevant Ministerial or local council approval, as will be set out in further detail in forthcoming Treasury guidance and directions.

  • Jess Phillips – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Jess Phillips – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jess Phillips on 2016-02-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 24 February 2016 to Question 27540, under whose jurisdiction objections citing provisions relating to the Armed Forces Covenant excluding those relating to service premium admission would fall.

    Nick Gibb

    The School Admissions Code contains a range of statutory provisions relating to school admission arrangements and to the wider admissions process. The code includes provisions to ensure that children of UK service personnel are not disadvantaged when applying for a school place. The role of the Schools Adjudicator is to consider objections about admission arrangements only. Some of the provisions in the code, therefore, do not fall within the adjudicator’s jurisdiction. There is no body which has jurisdiction to consider objections relating to these other provisions, but admission authorities must comply with all the statutory provisions in the code and, where they fail to do so, the Secretary of State has powers under section 496 and 497 of the Education Act 1996 to require them to comply.

  • Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead on 2016-03-17.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of calls for an investigation into what action should be taken against those in Burma who are responsible for the crackdown by police at the Letpaden meeting of student protesters.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    We publicly expressed our concerns at the violence that occurred in Letpadan in March 2015 and supported the EU’s call for a formal investigation to be initiated. The right to peaceful demonstration is a fundamental democratic freedom. Officials from our Embassy and those of other international partners have been attending the protesters’ trials. We look forward to working with the new government in Burma to make improvements across the spectrum of civil and political liberties.

  • Andrew Percy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Andrew Percy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2016-03-24.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect of recent violence in Israel and the West Bank on relations in that region.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    We are deeply concerned by the recent violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which has had a negative impact on relations. Since the start of the current violence, Ministers and officials have spoken regularly to both the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority on the urgent need to de-escalate the tensions. The current violence underlines that a just and lasting resolution that ends the occupation and delivers peace for both Israelis and Palestinians is long overdue.

  • Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Tulip Siddiq – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-05-04.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many full-time equivalent staff were employed in HM Revenue and Customs’ Criminal Finance Intelligence Operations branch in each year since 2009-10; and (a) how much was recovered by that branch, (b) how many bank accounts were closed by that branch and (c) how many referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service were made by that branch in each of those years.

    Mr David Gauke

    The information is not held in the form requested.

    The Criminal Finance Intelligence Operations team in HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) was formed on 1 April 2015 and so statistics for periods before this are not available.

    The team is an intelligence gathering operation. The intelligence they gather assists others in HMRC to recover funds and refer cases onto the Crown Prosecution Service.