The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2016-06-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many gamma interferon tests for bovine TB were conducted in the (a) high risk area, (b) low risk area and (c) edge area of England in each year between 2009 and 2015.
George Eustice
This information is publicly available on the GOV.UK website. It can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bovine-tb-testing-in-cattle.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve Reed on 2016-09-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what reports his Department has received on the lack of clean water in Sri Lanka’s Jaffna Peninsula; and if he will raise that scarcity with the Sri Lankan government.
Alok Sharma
The British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka visited Jaffna in June and raised concerns about water contamination with the local authorities. He received assurances that they were aware of the issue and were addressing it. They also discussed water quality in general and longer term plans for providing water through desalination.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Farron on 2016-10-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of pharmacies that will close as a result of the proposed 12 per cent reduction in funding for pharmacies in England from December 2016 until March 2017.
David Mowat
Community pharmacy is a vital part of the National Health Service and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020/21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of community pharmacy services including public access to medicines. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we have a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population. Our reforms are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. A consequence may be the closure of some pharmacies but that is not our aim.
The Government announced the package of reforms for the community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond on 20 October 2016. This included full details of how the Pharmacy Access Scheme will operate, as well an impact assessment for the package of reforms. This can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-pharmacy-reforms
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Imran Hussain on 2015-11-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what guidance his Department gives to NHS trusts on hiring temporary doctors and nurses.
Ben Gummer
The Department has not issued specific guidance to National Health Service trusts on hiring temporary doctors and nurses. It has, however, commissioned NHS Employers to offer advice, guidance and good practice. The NHS Employers’ guides on sourcing temporary staffing can be found at
http://www.nhsemployers.org/search-results?q=sourcing+temporary+staffing+exterrnally
The Department also encourages NHS trusts requiring temporary staff to use the Crown Commercial Services’ Framework agreements wherever possible. Agencies on these Framework agreements are required to support trusts improve their commissioning of temporary staffing.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angus Brendan MacNeil on 2015-12-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment she made of the value for money of carbon capture and storage before the Government’s carbon capture and storage competition was suspended; and how much from the public purse had been spent on that competition at the time of suspension.
Andrea Leadsom
The provision of ring-fenced capital support for CCS was judged against other Government funding priorities as part of the Spending Review. My department has paid £78.6m between 2011/12 and November 2015 on the CCS Competition including the investment in Front End Engineering and Design (approximately £60 million), independent professional technical, legal, financial and commercial advice and civil service staff.
The Government continues to view CCS as having a potential role in the long-term decarbonisation of the UK’s power and industrial sectors, and considers that the investment to date remains value for money to the UK.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Pauline Latham on 2016-01-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to improve GP education on skin cancer and dermatology.
Jane Ellison
In 2011, the Department of Health funded Cancer Research UK to work in partnership with the British Association of Dermatologists, to develop a Skin Cancer Toolkit for general practitioners (GPs). The toolkit was launched in 2012 and is currently available to GPs via doctors.net.
In June 2015, the National Institute for Care Excellence published new cancer referral guideline for GPs, including guidance for GPs on investigating patients with signs suggestive of skin cancer. The guideline will continue to support GPs to identify patients with signs and symptoms of suspected cancer, including skin cancer and urgently refer them as appropriate. The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) in collaboration with Cancer Research UK has worked on a programme of regional update events for GPs to enable GPs to adopt the new guidelines.
More generally, it is the responsibility of the General Medical Council (GMC) to set the standards and outcomes for the education and training of doctors and to approve training curricula to ensure newly qualified doctors are equipped with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to provide high quality patient care.
The royal colleges, for example the RCGP have responsibility for developing curricula for doctors, in particular postgraduate curricula. Health Education England will work with bodies that set curricula such as the GMC and the RCGP to seek to ensure general practice training meets the needs of patients.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2016-02-02.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many prescriptions, per year, are (1) made for adults aged 70–76, and (2) not collected by adults aged 70–76.
Lord Prior of Brampton
We do not collect this information.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Catherine McKinnell on 2016-02-29.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he plans to publish an updated timeline for the delivery of tax-free childcare.
Damian Hinds
The Government confirmed that Tax-Free Childcare will be launched from early 2017. To roll out the scheme in a safe and managed way, we will be gradually opening up the scheme to all eligible parents within 12 months.
We will provide further details of the exact plans for this rollout in due course, in good time for parents and childcare providers to prepare for the introduction of Tax-Free Childcare.
Once the scheme is fully open, we estimate that around 2 million families will be eligible for Tax-Free Childcare. And we estimate that up to 1 million families may take up the scheme in ‘steady state’.
The Tax-Free Childcare system will be extensively tested with users before the scheme is launched.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Adam Holloway on 2016-03-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what reports he has received on which other countries plan to deploy troops in Libya.
Michael Fallon
We do not comment on other nations’ military planning activity.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Jenrick on 2016-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what weight she has given to the list of people allegedly implicated in the murder of Mr Alexander Litvinenko provided to her by Mrs Marina Litvenenko; and whether her Department has taken any action against those people.
Mr John Hayes
The Home Secretary has responded in writing to Mrs Litvinenko on 8 March 2016. Whilst this was private correspondence, it reflected the Home Secretary’s oral statement to Parliament on 21 January 2016 setting out the Government’s response to Mr Litvinenko’s death.
For security reasons the Government does not routinely comment on action taken in relation to specific individuals. A number of those listed are subject to some form of overt action, for example, the EU sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, on which the UK has led the way.