Tag: Paul Blomfield

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2015-11-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of immigration detainees who are (a) foreign national offenders convicted of immigration offences, (b) foreign national offenders convicted of non-immigration offences and (c) other detainees were held in immigration detention for (i) 28 days or fewer, (ii) over 28 days but fewer than four months and (iii) over four months in the last year.

James Brokenshire

The below table provides details of immigration detainees detained at the end of June 2015 and is taken from quarterly published national statistics:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2015/detention

	Held 28 Days or Fewer	Over 28 Days But Fewer Than Four Months	Four to Six Months	Six to Twelve Months	Over Twelve Months
Foreign National Offenders	30% (263)	41% (365)	10% (84)	14% (123)	5% (49)
Other Detainees	58% (1502)	35% (899)	4% (114)	2% (62)	1% (27)

It is not possible to provide a break-down of foreign national offenders convicted of immigration offences and foreign national offenders convicted of non-immigration offences. Such data is not aggregated in national reporting systems, which would mean these questions could only be answered through a disproportionately expensive manual case search to collate the data.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-01-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of personal independence payment special rules claimants received disability living allowance from 1 April 2013 to 31 October 2015.

Justin Tomlinson

The number of Disability Living Allowance claimants who were reassessed for Personal Independence Payment under the special rules for people who are terminally ill between April 2013 and October 2015 are published and can be found at

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/. Guidance on how to use Stat-Xplore is available here: https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if the Government will postpone the replacement of student maintenance grants with maintenance loans until a sharia-compliant finance product is available for such loans.

Joseph Johnson

Maintenance grants will be replaced by increased maintenance loans for eligible students starting full-time courses in the 2016/17 academic year. The Government supports the introduction of a Sharia-compliant ‘Takaful’ alternative finance product. Subject to Parliament, the Government hopes to introduce the system through new legislation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has received a copy of Sheffield City Region’s study into connectivity for a city centre High Speed 2 station at Victoria in which Network Rail was involved.

Mr Robert Goodwill

Analysis of the Sheffield City Region station options was published in the ‘Engineering options report; West Midlands to Leeds’ dated March 2012. This included analysis of several station sites around the city centre.

The current estimated difference in cost between locating a High Speed station at Victoria and Meadowhall is £680m. Previous work on the cost of options at Victoria and other city centre sites are not comparable to the current estimate given above. With regards to the Meadowhall station, following the 2013 public consultation, no significant changes have been made to the original station design therefore there have not been any changes in cost.

When recommending a station location HS2 Ltd. uses a number of criteria, including;

1. engineering and construction feasibility;
2. sustainability;
3. demand considerations, including journey times;
4. cost; and
5. wider impacts

Potential options were sifted by HS2 Ltd. according to these criteria. To support and challenge this approach, external stakeholders and advisors from the Department’s Project Representative Team were involved in reviewing the process and outcomes where appropriate. Further information about the appraisal process can be found in the 2012 ‘Options for phase two of the high speed rail network’ report and 2013 ‘Appraisal of Sustainability’ report. Both of these documents are available on the government website.

Analysis undertaken by HS2 shows that the introduction of the Sheffield Meadowhall HS2 station could support up to 5,400 jobs and up to 300 residential units, while a HS2 station at Victoria could support an estimated 9,000 jobs and 900 housing units.

Finally, I can confirm that Department for Transport officials have received a copy of Sheffield City Region’s study into connectivity for a city centre High Speed 2 station at Victoria which Network Rail was involved in.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-02-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of investing in video-conferencing facilities to facilitate split-site working by staff in his Department.

Joseph Johnson

Video conferencing is used across the Department as a tool for keeping in touch with colleagues split across numerous sites, with around 1,500 meetings held by video-conferencing every month.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 2 March 2016 to Question 28163, and with reference to the Answer of 10 June 2013 to Question 158962, whether his Department has stopped collecting data on National Minimum Wage complaints in the care sector broken down by domiciliary and residential care; and if he will make a statement.

Nick Boles

Information on the number of NMW enquiries made to the Pay and Work Rights Helpline (PWRH) and Acas Helpline for the ‘domiciliary care’ and ‘residential care’ sectors has not been collected at that level of disaggregation.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much his Department spent on upgrading IT systems at 2 St Paul’s Place, Sheffield in 2014-15.

Joseph Johnson

The Department spent £38m on upgrading IT systems in 2014-15, including both software and equipment development. This includes around £31m for internally developed software, predominantly within delivery bodies of the department such as the Student Loans Company. It also includes the Core Department roll out of a new ICT system, Evolve, for use by all staff. This replaced the previous IT service. The total cost of the Evolve rollout was £3.5 million.

The IT systems at 2 St Paul’s Place Sheffield are part of the Core Department’s IT infrastructure, so the upgrades are included in the total cost of the Evolve rollout of £3.5m. Costs were not recorded separately by location for this general upgrade to our systems.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what the annual cost per employee is of rent, rates and maintenance for his Department’s office at (a) St Paul’s Place, Sheffield and (b) 1 Victoria Street, London.

Joseph Johnson

The annual cost per employee at St Paul’s Place, Sheffield is £3,190 and at 1 Victoria Street, London is £9,750.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Written Statement of 18 April 2016, on immigration detention, HCWS679, whether there will be independent oversight of decisions to detain pregnant women.

James Brokenshire

At present, detention is authorised by an officer of at least the rank of Chief Immigration Officer (CIO) or Higher Executive Officer (HEO). As stated in the Government’s Written Ministerial Statement of 14 January, the Government is developing a new approach to the case management of those detained. This is intended to replace the existing detention review process with a clear removal plan for all those in detention.

It will ensure that all detainees, including pregnant women, spend the minimum possible time in detention. Under the new policy in order for detention to be extended beyond 72 hours ministerial authorisation will be required and the maximum detention period will be one week.

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons and Independent Monitoring Boards already provide independent oversight of detention facilities and conditions of detention. Individuals, including pregnant women, are given prior notification of their liability to removal from the UK by the Home Office and they would be detained only for the purposes of identification or removal.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what additional resources have been or will be made available to the Student Loans Company to enable that Company to administer amendments to the fees and student support system in England covering the (a) replacement of maintenance grants by maintenance loans, (b) introduction of the postgraduate loan scheme, (c) extension of maintenance loans to part-time students, (d) extension of advanced learner loans to those aged 19 years and above and (e) Teaching Excellence Framework.

Joseph Johnson

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) fully funds the cost to the Student Loans Company (SLC) of administering Higher and Further Education student finance policy in England. Funding is allocated on a demand-led basis whereby BIS requests services, SLC estimates the cost of delivery and then BIS pays the costs in full.

As set out in SLC’s public Annual Performance and Resource Agreement (APRA) for financial year 2015-16, BIS made approximately £8.8m available to SLC to meet the costs of implementing all new policies related to student support for Higher and Further Education in England, including (but not exclusively) the implementation of policies a, b and d above. The amount of funding to be made available to SLC for the financial year 2016-17, including for delivery of policies a-e above, will be confirmed in this year’s APRA and published on SLC’s website shortly.