Tag: Paul Blomfield

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what progress the Government has made on implementing its policy to move graduate recruitment outside London and establish a regional assessment centre.

Matthew Hancock

The Bridge Group Report into Socio-Economic Diversity in the Fast Stream recommended that the Fast Stream should introduce at least one regional assessment centre from Autumn 2016 and move to a greater number of regional assessment centres in future years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-06-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to announce the budget for the new Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority; and whether that budget will be expanded in comparison to that of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to reflect the wider remit and powers of the new body.

Karen Bradley

The 2016-17 budget for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has been published on page 80 of the Main Supply Estimates 2016-17, which is available to the public. The GLA will receive increased funding to reflect its changing and broader functions and we remain committed to resourcing the GLA to ensure it can deliver on its purpose of protecting vulnerable and exploited workers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-07-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 13 June 2016 to Question 39360, on his Department’s reorganisation, whether graduates taking part in the cross-government graduate scheme can take up policy roles in his Department based outside of London.

Joseph Johnson

The Executive Board announced on 26 May that from January 2018 all policy roles will be based in our single HQ and policy centre in London.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to his Department’s press release of 11 August 2016, entitled Largest ever list of National Minimum Wage offenders published, how much additional money declared by each social care employer which was identified in that press release was owed to its workforce after the use of HM Revenue and Customs’ self-correction process.

Margot James

Employers who self-correct arrears owed to workers are not named for any additional arrears identified. Due to the small number of cases involved, publishing aggregate self-correction data could allow individual employers to be identified, and would amount to naming them for a second time.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Blomfield on 2016-10-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much has been paid to social care workers by employers since HM Revenue and Customs introduced the self-correction process for recovering arrears for workers paid below the (a) national minimum wage and (b) national living wage.

Margot James

In the period 1^st April 2014 to 31^st March 2016 HMRC identified National Minimum Wage arrears totalling £981,514 as a result of investigations into social care employers.

The National Living Wage was introduced from April 2016. Data for 2016/17 is not yet available.

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 people held in immigration detention are (a) foreign national offenders convicted of immigration related offences, (b) foreign national offenders convicted of other offences and (c) non-foreign nationals.

James Brokenshire

At the end of June 2015, the proportion of people held in immigration detention who were foreign national offenders was 25% (884).

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 2016-01-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in which (a) towns, (b) cities and (c) regions were the recorded locations of exploitation of potential victims of human trafficking referred to the UK National Referral Mechanism in 2014.

Karen Bradley

The table below shows the breakdown of the claimed location of exploitation for the 2,340 potential victims referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) in 2014. The geographical location of exploitation is recorded by police force area only, for reporting and statistical purposes.

YEAR	2014
Police for area of exploitation (claimed)	Total
Avon & Somerset	16
Bedfordshire	12
Cambridgeshire	31
Cheshire	6
Cleveland	8
Derbyshire	6
Devon & Cornwall	8
Dorset	10
Durham	3
Dyfed-Powys	2
Essex	12
Gloucestershire	2
GMP	38
Gwent	5
Hampshire	21
Hertfordshire	4
Humberside	2
Kent	26
Lancashire	2
Leicestershire	7
Lincolnshire	8
Merseyside	7
Metropolitan	232
Multiple locations	83
Norfolk	7
North Yorkshire	13
Northamptonshire	2
Northumbria	12
Nottinghamshire	14
Police Scotland	44
PSNI	30
South Wales	7
South Yorkshire	14
Staffordshire	3
Suffolk	3
Surrey	1
Sussex	8
Thames Valley	17
Warwickshire	4
West Mercia	5
West Midlands	51
West Yorkshire	87
Wiltshire	19
Overseas	432
Unknown / Not recorded*	1016
Total	2340

* “Unknown/not-recorded” cases are ones where: • potential victims did not know the location of exploitation; and / or

• potential victims have been moved with the intention to exploit but have been identified before an act of exploitation has taken place; and / or

• frontline workers did not accurately record this data when initial referrals were made

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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, what estimate his Department has made of the average period of time which (a) male and (b) female student podiatrists who enter training at the age of (i) 19, (ii) 25 and (iii) 30 in 2017-18 will take to pay off their student loans taking into account changes to the student support system from 2016-17.

Joseph Johnson

The changes announced at the Spending Review will enable us to lift the cap on the number of students on nursing courses and will provide nursing students with access to around 25% additional financial support. We expect this reform will enable universities to provide up to 10,000 additional nursing, midwifery and allied health training places over this Parliament.

The average repayment term on student loans is calculated for the total full time student population, rather than separately for students taking certain courses or their age on starting their course. On this basis, we estimate that the average repayment term for a full time student entering Higher Education in 2017-18 is around 20 to 25 years.

This estimate includes both borrowers who fully repay their loans and those who have loans written off due to death, disability leading to permanent inability to work, or reaching the end of the repayment term. The estimate takes into account the changes to student finance announced at Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether proposals for Northern Powerhouse Rail are based on city centre to city centre connectivity and on ensuring half-hour journeys between Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester.

Andrew Jones

Northern Powerhouse Rail is the government and Transport for the North’s shared vision to dramatically improve frequencies and journey times between the city centres of Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, Hull, Newcastle, and Manchester Airport.

The aspiration for journey times between Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester is 30 minutes.

Since the publication of the March 2015 Northern Transport Strategy, the government and Transport for the North have undertaken significant work to understand what the capability of the rail infrastructure would need to be, by route, to deliver such transformational connectivity.

An updated Strategy will be published in the spring.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many staff in his Department have relocated (a) out of London and (b) into London in each of the last five years.

Joseph Johnson

The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills does not hold that information centrally. To gather and analyse this information would incur disproportionate costs.