Tag: Roger Godsiff

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how UK citizens living in the UK can apply for a visa for relatives living in Yemen.

James Brokenshire

UK citizens can submit visa applications on behalf of relatives living overseas via the following website – www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk/home/welcome.

The applicant would then need to travel to their nearest Visa Application Centre (VAC) to verify the information provided and progress their application to the next stage.

There are no VACs in Yemen; guidance for applying for a UK visa from Yemen can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/yemen-apply-for-a-uk-visa/apply-for-a-uk-visa-in-yemen

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-01-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, for what reason the UK no longer has a strategy on opposing the death penalty; and whether the Government plans to publish a new strategy.

Mr David Lidington

This Government is continuing its work to oppose the death penalty as part of its broader efforts to promote human rights. Our commitment to the Rules Based International Order underpins this work, including through bilateral and multilateral support to global efforts to abolish the death penalty. We do not intend to publish a new strategy specific to the death penalty; but we will be publishing a strategy for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)’s Human Rights and Democracy Programme Fund shortly, which will show how work to abolish the death penalty is important under all three of the strategy’s new themes. The FCO’s death penalty-related work will also be covered in future instalments of the FCO’s Annual Human Rights Report.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much compensation the NHS has paid to patients who were injured by healthcare carried out by private contractors in each of the last five years.

Ben Gummer

The Department does not hold this information centrally; the answer has been supplied by the National Health Service Litigation Authority (NHS LA).

The table below shows all payments made on claims against private providers as at 31 December 2015 (open and closed claims) for payment years 2010/11 to 2014/15.

Year of Payment	Damages £	Defence Costs £	Claimant Costs £	Total Paid £
2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15	3,213,372 4,143,937 8,132,597 8,522,797 8,905,057	378,903 621,887 807,120 868,765 1,096,935	1,251,698 1,989,256 3,312,219 4,172,732 4,504,967	4,843,973 6,755,080 12,251,935 13,564,293 14,506,960
Total	32,917,760	3,773,610	15,230,871	51,922,241

Source: NHSLA

Date: January 2016

Prior to that date indemnity cover was provided by the referring National Health Service body. Since 1 April 2013 independent providers have been directly eligible for membership of the clinical negligence scheme for trusts. The figures in the table represent all private provider claims for each of the last five years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-02-05.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what criteria and pay grades his Department uses to decide on pay rises for political aides and special advisors.

Matthew Hancock

All public servants, including special advisers, are subject to an overall 1% pay remit.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to implement the recommendations of the Mental Health Taskforce’s report, The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, published in February 2016.

Alistair Burt

The Government welcomes and accepts the recommendations from the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health. The Taskforce estimates that the priority recommendations for the National Health Service set out in their report will cost an additional £1 billion annually by the year 2020/21: by the end of this Parliament we will make the Taskforce’s recommendations a reality.

Investment in mental health rose to its highest ever level, an estimated £11.7 billion, in 2014/15. The £1 billion of additional investment announced by the Prime Minister last month will be in place by 2020/21 and builds on the £280 million per year of new funding for children and young people’s mental health announced last year. This funding will make an important contribution to plugging the gap and fulfilling the Taskforce’s recommendations, helping one million additional children, young people and adults to access high quality care by 2020/21.

How new investment for NHS priority recommendations is identified and implemented will be for NHS England to determine as part of the planning and allocations process. We anticipate that the majority of commitments outlined in this report will be delivered through clinical commissioning groups.

Further guidance will be issued shortly as part of the new Sustainability and Transformation Planning process: this will set expectations for how funding will be invested to deliver on the Taskforce recommendations for the NHS and how areas will be supported to deliver them over the following four years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-02-29.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the minimum number of hours off-duty is that his Department uses to define a day off for a junior doctor.

Ben Gummer

Neither the current contract nor the new contract define a day off. Both define a minimum rest period between shifts of 11 hours and a minimum break between defined periods of prolonged work of 48 hours. Further minimum rest periods, as set out in the existing Working Time Regulations, will also apply. The new contract will reduce the number of consecutive night shifts after which a 48 hour break must be taken from seven to four, the number of consecutive long day shifts from seven to five, the number of consecutive late evening shifts from 12 to four and the number of consecutive shorter shifts from 12 to eight. The improvements are part of the around 90% of the new contract that was agreed with the British Medical Association and that make the new contract much safer than the current one.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-03-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies on corporate taxation of the OECD’s report, Countering harmful tax practices more effectively, taking into account transparency and substance, published in September 2014.

Mr David Gauke

The OECD report published in September 2014 formed the basis of international discussions in the OECD Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, which lead to the publishing of the 2015 FHTP Report, chapter 4 of which creates a new international framework governing preferential intellectual property (“IP”) regimes, such as the UK Patent Box.

This international framework makes the lower tax rates of preferential IP regimes dependent on, and proportional to, the research and development expenditure incurred by the claimant taxpayer in developing their IP. The UK Patent Box will be amended in line with this international framework, with the new rules coming into force on 1 July 2016.

The Report also made provision for greater information exchange between tax authorities of rulings issued to individual businesses. HM Revenue and Customs is currently implementing these rules and has already begun to exchange information with other tax authorities.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reason NHS England decided not to proceed with the Truvada commissioning process; and what plans the Government has to make that drug available on the NHS.

Jane Ellison

NHS England does not now consider pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV is suitable for prioritisation of specialised commissioning spend as it is a preventative measure. However given the potential benefits in this area, NHS England is keen to build on the work to date and will be making available up to £2 million over the next two years to run a number of early implementer test sites. These will be undertaken in conjunction with Public Health England and will seek to answer the remaining questions around how PrEP could be commissioned in the most cost effective and integrated way to reduce HIV and sexually transmitted infections in those at highest risk.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-04-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether the Government plans to issue a commencement order to bring into effect Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

Mr Edward Vaizey

No decision has been taken regarding commencement of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. The matter is still under consideration.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to the Royal College of General Practitioner’s report entitled A blueprint for building the new deal for general practice in England, published in May 2015, if his Department will respond to the recommendations of that report on (a) necessary increases in the GP workforce and (b) the proportion of the NHS budget that should be invested in general practice.

Alistair Burt

The Department has committed to increasing the primary and community care workforce by 10,000 by 2020, including an additional 5,000 doctors working in general practice.

The General Practice Forward View, published by NHS England on 21 April and developed in discussion with the Royal College of General Practitioners and other general practitioner (GP) stakeholders, sets out actions to double the rate of growth of the GP workforce by introducing measures to increase recruitment, retention and return to practice.

The General Practice Forward View states that NHS England is committed to increasing the proportion of investment going into general practice services, which should reach over 10% by 2020/21. Investment in general practice will increase by £2.4 billion per year by 2020/21, meaning that investment will rise from £9.6 billion in 2015/16 to over £12 billion a year by 2020/21.