Tag: Royston Smith

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the Government’s policy is on the use of child advocates to support social workers working with unaccompanied migrant children.

Karen Bradley

Unaccompanied migrant children are looked after by local authorities, which provide social work support and access to legal representation. Such children are also referred to the Refugee Council’s Children’s Panel for specialist support.

In addition, the Government ran a trial of independent child trafficking advocates from 8 September 2014 for a period of 12 months across 23 local authorities in England. The trial provided a valuable contribution to our understanding of this area of work and we are currently working with a broad range of interested parties as well as Parliamentarians to further develop our thinking so that we ensure we support trafficked children appropriately. We will update Parliament in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-06-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many patients are supported by (a) NHS West London, (b) NHS North Manchester and (c) West Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group.

Alistair Burt

The number of registered patients in each of the specified clinical commissioning group (CCG) areas as at 1 April 2016 is shown in the following table.

Source: Information extracted on a quarterly basis from the General Practice payments system, which is maintained by the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-07-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what progress has been made on giving housing association tenants whose tenancies are defined as market rental the right to buy.

Gavin Barwell

The voluntary Right to Buy will give 1.3 million housing association tenants the opportunity to purchase a home. We are currently working with the National Housing Federation and the housing association sector on the implementation of the main scheme and will announce more details in due course.

As is set out in the voluntary agreement, the scheme will apply to those housing association tenants who live in a social or affordable rented home.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-10-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on the proportion of people working in (a) law, (b) journalism, (c) politics, (d) medicine and (e) other professions who attended (i) selective and (ii) non-selective schools.

Nick Gibb

The Department does not hold this information.

The Sutton Trust has looked at this matter as part of its Leading People study, which can be viewed on its website.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-01-13.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what progress he has made on analysis of responses to the pension transfers and early exit charges consultation, launched by his Department in July 2015; and when he plans to publish the response to the consultation.

Greg Hands

On Tuesday 19 January, the Chancellor announced his intention to legislate to place a duty on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to cap excessive early exit charges for those eligible to access the pension freedoms. This new duty will form part of the response to the government’s Pension Transfers and Early Exit Charges consultation, and will help people take full advantage of the pension freedoms. The government will be publishing its full response to this consultation shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, with reference to the Prime Minister’s announcement of 10 January 2016, Prime Minister pledges to transform sink estates, by what process local authorities will be able to obtain funding for estates regeneration under that initiative.

Brandon Lewis

The Government issued a Statement on 23 February, inviting expressions of interest from prospective estates across the country and enabling us to engage with prospective schemes. A more formal arrangement for accessing the £140 million loan fund, and for assessing bids into that fund, will be set in train in due course. The Statement can be accessed at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/estates-regeneration-statement

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will estimate the number of people from Eastern Europe who have returned to their country of birth from the UK in 2015-16.

Mr Rob Wilson

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that reforms of the welfare system are communicated clearly to recipients of welfare payments.

Justin Tomlinson

DWP communicates reforms of the welfare system to recipients of welfare payments in advance of the change and using the most appropriate channel including on-line, face to face, telephone and in writing.

To ensure that these communications are clear we follow pre-defined standards that meet accessibility requirements, are readable and easy to act on. We test products to confirm this.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has for the role of the local education authority in the provision of state education after the conversion of state-maintained schools to academies.

Edward Timpson

As set out in the Department’s recently published White Paper, ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’, in a fully academised system, local authorities (LAs) will have more clearly defined responsibilities in representing the interests of pupils and parents. LA’s education responsibilities will focus on:

• Ensuring every child has a school place

• Ensuring the needs of vulnerable pupils are met

• Acting as champions for all parents and families

Further information on the fully academised system and the role of local authorities can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational-excellence-everywhere

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of NHS funding was provided to GP surgeries in each of the last five years

Alistair Burt

NHS England has confirmed that the funding it invests in general practice will increase by an average of 4.5% each year from 2016/17 to 2020/21.

The below table shows the proportion of spend on general practice for each of the last five years for which data is available. The figures for spend on general practice are taken from the Health and Social Care Information Centre’s Investment in General Practice 2011-2015 report, which is the most comprehensive source of data on investment in general practice. The NHS Revenue Expenditure data is taken from the Department’s accounts.