Tag: Royston Smith

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-23.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps the Government plans to take to ensure institutions and organisations in receipt of public funds do not express a corporate opinion on the forthcoming EU referendum.

John Penrose

The rules on campaigning at the referendum are set out in the European Union Referendum Act 2015 and the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. There is no general restriction on institutions and organisations in receipt of public funds expressing a corporate opinion on the European Union Referendum. However, there are restrictions on organisations whose expenses are met wholly or mainly from public funds publishing certain material relating to the referendum in the final 28 days.

As the independent regulator for charities in England and Wales, the Charity Commission published guidance for charities on 7 March 2016 regarding the forthcoming EU referendum. This clearly sets out the threshold necessary to justify any charitable activity on this specific issue.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-04-11.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the effect on the public purse of the sale of the Government’s remaining RBS shares.

Greg Hands

The government conducted an initial sale of RBS shares in August 2015, raising £2.1bn for the taxpayer.

The proceeds from sales contribute to reducing UK government debt.

Further sales will be conducted subject to market conditions, in order to maximise value for the taxpayer. The returns on the government’s interventions in RBS will be determined by the success of the whole of the selling programme, rather than the terms achieved on the first few disposals.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-04-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he plans to take to allow community pharmacies to care for patients with long-term health conditions through (a) medical reviews and (b) other assistance with that condition.

Alistair Burt

Community pharmacies already take significant steps to care for patients with long term conditions (LTCS). Community pharmacy staff routinely deliver a range of services to meet the needs of patients with LTCs, including timely dispensing of medicines, opportunistic and prescription-linked public health interventions, such as advice on a healthy diet and nutrition, stop smoking advice to help maintain the health of people with LTCs such as diabetes and heart disease, support for self-care and signposting, when they are not able to provide the support themselves.

In addition, community pharmacists provide advice on the safe use of medicines so they are taken as intended, through medicines use reviews and the new medicines service, the latter intended for people with certain LTCs prescribed new medicines. Utilising pharmacists clinical skills assists with optimising medicines in a way which puts patients at the centre of decision making, with regular monitoring and review, helping to improve their health outcomes.

The Government’s vision is for a more efficient, modern system that will free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services to the benefit of patients, including those with LTCs, and the public.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-05-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department has taken to allow pensioners to draw down all funds within any public pension schemes that existed before 2016-17.

Justin Tomlinson

Members of funded public sector defined benefit pension schemes can take advantage of the pension freedoms by transferring their pension savings to a private defined contribution pension scheme before cashing in their pension. Members of unfunded public sector defined benefit schemes cannot transfer to access the pension freedoms. In unfunded defined benefit public service pension schemes, there is no fund of assets with which to finance transfer payments. Instead, they are funded from contributions and through general expenditure.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the budget is for GP services in (a) Southampton, (b) NHS West London Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), (c) NHS North Manchester CCG and (d) West Hampshire CCG in 2016-17.

Alistair Burt

The budget for general practitioner services in NHS Southampton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), NHS West London CCG, NHS North Manchester CCG and West Hampshire CCG for 2016-17 is published in the primary care medical allocations data and can be accessed via the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/pc-medical-allocations.pdf

(Source: NHS England)

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-06-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what measures are in place to prevent people remanded in custody from accessing social media platforms.

Andrew Selous

An extensive programme of work is underway to prevent prisoners having access to mobile phones. As the Prime Minister said on 8 February 2016, we are working with the mobile network operators to challenge them to do more, including developing new technological solutions, so we can block mobile phones’ signals in prisons.

Although there are no rules to prevent prisoners on remand from passing on passwords for social media platforms, prisoners, including those on remand in custody, are not allowed access to social media platforms either directly or via a third party.

It is a criminal offence for a person to take or transmit any image or sound from within a prison and send it outside the prison and where a link between a prisoner and content posted on social media is identified, the case will be referred to the police. A sentence of up to two years can be given if those charged are found guilty. If the police decide not to pursue a criminal investigation, a prisoner can be punished under the prison disciplinary system, for example, by having privileges removed or additional days added to their time in prison.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-10-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of pupils from white working class backgrounds in (a) selective, (b) non-selective and (c) state boarding schools achieved the highest value added scores in the most recent academic year.

Nick Gibb

Information is provided for white pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals. This is an indicator of economic deprivation which is available for 2014/15 and has frequently been used to approximate the ‘white working class’.

Pupils at the end of key stage 4 in fully selective schools and in boarding schools in 2014/15 are compared with those at the end of key stage 4 in all other state-funded mainstream schools. Pupils in Further Education Sector Institutions are excluded from this analysis. It should be noted that a small number of comprehensive schools use an element of selection in their admissions at the secondary phase.

The proportion of such pupils with a Best 8 Value Added score greater than the national average from each school type is given. The table below shows figures for 2014/15, the latest year for which information is available, for a) selective schools, b) non-selective schools and c) boarding schools.

White pupils known to be eligible for free school meals	Selective schools	Non-selective schools	Boarding schools
Proportion with a Best 8 Value Added score greater than the national average	61.6%	36.5%	35.6%