Tag: Rushanara Ali

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, by what proportion the rent for premises leased by Network Rail has increased for businesses based in (a) Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, (b) London and (c) England in each of the last five years.

Claire Perry

I am unable to provide this information as it is held by Network Rail and is commercially sensitive.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-06-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what funding the Government has allocated to tackle domestic violence in each year since 2010.

Karen Bradley

The previous Government provided £40 million of dedicated funding for domestic and sexual violence services between 2011 and 2015 equating to £10 million per year. This funding was extended until April 2016, supplemented by an additional £10 million for refuges and a £3.5 million fund to boost the provision of domestic violence services.

As part of our new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy, we announced increased funding to £80 million from 2016 to 2020 to protect women and girls from violence, which includes support for refuges and other accommodation-based services, funding to national helplines, a further year of funding for Independent Domestic Violence Advisers and Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference Coordinators and, from 2017, the launch of the VAWG Transformation Fund.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if she will make it her Department’s policy to replace the Green Deal with a scheme to improve energy efficiency in able-to-pay households, in addition to the post-2017 Energy Company Obligation and extension to the Warm Home Discount announced as part of the Spending Review.

Andrea Leadsom

We intend to focus our efforts through ECO and the Warm Home Discount more effectively on the fuel poor and continue to deliver on our commitment to insulate 1 million more homes this Parliament.

We are also looking at a range of policy levers for driving take up of low carbon heat and energy efficiency in non-fuel poor households.

We have commissioned The Bonfield Review to ensure that the current quality and standards framework properly supports and protects consumers; a report will be published in Spring 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to (a) monitor and (b) improve the performance of police forces in completing applications to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Karen Bradley

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) provides a formal monthly performance report to the Home Office and Home Office Ministers. This includes updates on the performance of police forces in meeting the Service Level Agreement (SLA) standards for the time taken to complete local disclosure checks.

If police force performance falls below the standard agreed with the DBS, the DBS will work with the force concerned. Where appropriate, this may include implementing a recovery plan and providing additional resources to ensure that the plan is fully supported.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-03-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the effect of visa arrangements for international students on the number of those students coming to study in the UK.

James Brokenshire

The student migration system we inherited was too weak, and open to wide-spread abuse, damaging the UK’s reputation as a provider of world-class education. The National Audit Office reported that in 2009/10 up to 50,000 students may have come to work, not study.

We have clamped down on immigration abuse from poor quality institutions selling immigration rather than education, and since 2010 we have struck off more than 920 bogus colleges. Visa applications for the further education sector, where abuse has been most prevalent over recent years, are down 75 per cent compared with 2010.

At the same time, we have maintained a highly competitive offer for international students who would like to study at our world-class institutions. This is borne out by the figures: visa applications from international students to study at British universities are up by 16 per cent since 2010, whilst visa applications to our world-leading Russell Group institutions are up by 39 per cent since 2010.

We will continue to reform the student visa system to tackle abuse and deliver an effective immigration system that works in the national interest.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his policies on benefits eligibility of the conclusion in the University of Hull report, entitled Mapping hunger, published in April 2016, that food bank use is highest in areas with people in skilled manual work or where more people are unable to work due to long-term sickness or disability.

Justin Tomlinson

This government is determined to move to a higher wage society, introducing the new National Living Wage that will benefit over 1 million workers directly this year, and spending £80 billion on working age benefits to ensure a strong safety net for those who need it most. We are also committed to supporting people with disabilities and currently spend a record £50 billion a year doing so.

There are no plans to amend our reforms that are ensuring that work always pays and are restoring fairness for hardworking taxpayers. As the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger noted, the reasons why people use food banks can be complex and are frequently overlapping. Their use cannot be attributed to a single cause.

Our welfare system provides a strong safety net to those who need extra support.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-03-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to make the entitlement to an early education place a legal requirement.

Mr Sam Gyimah

English local authorities have a statutory duty under section 7 of the Childcare Act 2006 to secure a free early education place of 15 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year for all three- and four-year-olds and two-year-olds who meet the eligibility criteria. The early education entitlement is not a legal requirement for parents, and we know that the current model is extremely successful, with 99% of four-year-olds and 94% of three-year-olds taking up a place. And, Based on survey data collected from local authorities in the autumn of 2015 it is estimated that 182,000 two-year-olds – around 72% of eligible children – have taken up a place on the two-year-old programme.

The Secretary of State has a statutory duty under the Childcare Act 2016 to secure an additional 15 hours a week of free childcare for 38 weeks of the year for working parents of three- and four-year-olds.

The Secretary of State will discharge the duty in clause 2 of the Childcare Act, the duty to secure 30 hours of free childcare for working parents, through all local authorities in England. Local authorities will, therefore, be required to secure childcare provision free of charge to qualifying children.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to monitor the provision and use of food banks.

Priti Patel

There are no plans for my Department to monitor the use of food banks. This is because as the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger noted that the reasons why people use food banks can be complex and are frequently overlapping. Their use cannot be attributed to a single cause.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rushanara Ali on 2016-04-22.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of reductions in HM Revenue and Customs funding on efforts to tackle tax evasion and avoidance.

Mr David Gauke

In the last Parliament, more than 40 changes were made to tax law, closing down loopholes and introducing major reforms to the UK tax-system. These measures are estimated to have raised over £12 billion by the end of 2015-16.

At Summer Budget 2015, the government gave HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) an extra £800 million to fund additional work to tackle evasion and non-compliance by 2020-21. This will enable HMRC to recover a cumulative £7.2 billion in tax over the next five years by tackling evasion and non-compliance. It is committed to raising an additional £5 billion a year through tackling tax avoidance, aggressive tax planning, tax evasion, non-compliance and imbalances in the tax system by 2019-20.