Tag: Steve McCabe

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-05-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 21 April 2016 to Question 34026, what types of data her Department holds on unaccompanied children who have (a) applied for asylum in accordance with Article 8 of the Dublin III Regulation and (b) been granted asylum in accordance with Article 8 of the Dublin III Regulation.

James Brokenshire

Dublin III is the mechanism in place used to determine the Member State deemed to be responsible for hearing an applicant’s asylum claim, providing the asylum claim has been lodged in at lease one of Member States. Article 8 of the Dublin regulations deals specifically with asylum claimants who are unaccompanied minor. Asylum claims are not granted under Article 8 of the Dublin III Regulations.

Home Office records regarding the processing of Dublin III cases are recorded on the Case Information Database (CID), and would include but are not restricted to, name, nationality, date of birth, Member State where the asylum claim was lodged, Dublin Article relevant to the claim, request/decision details and Dublin case outcome details. Currently case progression data is not held in a way that allows it to be reported on automatically and is currently subject to a full manual interrogation of individual records to improve the quality of the central data.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-06-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 23 May 2016 to Question 37487, whether the Education Funding Agency has directed academies to admit pupils 10 or 12 times since 2012; and how many directions sought by local authorities and referred on to the Schools Adjudicator were upheld in each year from 2005 to 2010.

Nick Gibb

Pursuant to the Answer of 23 May 2016 to Question 37487, the Education Funding Agency has directed academies to admit pupils 12 times between April 2012 and April 2016.

The Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) does not issue directions in relation to maintained schools but will determine the case if a school which a local authority is seeking to direct refers the case on to the adjudicator.

Prior to 2007, directions under section 96 and 97 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (SSFA) were determined by the Secretary of State. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 amended the SSFA to bring powers to the OSA to determine appeals.

The table below shows the number of directions upheld in each year from 2007 to 2010.

Year	LA directions upheld by OSA
2007	6
2008	20
2009	9
2010	7

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-06-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 24 May 2016 to Question 37683, on child maintenance arrears, on how many occasions his Department has used each of the enforcement powers referred to in that Answer in each of the last five years.

Priti Patel

For the 1993 and 2003 Schemes the information you requested is set out on Page 40 of the Child Support Agency quarterly summary of statistics which can be accessed online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-support-agency-quarterly-summary-of-statistics-march-2016

Information on enforcement for the 2012 scheme could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-07-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 13 June 2016 to Question 39897, how many full-time equivalent officials of her Department are responsible for identifying, verifying and processing all asylum cases.

Mr Robert Goodwill

Asylum Operations in UK Visas and Immigration currently have 73 full time equivalent (FTE) staff who are responsible for screening asylum claims. Staff in Border Force and Immigration Enforcement will also encounter new asylum claimants in the course of their duties.

Asylum Operations have 271 (FTE) decision makers responsible for interviewing and deciding asylum

claims. Over 100 additional decision makers are currently being recruited and trained, and we continually review our staffing levels to ensure that we can deal with levels of intake. The figures quoted have been derived from management information and are therefore provisional and subject to change. This information has not been quality assured under National Statistics protocols

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-09-02.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 12 July 2016 to Question 42179, what plans he has to support the creation of high quality and high paying jobs in city regions.

Mr David Gauke

We have gone further than any other government in devolving significant powers and funding from central government to city regions through devolution deals – which will result in high quality jobs, local growth, and reduce regional variations in tax generation. We are breaking with decades of centralisation, handing real powers away from Whitehall and closer to local people.

The government has made several commitments which will boost high quality job creation across the regions. £200m has been committed to Transport for the North, strategic investments have been made in science (including £235m for the Sir Henry Royce Institute in Manchester,) Hull has been backed as the 2017 City of Culture, and we are creating a Midlands Engine Investment Fund of over £250m.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-09-08.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of all government departments adopting the same practice of informal monthly performance reviews which has been implemented by the Valuation Office Agency.

Ben Gummer

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on Wednesday 7 September 2016 to UIN: 44500.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-09-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress has been made on producing a 25-Year Plan for the environment.

Dr Thérèse Coffey

The 25 Year Plan for the environment is a Conservative manifesto commitment and a priority for this government – ensuring a healthy environment and strong economy. Ours will be the first generation to leave the natural environment of England in a better state than when we found it.

The decision to leave the EU has meant the scope for the plan needed to be widened. We will now consider a long-term vision for our environment that is tailored to the needs of this country.

We will shortly be publishing an engagement framework which will provide everyone with the opportunity to contribute toward shaping our environment over the next few years. We look forward to continuing to work with a wide range of interests to determine our approach and work together to deliver it.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-09-15.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make it his policy to postpone the introduction of the secondary market for annuities until 2018 to ensure adequate time for the pension industry to plan for the introduction of that market.

Simon Kirby

To date, the Government has published the following consultation documents in relation to the secondary market in annuities policy:

Creating a secondary annuity market – March 2015

Creating a secondary annuity market: response to the call for evidence – December 2015

Creating a secondary annuity market: tax framework – April 2016

Creating a secondary market for annuities – secondary legislation – April 2016

These consultations have now closed. The Government will respond shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of the staff employed by her Department are non-UK nationals.

Rory Stewart

All Government Departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules.

Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.

More broadly, the Government will be consulting in due course on how we work with business to ensure that workers in this country have the skills that they need to get a job. But there are no proposals to publish lists of the number or proportion of foreign workers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 13 September 2016 to Question 45594, on public sector: procurement, where the Crown Commercial Service analysis can be found that is referred to in that Answer.

Ben Gummer

The Crown Commercial Service analysis referred to was undertaken internally to facilitate answering the Hon Member’s previous question. The key data is reproduced below.

UK Tenders on Tenders Electronic Daily (Official journal of the EU) and Contracts Finder

MONTH	TED	CONTRACTS FINDER
January 2016	812	2,577
February 2016	760	3,080
March 2016	987	3,256
April 2016	958	2,865
May 2016	881	2,960
June 2016	907	931
July 2016	1,033	2,853
August 2016	1,027	3,570

This clearly illustrates both the deferment in “Contract Finder” tenders during the EU referendum purdah period, and the lack of any significant change in the number of “Tenders Electronic Daily” opportunities.