Tag: Tulip Siddiq

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-05-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) professionals, (b) nominated officers and (c) other nominated officers were prosecuted for failure to disclose under sections 330 to 332 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 in each year since 2009-10.

Mr John Hayes

The Government is committed to ensuring that the UK has a robust anti-money laundering regime. The National Risk Assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing was published on 15 October 2015. This identified the threats and vulnerabilities we face in these areas, and the Action Plan for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist finance was published on 21 April 2016, setting out the steps that the Government will take to address them.

The number of defendants proceeded against at magistrates’ courts and found guilty at all courts of offences under Sections 330 to 332, listed individually, from 2009/10 to the period between April and December 2014 (latest period available), can be viewed in the table below. It is not possible to determine the occupation of those convicted of these offences.

Section of Act	Outcome	2009/10	2010/11	2011/12	2012/13	2013/14	April to December 2014
330	Proceeded against	–	5	2	2	4	1
Found guilty	–	4	1	1	8	1
331	Proceeded against	–	–	–	–	2	–
	Found guilty	–	–	1	–	1	–
332	Proceeded against	–	–	–	–	–	–
	Found guilty	–	–	–	1	–	–

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-05-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, (a) how much funding was allocated to and (b) how many full-time equivalent staff were employed by (i) the National Crime Agency’s Criminal Finances Threat Group and (ii) each of the cash-based money laundering, non cash-based money laundering and professional enablers divisions and the other sub-groups in each year since 2009-10.

Mr John Hayes

The National Crime Agency’s Annual Report and Accounts 2014-15 sets out the Agency’s staffing numbers and funding allocations including gross expenditure for the Economic Crime Command for 2013-14, and 2014-15.

The gross expenditure of the Economic Crime Command in 2013/14, the first year of the NCA’s operation, was £10,571,000. In 2014-15 gross expenditure was £21,718,000. In June 2015, the International Corruption Unit was established in the Economic Crime Command. It brought together resources from the Metropolitan Police Service, City of London Police and the NCA into a single unit and is responsible for investigating the bribery of foreign public officials by individuals or companies from the UK, and money laundering by corrupt foreign officials and their associates.

The Economic Crime Command also leads the Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT) through which the financial sector, law enforcement agencies and the Financial Conduct Authority share information to prevent, detect and disrupt money laundering and terrorist financing. The NCA as a whole has around 4,000 staff. The majority of the NCA’s staff work as a flexible investigative resource, not in a particular Command, but assigned to particular operations across all areas of the NCA as needed. The agency also houses a number of deployable specialist capabilities.

The number of staff working in a particular Command is not a reliable indicator of the overall NCA resource linked to a particular type of crime. The Criminal Finances Threat Group is a multi-agency group chaired by the NCA which includes representatives from across law enforcement, meeting quarterly. As the Group is not a unit within the NCA, the information sought is not available. HMRC leads on tax evasion.

The NCA works closely with HMRC in relation to tax evasion that relates to serious and organised crime. Through the NCA’s national tasking and coordination mechanisms the Agency is able act on these cases by utilising its specialist capabilities, for example undertaking tax investigations to recover assets from serious and organised criminals under part 6 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-06-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the effect of hospital-initiated postponement or cancellation of ophthalmology follow-up appointments on patients’ sight.

Alistair Burt

All follow-up appointments should take place when clinically appropriate. It is for clinicians to make decisions on when they see patients, in line with their clinical priority, and patients should not experience undue delay at any stage of their referral, diagnosis or treatment. The appropriate interval for follow up appointments will vary between different services or specialties, and between individual patients, depending on the severity of their condition.

To ensure that patients are seen at the appropriate time, NHS England’s guidance, “Recording and reporting referral to treatment waiting times for consultant-led elective care” is clear that when patients on planned lists are clinically ready for their care to commence and reach the date for their planned appointment, they should either receive that appointment or be transferred to an active waiting list. At that point, a waiting time clock will be started and their wait reported in the relevant statistical return.

Hospital episode statistics contain details of all outpatient appointments at National Health Service hospitals in England and commissioned by the NHS from independent sector organisations in England. The recording of a primary diagnosis and postponed or cancelled appointments is not mandatory within the outpatient commissioning data set and there are no plans to make it so.

Data is not, therefore, available on the number of cancelled or postponed follow up appointments for patients with age-related macular degeneration, central retinal vein occlusion and diabetic macular oedema.

No assessment has been made of the effect of hospital-initiated postponement or cancellation of ophthalmology follow-up appointments on patients’ sight. However, officials have met with the Clinical Council for Eye Health Commissioning and are considering their concerns.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-10-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to tackle online abuse and harassment targeted at women on (a) social media networks, (b) Facebook and (c) Twitter.

Sarah Newton

We expect social media companies, and internet platforms, to have robust processes in place and to act promptly when abuse is reported, this includes acting quickly to remove inappropriate content, and where appropriate, suspending or terminating the accounts of those breaching the rules in place. The Government continues to work closely with social media companies and other relevant actors and experts to make sure they are committed to protecting those who use their platforms.

The Criminal Justice Act 2015 strengthened two existing communications offences: section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988, and section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 which can now be used to prosecute misuse of social media. The police now have longer to investigate either offence, and the maximum penalty for the former has been increased to two years imprisonment.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2015-12-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many employers applied to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to have their employees’ statutory maternity pay paid in advance in each of the last five financial years; what proportion of those applications were (a) accepted and (b) rejected; and what average time was taken by HMRC to make decisions on those applications.

Priti Patel

DWP data on the amount of National Insurance Contributions claimed by employers to pay for Statutory Maternity Pay comes from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

The information is not available as requested. HMRC do not keep records of the number of claims to advanced funding which are rejected and therefore it is not possible to provide proportions of those (a) accepted and (b) rejected.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2015-12-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of migrants granted leave to remain in the UK were subject to the No Recourse to Public Funds condition in each of the last five years.

James Brokenshire

The proportion of cases granted leave to remain in the UK who were subject to the No Recourse to Public funds condition in each of the last five years was as follows:

2011: 95%

2012: 97%

2013: 94%

2014: 92%

2015*: 92%

These figures have been provided by the Home Office database with figures rounded to the nearest 5, interpreting ‘migrants’ as ‘lead cases’, they exclude asylum applications and figures for 2015 are available up to 30 September 2015.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-01-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 15 December 2015 to Question 19711, if he will provide equivalent data for the financial years 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Priti Patel

The data is not available in financial years (April-March) only in academic years (August-July). I refer the Honourable Member to the answer I gave on 5 January 2016 to her previous question 20685

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-01-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the letter from Lord Livingston of Parkhead to the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee of 3 July 2014, Deposited Paper DEP2015-0877, what progress HM Revenue and Customs has made establishing a cross departmental working group to take forward the modelling of the tax implications of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Anna Soubry

HM Revenue and Customs has been in discussion with HM Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to determine the parameters, principles and feasibility of a tax model. HMRC has also consulted with international organisations to consider best practice in this area. Further meetings are planned following the next round of negotiations when we expect some of the parameters for the model will become clearer.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion of ministerial letters have been signed on behalf of Ministers in their absence in the last 12 months.

Matthew Hancock

This information is not held and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

In line with the guidance on handling Ministerial correspondence, the Cabinet Office ensures that all correspondence, wherever possible, is personally hand-signed by the appropriate responsible Minister.

Guidance to Departments on handling correspondence is available on Gov.uk – https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/441892/Cabinet_Office_Guidance_on_correspondence.pdf

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-02-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and which (a) academies and (b) free schools applied to the Secretary of State to have their funding arrangements changed to allow them to vary their school admissions requirements in each year since 2009-10; and which such applications were approved.

Edward Timpson

In total, between 2012 and 2016, three requests have been considered by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) to vary in-year admissions arrangements of academies and free schools outside of the normal admissions timeframe. One relates to an academy and two to free schools. The two applications from the free schools were approved. The EFA was established in April 2012. We do not hold figures relating to this question prior to this date.

The table below sets out the number of requests from academies and free schools considered and approved by the EFA from 2012-13:

	Requests to vary admissions requirements
	Academies	Free Schools	Approved
2012-13	0	0	0
2013-14	0	0	0
2014-15	0	1	1
2015-16 Current financial year to date i.e. April 15 to Jan 16	1	1	1
Total	1	2	2

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