Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to support women starting and growing businesses.
Answered by Paul Scully
All Government’s business support schemes are open to eligible businesses including female entrepreneurs.
The Start-Up Loans programme has provided more than 31,000 loans, worth over £245m, to female entrepreneurs as of October 2020.
Additionally, we continue to work with the private sector to deliver the eight initiatives of the Rose Review. Great progress has been made over the past year with joint NatWest and Be the Business launching the ‘Rose Review Female Entrepreneurs Mentoring Programme’ on 27 October.
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what his Department considers the minimum population size to be for a newly-established unitary authority for that authority to achieve (a) value for money and (b) quality service delivery.
Answered by Simon Clarke
The Devolution and Local Recovery White Paper to be published this Autumn will set out our transformative plans for economic recovery and renewal, and for levelling up opportunity, prosperity, and well-being across the country. Whilst traditionally various population ranges for unitary councils have been referred to, where a unitary council is proposed its particular circumstances need to be considered when assessing whether its population would be appropriate.
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that funding allocated to tackling mental illness is spent on that issue.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health Dashboard reports detail on the expenditure made by National Health Service clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) on mental health services. It is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/taskforce/imp/mh-dashboard
CCGs are required each year, under the Mental Health Investment Standard (MHIS), to increase their spend on mental health services by a greater amount than the growth in their overall programme allocation. The requirement to meet the MHIS is included within the NHS Operational Planning and Contracting Guidance 2017–2019 and is a key part of NHS England’s operational and financial planning assurance process for 2018/19.
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what policies he plans to bring forward to enable more hospitals to meet the targets on waiting times for (a) A&E treatment, (b) cancer treatment and (c) planned operations and care.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Government’s Mandate to NHS England for 2018-19 is clear that it is to maintain and improve performance against core patient access standards including accident and emergency (A&E), cancer and planned operations and care-Referral to Treatment (RTT).
The Government expects the National Health Service to deliver the actions set out in the NHS Planning Guidance for 2018-19 – in full – as key steps towards fully recovering performance against core access standards. This means treating a quarter of a million more patients in A&E, halving the number who have the longest waits for treatment and working towards reducing the number of patients waiting overall. We gave the NHS top priority in the 2017 budget with an additional £2.8 billion of funding for the NHS between 2017-18 and 2019-20, and this has been reflected in the mandate.
To provide the NHS with financial stability, the longer-term plan, announced last month will see NHS funding increase by £20.5 billion per year by 2023/24, the end of the first five years compared with today.
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to help prevent the extinction of the banana plant.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
DFID is investing in technologies to identify ways to control the spread of banana diseases, including Panama Disease, in Africa and Asia, as part of a global effort to tackle this problem.
DFID is major funder of the international research organisation, the Consultative group on International Agricultural Research (CCIAR), which is currently working to address Panama Disease (TR4) as well as other emerging disease and pest threats in developing countries.
Although the disease cannot currently be eradicated, this research aims to develop effective control measures and to identify banana varieties that are not susceptible to the disease. These are being tested in countries like Mozambique and Myanmar that are already affected by Panama Disease.
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many nurses were employed in Harrogate District and North Yorkshire in (a) 2013-2014, (b) 2014-2015 and (c) 2016-2017.
Answered by Steve Barclay - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
NHS Digital publishes workforce statistics and the following table shows the number of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) Hospital and Community Health Service nurses and health visitors in Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, which is the main service provider for north Yorkshire, each year from 2013 to 2017.
NHS Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS): Nurses and health visitors as at 31 October each specified year (FTE).
FTE | October 2013 | October 2014 | October 2015 | October 2016 | October 2017 |
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust | 766 | 830 | 789 | 1,092 | 1,081 |
Source: NHS Digital HCHS workforce statistics
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how much funding was allocated to youth cadets in North Yorkshire in (a) 2015-2016 and (b) 2016-2017.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many households claimed childcare vouchers in (a) the Harrogate District, (b) North Yorkshire and (c) Yorkshire and The Humber in 2016-2017.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
I refer the Honourable Member to the answer I gave on 25 January 2017 to the Honourable Member for Hull North (123405).
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much was spent by his Department's public bodies on employees partly or wholly employed on trade union duties in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
This Government has taken action to tackle the taxpayer-funded subsidies that previously were handed to the trade unions. Such payments were poor value for money and represented an unhealthy relationship between the state and voluntary sector.
Trade union activities and campaigning in the public sector should be funded by members' subscriptions, not bankrolled by the taxpayer. Greater freedom from state dependency will help ensure that trade union bosses better reflect and respond to the wishes and views of the grassroots members who pay the bill.
Following the Cabinet Office review of the use of facility time and facilities in the civil service, the Department for Communities and Local Government has made a series of reforms:
In 2013-14, the first year of the new regime, departmental facility time staffing costs were reduced to £47,620. To place in context, previous years were £153,814 in 2012-13, £140,687 in 2011-12, £177,100 in 2009-10 and £245,644 in 2008-09.
Figures for our public bodies are shown in the attached table, and show a total reduction of £222,303 in 2013-14 on the year before. There are additional further sayings from a reduction in union expenses (now zero across the Department and our public bodies).
We have also issued guidance to councils to follow our example in delivering sensible savings. We have amended the local government Transparency Code to increase openness and accountability over such taxpayer-funded payments to the trade unions.
Asked by: Andrew Jones (Conservative - Harrogate and Knaresborough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made in reducing the number of asylum cases dating to before 2007.
Answered by James Brokenshire
At the end of 2012, there were approximately 41,000 ‘legacy’ asylum and migration cases where the original application was submitted before March 2007. The Home Office committed to review and communicate decisions on all of these by the end of 2014. The work to review and communicate decisions was completed by the end of December 2014 aside from a small number of cases where an external impediment, such as an outstanding criminal investigation or ongoing litigation, prevented us completing our review
There are cases where the Home Office has completed a review and decided that it is not appropriate to grant leave but not yet removed the applicant. It is for this reason that we committed to review and communicate decisions on the pre March 2007 cases but did not guarantee that all will be concluded by the end of 2014. Such individuals will remain live whilst removal is progressed.
Link to the related published data:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/407276/asylum_transparency_data-q4_2014.ods