Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many beneficial owners listed in the Register of Overseas Entities are trusts based overseas; and for what reasons Companies House does not publish details about the beneficiaries and other parties of these trusts.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Currently, 8,857 registrable beneficial owners are recorded as either the trustees of a trust or having significant influence or control over a trust. An estimated 4,340 trusts have so far been registered with Companies House. Trusts associated with an overseas entity may or may not themselves be based overseas. Information about them is required to be provided to Companies House because they are associated with land held via an overseas entity. The figure provided relates to all trusts recorded on the Register of Overseas Entities.
Information about trusts is available to law enforcement and public authorities. Trusts are used for a wide range of purposes, including personal family arrangements, and providing for minors and vulnerable people. The Government needs to balance the right to privacy for these individuals against the value of transparency in combatting money laundering and economic crime.
NOTE
These figures are Companies House management information and are unaudited. They are subject to change and should be regarded as an indication only.
Asked by: Dean Russell (Conservative - Watford)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress he has made on implementing the Nine-point plan for seafarers published 6 July 2022.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Since announcing the Nine Point Plan the Government has:
Seafarer welfare is inextricably linked to international maritime law and regulation. As such it must be addressed with international partners and through international fora. The UK will continue to lead the way in seafarer welfare and will not shy away from its role as an international leader in championing this important cause.
Asked by: Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what are the processes for monitoring and enforcing regulation of parcels sent between Great Britain and Northern Ireland under the Windsor framework.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We have safeguarded parcel movements and maintained business as usual for Northern Ireland consumers. That means parcels can be sent to friends and family in Northern Ireland, with no requirements on either the sender or recipient. People in Northern Ireland ordering from businesses in the rest of the UK will continue to order and receive goods through the post as they do now; and parcels sent between businesses will be able to use the same internal market scheme as applies for freight movements. To support this the UK has agreed that authorised parcel operators will manage a process of sharing data to monitor and manage any risks of smuggling into the EU market. The Government will set out further detail on the operational arrangements in due course.
Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, whether she is taking steps with Cabinet colleagues to help promote flexible working.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Department for Business and Trade works with a number of other Departments to promote flexible working. Several of them are members of the Department for Business and Trade / Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development co-chaired Flexible Working Taskforce, alongside business and family representative groups. In December 2022 the Government announced plans[1] to make the right to request flexible working a day one right, alongside other changes to make flexible working more accessible to all employees. The Government is pleased to support the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Private Members’ Bill[2] which will deliver several of these changes.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/making-flexible-working-the-default
[2] https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3198
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many (a) descendants and (b) other close family relatives of former employees of the Cammell Laird shipyard were receiving a pension from British Shipbuilders in the last year; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave him on 27th February 2023, UIN 146756.
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of trends in level of funding for public health grants on a real-terms basis for each financial year since 2015-16; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
The following table shows the local authority public health grant allocations for each year since 2015/16. The targeted departmental public health funding is allocated to local authorities for drug treatment, the Start for Life programme, weight management services and human immunodeficiency virus pre-exposure prophylaxis.
The 2021 Spending Review confirmed that the public health grant to local authorities would increase over the settlement period. In 2022/23, the grant increased by 2.81% to £3.417 billion. This is in addition to targeted investment through local Government in Start for Life support and drug and alcohol treatment services.
Year | Real terms allocation (2021/22 prices) |
2015/16 | £3.471 million |
2016/17 | £3.794 million |
2017/18 | £3.640 million |
2018/19 | £3.484 million |
2019/20 | £3.306 million |
2020/21 | £3.255 million |
2021/22 | £3.324 million |
2022/23 | £3.259 million |
Notes:
Asked by: Stephen Farry (Alliance - North Down)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, if he will take steps to introduce the Organ and Tissue Donation (Deemed Consent) Bill to create an opt-out organ donation system in Northern Ireland as exists in the rest of the UK.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The absence of Northern Ireland Assembly business is causing unnecessary delays in the introduction of this life-saving legislation. It is one example of the devastating backlog of legislation that has been allowed to build up over the past 11 months without an Assembly. I urge the Northern Ireland parties to come back to the Executive, get back to work and take these decisions in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland.
I would be happy to meet with Dáithí Mac Gabhann’s family to discuss this issue further.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Kilburn)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the BEIS consultation entitled Making Flexible Working the Default published in September 2021, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of mandating publishing of parental leave policies as part of gender pay gap reporting.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government consulted on whether employers should be required to publish and report on their family-related leave and pay policies in 2019. Having reviewed consultation responses from a range of stakeholders and taken account of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government decided that such a requirement should be considered as part of the process of considering how successful the Gender Pay Gap Reporting Regulations have been, and how Gender Pay Gap Reporting may be taken forward.
A fully considered review of Gender Pay Gap Reporting will be published in due course.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will take steps to increase the speed and safety of routes (a) parents of children living in the UK and (b) other family reunion.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
These dangerous concealments are facilitated by vile people smugglers, who place profits above the lives of vulnerable people. The Government is determined to prevent further loss of life by breaking the business model.
The Home Office has invested significant amounts since 2014 to secure feeder ports, including increasing the use of body detection dogs and strengthening the vehicle screening regimes with the latest technology. The department is currently in the process of significantly strengthening the clandestine entrant civil penalty regime in order further drive improvements in vehicle security.
Unfortunately, there have been fatalities, including the Purfleet incident in 2019 when 39 Vietnamese nationals sadly lost their lives, and all such incidents are a reminder that attempts to clandestinely cross the border are inherently dangerous.
Asked by: Zarah Sultana (Labour - Coventry South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in the context of the cost of living crisis, if he will extend eligibility for free prescriptions to (a) those in receipt of tax credits and (b) more widely to protect people’s access to healthcare.
Answered by Neil O'Brien
There are currently no plans to extend eligibility for free prescriptions. The NHS Business Services Authority issues NHS Tax Credit exemption certificates for full help with health costs, including free prescriptions, where the annual family income used to calculate Tax Credits is £15,276 or less and the person receives either Child Tax Credit, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit paid together or Working Tax Credit including a disability or severe disability element.
We have also frozen prescription charges this year and approximately 89% of prescription items in England are provided free of charge. To support those who do not qualify for an exemption from prescription charges, the cost of prescriptions can be capped by purchasing a prescription pre-payment certificate, which can be paid for in instalments. A holder of a 12-month certificate can get all the prescriptions they need for just over £2 per week.