Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much of his Department's funding allocated in the Spending Review 2015 will be for research and development expenditure up to 2020.
Answered by David Lidington
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office does not have a dedicated research and development fund. Research to inform policy is conducted by FCO Research Analysts and by individual Directorates and overseas Posts, and funded from devolved budgets. It is therefore not possible to identify how much of the FCO’s allocated funding will be spent on these activities over the Spending Review 2015 period.
Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much of her Department's funding allocated in the Spending Review 2015 will be for research and development expenditure up to 2020.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The Spending Review announcement set the overall budget for the Home Office. Officials are now going through the detail and will continue to provide advice to the Home Secretary on individual allocations and spending commitments. We anticipate that funding allocations for research and development will be confirmed in the new year.
Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Leader of the House:
To ask the Leader of the House, how much of his Office's funding allocated in the Spending Review 2015 will be for research and development expenditure up to 2020.
Answered by Chris Grayling
Spending Review 2015 set out settlements for departments and showed how the government will deliver on its priorities, eliminate the deficit, and deliver security and opportunity for working people.
Final decisions on internal departmental funding allocations for future years, including for research and development, have not yet been made.
Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much of 10 Downing Street's funding allocated in the Spending Review 2015 will be for research and development expenditure up to 2020.
Answered by Matt Hancock
The Prime Minister’s Office is an integral part of the Cabinet Office.
Following settlement of the Cabinet Office Spending Review last week, the allocation of funds to individual workstreams, including for research and development, is underway as part of the department’s business planning process to be completed in the coming months.
Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much of his Department's funding allocated in the Spending Review 2015 will be for research and development expenditure up to 2020.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
Spending Review 2015 set out settlements for departments and showed how the government will deliver on its priorities, eliminate the deficit, and deliver security and opportunity for working people.
Final decisions on internal departmental funding allocations for future years, including for research and development, have not yet been made.
Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to build new and upgrade existing trunk roads.
Answered by John Hayes
In December this Government set out the biggest, boldest and most far-reaching roads programme for decades. It will dramatically improve England’s strategic road network and unlock our economic potential.
Over 100 strategic road projects are being taken forward as part of the £15.2 billion investment between 2015 and 2021. This amounts to a tripling of annual investment in road improvements from today’s levels to over £3 billion a year by 2021.
This month Highways England will publish its Delivery Plan setting out the next steps in putting this into effect.
Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people are detained in prison for immigration control purposes under the service level agreement between her Department and the National Offender Management Service; and when that agreement is due to be renewed.
Answered by James Brokenshire
As at 15 December 2014 there were 394 detainees held in prison establishments
in England and Wales solely under Immigration powers as set out in the
Immigration Act 1971 or UK Borders Act 2007.
The current Service Level Agreement between the Home Office and National
Offender Management Service (NOMS) ends on 31 March 2015. The Home Office is
in negotiation with NOMS to renew the agreement.
Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to end rape and sexual assault in South Sudan as part of the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative; and what support the Government is providing to the authorities in South Sudan to ensure that the people responsible for such crimes in that country are held to account.
Answered by James Duddridge
South Sudan is a Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) priority country and we remain deeply concerned at the prevalence of sexual violence in the ongoing conflict. The UK is currently funding a project that is creating women's protection teams in local communities and the Department for International Development (DFID) is preparing to start a new Access to Justice Programme that will support victims of sexual violence and promote greater accountability. We also continue to press the government to meet the commitments made in the October 2014 joint communiqué between President Kiir and the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Bangura.Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many applications to the Cancer Drugs Fund have been successful in Oxford West and Abingdon; and what the financial value of those applications was.
Answered by George Freeman
Prior to April 2013, the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) was administered through clinical panels based in each strategic health authority (SHA) and data on the number of patients accessing the Fund and expenditure at constituency level were not collected. Information for the South Central SHA and England in 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 is shown below:
| Number of patients funded in 2010-111 | Amount spent 2010-11 £000 | Number of patients funded in 2011-121 | Amount spent 2011-12 £000 | Number of patients funded in 2012-131 | Amount spent 2012-13 £000 |
South Central SHA | 290 | 3,200 | 1,170 | 5,318 | 2,288 | 14,542 |
England | 2,780 | 38,524 | 11,798 | 108,327 | 15,456 | 175,334 |
Source: Information provided to the Department by SHAs
1 Some individual patients may be double-counted where a patient has received more than one drug treatment through the CDF
NHS England has had oversight of the Fund since April 2013 and publishes information on patient numbers routinely on its website at:
www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/pe/cdf/
Information for the NHS England South region and England in 2013-14 and 2014-15 (April- September) is shown below:
| Number of patients1 funded in 2013-14 | Amount spent 2013-14 £000 | Number of patients funded in 2014-15 (April- September) | Amount spent 2013-14 £000 (April- September) |
NHS England South2 | 5,327 | _3 | 3,027 | _3 |
England | 19,560 | 230,539 | 11,308 | _3 |
Source: NHS England
1 Some individual patients may be double-counted where a patient has received more than one drug treatment through the CDF
2 Includes individual CDF request applications approved by the CDF panel in the South region
3 not available
Asked by: Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps she is taking to tackle homophobic bullying.
Answered by Jo Swinson
This Government has made tackling bullying in schools, including homophobic bullying, a top priority. It is unacceptable for anyone to be victimised, harmed or bullied in any way.
All schools must have a behaviour policy which includes measures to prevent and tackle all forms of bullying and the Government has provided schools with advice which sets out the steps that schools can take to identify and prevent bullying effectively. We also recently announced a new £2million fund to support projects which specifically tackle homophobic bullying in schools.
Discrimination and harassment on the grounds of sexual orientation is unlawful in the workplace and in the provision of services. The Government has continued to highlight the benefits of a diverse workforce, and how employees can be supported, by publishing research ‘Barriers to employers in developing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender friendly workplaces’ and ‘The Business Case for Equality and Diversity’.