Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the grant awarded to Action on Smoking and Health for 2015–16 relates to activities to be delivered beyond the end of the financial year; and, as the grant conditions stipulate that such activities must be delivered prior to that day, whether they will investigate.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The proposed budget estimates received from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) for each of the last five years for a Section 64 grant is attached. Commercially sensitive information has been redacted.
As the agreed project outputs make clear, the 2015-16 Section 64 grant funding awarded to ASH will be spent in the current financial year, including work relating to preparation for legislation coming into force later in 2016.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will place in the Library of the House a copy of the budget estimate in relation to the projects to be delivered in the 2015–16 grant application from the group Action on Smoking and Health and all other budget estimates received by the Department of Health in each of the last five years from that organisation.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The proposed budget estimates received from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) for each of the last five years for a Section 64 grant is attached. Commercially sensitive information has been redacted.
As the agreed project outputs make clear, the 2015-16 Section 64 grant funding awarded to ASH will be spent in the current financial year, including work relating to preparation for legislation coming into force later in 2016.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for each year in which a grant was provided to the group Action on Smoking and Health, how much (1) was spent against the original grant, (2) constituted underspend, and (3) was returned to the Department of Health.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The conditions applicable to grants awarded to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) are set out in the grant award letters. The Department has made clear that none of this funding is to be used for lobbying purposes.
The Section 64 grant must be spent in delivering the the agreed project outputs set out in the grant award letter and it does not fund secretariat support for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health.
ASH’s compliance with the conditions of the grant is assessed at the grant monitoring meetings held between the Deputy Director of tobacco control and representatives from ASH as well as in the final full year grant monitoring and governance reports.
The Department is required to retain information relating to Section 64 grants for six years. The full amount of the grant was spent for each year that a grant was provided to ASH in the past six years.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answers by Lord Prior of Brampton on 21 December 2015 (HL4603 and HL4606), whether they plan to investigate the activities of the group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) in providing the secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Smoking and Health and the use of public grants for lobbying activities in the light of the fact that the Department of Health has received 90 items of correspondence from the APPG originating from a postal or email address belonging to ASH in the last five years.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The conditions applicable to grants awarded to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) are set out in the grant award letters. The Department has made clear that none of this funding is to be used for lobbying purposes.
The Section 64 grant must be spent in delivering the the agreed project outputs set out in the grant award letter and it does not fund secretariat support for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health.
ASH’s compliance with the conditions of the grant is assessed at the grant monitoring meetings held between the Deputy Director of tobacco control and representatives from ASH as well as in the final full year grant monitoring and governance reports.
The Department is required to retain information relating to Section 64 grants for six years. The full amount of the grant was spent for each year that a grant was provided to ASH in the past six years.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many items of correspondence the Department of Health has received from (1) the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, and (2) the Chair of the House of Commons Health Select Committee, in each of the last five years that originated from a postal or email address belonging to the group Action on Smoking and Health.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department of Health’s central correspondence database recorded 90 items of correspondence from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health received in the last five years that originated from a postal or email address belonging to the group Action on Smoking and Health.
There was no record of any such correspondence having being received from the Chair of the House of Commons Health Select Committee in this period.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 8 December (HL3846), how much grant the Department of Health will provide to Action on Smoking and Health in the current financial year, and whether they will place a copy of any grant application and award letter in the Library of the House.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department will provide a grant of £150,000 to Action on Smoking and Health in the 2015/16 financial year. This grant is awarded under Section 64 of the Health and Social Care Act 1968.
A copy of the signed award letter, including the detailed deliverables of the grant, has been attached.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government on how many occasions between 2013 and 2015 the Department of Health received representations from Action on Smoking and Health regarding the standardised packaging of tobacco products.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
To identify what representations the Department has received about standardised packaging between 2013 and 2015 would require extensive searching of Departmental records to identify which representations were relevant and would result in disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the role of Action on Smoking and Health in providing the secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, and in particular whether such activities are designed to influence (1) Parliament, Government or political parties, or (2) legislative or regulatory action.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The Department has made no assessment of the role of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) in providing the secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health.
The conditions applicable to grants awarded to ASH for work to support tobacco control are set out in the grant award letters. The Department has made clear that none of this funding is to be used for activities designed to influence Parliament, Government or political parties or to influence legislative or regulatory action. ASH’s compliance with the conditions of the grant is assessed at grant monitoring meetings as well as in the final full year grant monitoring and governance reports.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will place in the Library of the House a copy of all audits undertaken or commissioned by the Department of Health into Action on Smoking and Health.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
In financial year 2012/13, the Department grant awarded to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) (under Section 64 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968) was included in a sample of grants that was reviewed in an internal audit of the grant management arrangements of the Department. The audit included visits to the charities that formed part of the sample to test the information they provided to the Department and to garner their views on how the Department engaged with them. ASH was included in the work because its grant fulfilled the sample criteria.
The internal audit was not a review of the organisation and the way that it operated, its focus was on the Department grant management. It found that, at the time, there were satisfactory arrangements in place in the Department. The audit report did not raise any adverse comments about ASH or include any recommendations in relation to them. It is not normal practice to place copies of Internal Audit reports in the Library.
Asked by: Lord Naseby (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the job titles of those officials within the Department of Health currently assessing the application for grant funding made by Action on Smoking and Health.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
The assessment of the grant application for funding from Action on Smoking and Health is undertaken by members of the Tobacco Control policy team.