Gemma Doyle

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills provides funding to Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) – the umbrella organisation and membership body for the Citizens Advice Bureaux network in Scotland. Total funding to CAS over the past five financial years is set out in the table below.

Funding has increased substantially since 2011/12 to reflect the additional functions CAS has taken on as a result of the consumer landscape changes, including the joint delivery (with Citizens Advice England and Wales) of the Consumer Service helpline, education and advocacy on general consumer issues and as the advocate on behalf of consumers in the regulated energy and postal sectors.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills provides funding to Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) – the umbrella organisation and membership body for the Citizens Advice Bureaux network in Scotland. Total funding to CAS in the current financial year is £7,239,700.

As was the case under previous administrations details of internal discussions are not normally disclosed.

The UK put tax and development at the heart of our G8 presidency in 2013. We are working with our international partners to provide expert assistance to developing countries to tackle tax evasion and avoidance. At the Autumn Statement the Government announced an additional £5 million for HMRC for dedicated tax expertise to help developing countries tackle tax avoidance and evasion.

The Department and NHS England do not centrally collect on the number of veterans that have been referred for priority National Health Service treatment for service related issues but the hon. Member will be pleased to know that we have invested £22 million in a package of additional specialist resources to equip our NHS to provide better care for veterans, including:

- 9 specialist prosthetic centres for veterans;

- 10 Specialist veterans mental health teams;

- a 24 hour veterans mental health hotline; and

- an online mental health and wellbeing service for veterans.

Since the Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010 and Ministerial announcement in March 2013, there has been significant progress taking forward the Army Basing Plan.

To date more than 30 moves have been completed, largely in the UK, with 14 force elements planned and preparing to move from Germany in 2015, and an additional two also moving this year under Project Borona.

To date some £82 million has been spent on the withdrawal of troops from Germany under the Army Basing Plan.

As at 31 January 2015, there were around 10,600 Armed Forces personnel serving in Germany. There were also around 11,300 dependants, 700 civilian staff and 2,500 locally employed civilians.

The Ministry of Defence has made payments to recruitment agencies since 2010 as follows:

This expenditure relates to recruitment to the permanent Senior Civil Service across the MOD, including the Trading Funds (the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Defence Support Group and the UK Hydrographic Office). It represents the costs of searches, advertisements, response handling, assessment and support to selection panels. The figures do not include expenditure on Contingent Labour, the process used to engage temporary staff through recruitment agency contracts.

Recruitment to the MOD for all grades below the Senior Civil Service is carried out by Defence Business Services who do not make use of external recruitment agencies.

It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.

The review conducted by the Department on the likely effect of section 10 of the Public Service Pensions Act 2013 on the Defence Fire and Rescue Service and the Ministry of Defence Police which was laid before Parliament in December 2013 included an assessment of the impact of a higher normal pension age (a key change brought about by the Public Service Pension Act 2013) on Ministry of Defence Police (MDP) personnel.

Defence Ministers are consulting colleagues about the issues raised by the review. The proposals put forward by the Defence Police Federation in respect of MDP pensions have been fully assessed and reflected in these consultations.

We hope to be able to confirm the future arrangements for MDP pensions shortly.

Local authorities share in our national commitment to the Armed Forces Covenant and should meet their obligations from own resources. Though we have set aside £200,000 in 2014/15 from the annual Disabled Facilities Grant funding for local authorities to fund home adaptations (eg ramps, walk-in showers, stairlifts) to meet the needs of disabled ex-Service personnel who wish to live independently in their homes.

We have provided grants (totalling over £1 million) with MOD, to a small number of local authorities in 2011 and 2012 to support the successful integration of retired Gurkha soldiers who wished to settle in the UK.

We have also introduced a number of measures over the last few years as a contribution towards meeting the objectives of the Armed Forces Covenant to ensure that the Armed Forces Community do not face disadvantage, particularly in housing. This includes:

Improved Access to Social Housing

We have introduced protection to ensure that former and current Service personnel are not disadvantaged in accessing social housing because of the disadvantages of military life. We have made sure that seriously injured personnel and former members of the Armed Forces with urgent housing needs are always given high priority for social housing, and that serving personnel and those who have recently been discharged do not lose their qualification rights because of the requirement to move from base to base.

We have also encouraged local authorities to in general give sympathetic consideration to the housing needs of family members of serving or former Service personnel.

Preventing Homelessness

We have introduced measures to provide support for specialist accommodation for veterans, and work with councils to prevent homelessness. We have also introduced initiatives such as Streetlink and No Second Night Out which ensure that when veterans end up sleeping rough they are offered care and support from local services.

Access to home ownership

Members of the Armed Forces have been given priority for Government-funded shared ownership schemes and are able to access Help to Buy: equity loan scheme. The priority status can also be transferred to bereaved spouses or civil partners.

We have also worked with MOD, credit reference agencies and Royal Mail to standardise Forces’ Post Office addresses so personnel are not disadvantaged when applying for mortgages.