Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many (a) emails and (b) phone calls the Office for Veterans Affairs has received from (i) the Stoll Foundation and (ii) veterans housed at Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions since January 2023.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
The Office for Veterans’ Affairs have and will continue to engage with Stoll regarding the sale of Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions and the support being provided to residents during the transition period.
I am committed to ensuring that no veteran is sleeping rough due to a lack of provision, which is why the Government has dedicated nearly £30 million towards the provision of veteran housing.
This includes the single referral pathway for homeless veterans, Op FORTITUDE, that received £500,000 of funding, which is part of a broader £8.55 million of funding for specialist help and wrap-around support for veterans in more than 900 supported housing units.
This Government remains committed to making the UK the best place in the world to be a veteran.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many visits the Minister for Veterans Affairs has made to Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions to discuss the future of the site since January 2023.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
The Office for Veterans’ Affairs have and will continue to engage with Stoll regarding the sale of Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions and the support being provided to residents during the transition period.
I am committed to ensuring that no veteran is sleeping rough due to a lack of provision, which is why the Government has dedicated nearly £30 million towards the provision of veteran housing.
This includes the single referral pathway for homeless veterans, Op FORTITUDE, that received £500,000 of funding, which is part of a broader £8.55 million of funding for specialist help and wrap-around support for veterans in more than 900 supported housing units.
This Government remains committed to making the UK the best place in the world to be a veteran.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, on which dates the Minister for Veterans Affairs has met with representatives of the Stoll Foundation to discuss the future of Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
The Office for Veterans’ Affairs have and will continue to engage with Stoll regarding the sale of Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions and the support being provided to residents during the transition period.
I am committed to ensuring that no veteran is sleeping rough due to a lack of provision, which is why the Government has dedicated nearly £30 million towards the provision of veteran housing.
This includes the single referral pathway for homeless veterans, Op FORTITUDE, that received £500,000 of funding, which is part of a broader £8.55 million of funding for specialist help and wrap-around support for veterans in more than 900 supported housing units.
This Government remains committed to making the UK the best place in the world to be a veteran.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many meetings the Minister for Veterans Affairs had with (a) local councillors and (b) Members of Parliament on the future of the Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions site since January 2023.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
The Office for Veterans’ Affairs have and will continue to engage with Stoll regarding the sale of Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions and the support being provided to residents during the transition period.
I am committed to ensuring that no veteran is sleeping rough due to a lack of provision, which is why the Government has dedicated nearly £30 million towards the provision of veteran housing.
This includes the single referral pathway for homeless veterans, Op FORTITUDE, that received £500,000 of funding, which is part of a broader £8.55 million of funding for specialist help and wrap-around support for veterans in more than 900 supported housing units.
This Government remains committed to making the UK the best place in the world to be a veteran.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the Prime Minister’s defence speech in Warsaw of 23 April 2024, from which (a) Departments, (b) arms length bodies and (c) other organisations the number of civil servants will be reduced to help fund the commitment to spend 2.5% of gross domestic product on defence by 2030.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Prime Minister’s announcement of longer term reductions in Civil Service numbers is a reiteration of the policy announced by the Chancellor in October 2023. The longer term reductions will build on the shorter term headcount cap put in place through to March 2025, and the detail of how individual organisations will be affected by the return to pre-pandemic numbers will form a key part of the next comprehensive spending review.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the cost of photography services to his Department provided by external contractors was in each year since 2010.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Non-campaign photography tasks are undertaken by internal staff as part of their routine work and everyday roles and do not get billed separately. This service comes at no extra cost to the taxpayer.
The Cabinet Office does pay external organisations to provide photography and videography for our various cross-government communication campaigns. However isolated spend data on these specific services is not split out from wider campaign costs.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what his planned timeline for when all eligible personnel under the (a) Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy and (b) Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme will be relocated from Pakistan to the UK.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
The UK has made an ambitious and generous commitment to help at-risk people in Afghanistan and, so far, we have brought around 24,600 people to safety, including over 21,600, people eligible for the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) and the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) schemes, as of September 2023. The Government is committed to relocating all eligible persons who remain in Pakistan and third countries as soon as possible.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much his Department spent on photography at Ministerial (a) events, (b) visits, and (c) meetings in each month since October 2022.
Answered by Alex Burghart - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
These tasks are undertaken by internal staff as part of their routine work and everyday roles. They do not get billed separately. This service comes at no extra cost to the taxpayer.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the Answer of 27 November 2023 to Question 3092 on Veterans: Finance, whether the £10m funding for the Veterans’ Places, Pathways, and People Programme is drawn from his Department’s pre-existing budget.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
The £10 million of funding for the Veterans’ Places, Pathways, and People Programme is additional money and is not from the Department’s pre-existing budget. This funding will be used to increase support to a significant community of vulnerable veterans throughout the UK, and will be spent over three financial years.
Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion of homeless veterans have secured accommodation through the Reducing Veteran Homelessness Programme in each region.
Answered by Johnny Mercer - Minister of State (Cabinet Office) (Minister for Veterans' Affairs)
To date, the Government has committed nearly £30m towards ending veteran homelessness, including:
£20m capital housing fund over three years to provide extra housing for veterans through the development of new builds and the refurbishment of social and charitable housing.
£500k to fund Op FORTITUDE, a dedicated referral scheme to provide a single central point for local authorities, charities and housing providers to support homeless and rough sleeping veterans, in addition to over £7.2m to fund specialist help for veterans in more than 900 veteran supported housing units.