Lindsay Roy

There have been no internal or external complaints about alleged breaches of the Civil Service Code of Conduct received by the Departmental Complaints Officer since 2010.

This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The Civil Service Code sets out the clear procedure that civil servants should follow if they believe they are being required to act in a way which conflicts with the Code, or they become aware of action by others which they believe conflicts with the Code. Complaints are normally dealt with by the line management chain within Departments in the first instance, with the most serious cases escalated to senior managers, HR or the Permanent Secretary.

Where a Civil Servant is not satisfied with how the matter has been handled by a Department, he or she can raise the matter with the Civil Service Commission. The Commission publishes details of the number of complaints received annually.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The Government takes animal welfare issues very seriously. My noble Friend, Lord de Mauley, has met interested parties from both sides of the debate. He has invited them to work with Defra to consider the range of solutions for improving welfare standards when managing fox and rabbit issues.

As part of this we are working with stakeholders to improve the Government’s advice on how to comply with existing requirements.

British officials from the Embassy in Tel Aviv have regular discussions with the Israeli authorities.

The UK Government supports girls' education in Afghanistan through DFID's Girls' Education Challenge programmes and our financial support to the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund - a multi-donor fund that supports the provision of primary education across Afghanistan. We are committed to Afghanistan for the long term, including supporting education for girls.

The proceeds from the sale of land and buildings previously used by Her Majesty Coastguard sold since May 2010 are shown below:

The requirements of the Civil Service Code are incorporated within the Department's Standards of Behaviour Policy which sets out the Department's high expectations of employees. Breaches of the Civil Service Code are not specifically identified; the Department records disciplinary incidents under its Standards of Behaviour policy.

Egypt has been going through a difficult political transition for over three years. In July 2013, the interim Egyptian Government set out a new roadmap towards Presidential and Parliamentary elections. A referendum on a new constitution was held in January 2014 and was an important milestone. We welcomed the provisions in the new constitution for the protection of the rights of minorities and women and the transition to democracy in Egypt. However, we were concerned by the closure of political space for opposition groups in the run-up to the referendum and the arrest and sentencing of human rights activists. Egypt is now preparing for Presidential elections to be held from 26 – 27 May, which will be observed by an EU Election Observation Mission. Parliamentary elections are due to take place later in the year and are an important step.

We continue to monitor closely political developments in Egypt. We are concerned about the Protest Law; the prison sentences handed down to three democracy and human rights activists; restrictions on freedom of the press; and the sentencing to death of a large number of people without proper legal process in an Egyptian court in Minya. These cases undermine international confidence in the progress towards reform and democratisation in Egypt. We are also concerned at the rising number of terrorist attacks in Egypt. Our thoughts are with the families of those killed and wounded and all those affected.

The UK continues to believe that the only sustainable way for Egypt to address its current challenges is through an inclusive political process which allows all Egyptians a voice in the country's future. The UK stands ready to support the Egyptian people in achieving this.

This Government is committed to taking strong and robust action to tackle tax avoidance. Since April 2010 the government has made 42 changes to tax law, closing loopholes and introducing major reforms to the UK tax system. These include the introduction of a General Anti-Abuse Rule and strengthening the Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes regime.

Through a tougher monitoring regime for high-risk promoters of tax avoidance schemes, backed up with penalties, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is taking significant action to discourage people from entering into expensive avoidance schemes which, in the majority of cases, don’t work. We legislated for Accelerated Payments in this year’s Finance Act, which will enable HMRC to collect disputed tax upfront, along with the new High Risk Promoters regime.

We have invested £1 billion over this spending review period to tackle tax avoidance and evasion. HMRC have secured over £77bn in compliance yield since the beginning of the parliament; £31 billion of which was from large businesses, and £850m of which was from High Net Worth individuals. Around 80% of the avoidance cases heard in the courts are being won by HMRC, with 30 wins protecting £2.7bn of tax in 2013/14

The government is committed to supporting small businesses across the UK, and has recently taken a number of measures to support Scotland’s 326,000 SMEs.

In February 2014, the Start Up Loans programme went live in Scotland, and has already supported 500 Scottish entrepreneurs to start their own business with £1.6m of loans.

In April 2014, the Government launched the Employment Allowance to allow businesses and charities throughout the UK to deduct up to £2,000 off their employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) bill each year. By June 2014, 57,000 Scottish SMEs had benefitted from this scheme. Also in April 2014, the government increased the rate of the credit payable to loss-making SMEs investing in research and development from 11% to 14.5% and doubled the Annual Investment Allowance to £500,000 until 2016 to support business investment.

The Government has also launched new tax reliefs for the production of high-end television, animation, video games and theatre and introduced the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme to support small early stage companies seeking equity investment.

The Civil Service Code sets out the clear procedure that civil servants should follow if they believe they are being required to act in a way which conflicts with the Code, or they become aware of action by others which they believe conflicts with the Code. Complaints are normally dealt with by the line management chain in the first instance, with the most serious cases escalated to senior managers, HR or the Permanent Secretary. Because most issues are dealt with locally or within the line management chain, there is no formal or systematic register of all complaints within the department.

Where a Civil Servant is not satisfied with how the matter has been handled by a Department, he or she can raise the matter with the Civil Service Commission. The Commission publishes details of the number of complaints received annually.

The Government has introduced measures to improve both bank and non-bank lending to businesses, such as the Funding for Lending Scheme, the British Business Bank and the Appeals Process.

Against this backdrop, gross lending to small and medium sized businesses in 2014 Q1 was almost 15% higher than in the same quarter a year earlier; and 32% of SMEs that have been through the Appeals Process have had their initial loan rejection overturned.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave today to the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson).

This information could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

Complaints are normally dealt with by the line management chain within
Departments in the first instance, with the most serious cases escalated to
senior managers, HR or the Permanent Secretary.

Where a Civil Servant is not satisfied with how the matter has been handled by
a Department, he or she can raise the matter with the Civil Service Commission.
The Commission publishes details of the number of complaints received annually.

In 2010, the Coalition Government made a commitment to work to reduce the use of animals in scientific research and our Delivery Plan was published in February 2014.

The commitment is being delivered through a science-led programme. At the core of the programme is a commitment to the 3Rs, led by the National Centre for Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), an organisation with a strong record in reducing animal use. The NC3Rs closely involves government departments and agencies, the Home Office Inspectorate, the research community in both academia and industry, and others with relevant animal welfare interests.

I am committed to reducing the use of animals in research and the Delivery Plan shows how alternative methods can deliver fast, high quality research that also boosts economic growth. The commitment is not concerned with just baseline numbers, but encompasses the replacement, refinement and reduction (3Rs) more broadly. Aiming to achieve a target of reduction would be a flawed approach because numbers are not within our control. Instead, the Delivery Plan looks to support an agenda with the 3Rs at its heart.

The scientific case for developing new techniques that do not require the use of animals is now as strong as the moral one. This Delivery Plan is therefore our starting point for the future and it will pave the way for future practice, both at home and abroad, and will cement the UK's place as an international leader in this field.

The information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost. This is because grievance cases are not categorised according to whether they relate to alleged breaches of the Civil Service Code of Conduct.

The Scotland Office is committed to the success of the Commonwealth Games and has played a coordinating role in UK Government departments' vital work on the preparations for the Games in a wide range of areas. Scotland Office Ministers and officials have been in extensive, regular and proactive contact with ministerial colleagues and officials in other UK Government departments, with Shona Robison MSP (Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for the Commonwealth Games) and her officials, with Councillor Gordon Matheson and others in Glasgow City Council, with the Glasgow 2014 Organising Committee, and with Police Scotland, and other stakeholders, to ensure that UK Government departments, fulfilling their reserved responsibilities, work as closely as possible with the Devolved Administration and the Organising Committee.

The Office has not received any (a) internal and (b) external complaints about alleged breaches of the Civil Service Code of Conduct by individual officials since 2010.

The Single Market gives UK businesses access to the world's largest trading bloc with 500 million people and 21 million companies generating £11 trillion in economic activity.

Since 1992, the UK's bilateral trade with EU member states has more than trebled and trade with Europe accounts for roughly 3.5 million jobs in the UK, around 11% of the workforce.

In 2012, Scottish exports to the EU are estimated to have amounted to approximately 45% of Scotland's total international exports (excluding oil and gas). The Government does not collate figures for the number of jobs in Scotland that depend on UK membership of the EU. However, independent analysis published by the Centre for Economics and Business Research in March 2014 suggested that, in 2011, approximately 335,000 jobs in Scotland were associated with Scottish exports to the EU.

In the latest Annual Population Survey, accessed by NOMIS on 29 April 2014, the figures for the period January 2013 to December 2013 show the number of women (aged 16 +) who were self-employed in Scotland was 94,000.

Homelessness statistics in Scotland are published by the Scottish Government who gather the information from local authorities.

The last such publication was on 25 March 2014 and is available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables/HomelessOcttoDec2013.