Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to ensure that prisoners receive the education they need to ensure a reduction in reoffending.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
We are clear that our prisons must become places of discipline, hard work and self-improvement, for offenders to improve their maths and English and get a job on release
Alongside our work to boost staffing numbers, these reforms will help offenders turn their lives around, reduce reoffending and create safer communities.
Our recent White Paper on prison reform described how we have already stripped out unnecessary rules and governance from our education contracts to allow governors more oversight and control of existing services. Over the coming months, we will make prison governors fully responsible for education provision in their prisons once existing contracts end, commissioning the services they think are most appropriate in their individual prison. This will allow governors to decide how to structure their educational regime, and who delivers it, while following a core common curriculum set nationally which will focus on maths and English.
To support this, prisons will create a personalised learning plan based on an assessment of need on reception, integrating it into the individual’s sentence plan, and we will use the same awarding bodies for particular types of provision to enable continuity of learning if prisoners move elsewhere. To ensure the quality of education delivery in prison improves, we will make sure that those providing that education have the right skills and capabilities to do so.
The White Paper Prison Safety and Reform set out a suite of performance measures through which governors will be held to account for outcomes in their prisons including educational progress made by prisoners. We will compare levels of attainment of maths and English on release with those at the start of custody, and look at the number of qualifications, or other accredited and work-focussed activity, prisoners complete. In future, we will develop measures that assess individual progress against milestones in a Personal Learning Plan.
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, from what countries dogs were imported into the UK for (a) non-commercial reasons under the Pet Travel Scheme and (b) commercial reasons in 2016.
Answered by George Eustice
The countries from which dogs were imported into the UK in 2016 for non-commercial reasons under the Pet Travel Scheme, as indicated in data provided by carriers, are listed in part (a) of the attached Annex. Countries from which dogs were imported into the UK for commercial reasons are listed in part (b).
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many referrals to the National Referral Mechanism under the claim of adult-sexual exploitation resulted in positive conclusive decisions in (a) 2013, (b) 2014 and (c) 2015.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The numbers of positive conclusive decisions made through the National Referral Mechanism for claims of adult-sexual exploitation are*:
Year | Positive conclusive decisions* |
2013 | 261 |
2014 | 211 |
2015 | 216 |
*The data is based on management information provided by the National Crime Agency. The veracity of this information has not been verified by the Home Office
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what recent discussions he has had with the WTO.
Answered by Liam Fox
I have had a number of constructive discussions with the Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Roberto Azevedo, including a recent face-to-face meeting and I will have many more such meetings. He has been very supportive of the UK’s position.
I have also met Ministers and Permanent Representatives from a broad cross-section of WTO Members.
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure that UK agricultural produce will have access to EU markets after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra is working closely with the Department for Exiting the European Union and the Department for International Trade to ensure the UK gets the best possible deal on market access for our agri-food sector when we leave the EU.
In particular, we want a reciprocal deal that delivers no tariffs on trade between the UK and EU. We are also working to minimise burdensome non-tariff-barriers to such trade, while maintaining high standards for food safety, animal welfare and the environment.
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to tackle drug use in prisons.
Answered by Phillip Lee
The government is determined to tackle the problem of drugs in prisons in England and Wales by addressing both supply and demand.
We have introduced new legislation to criminalise supply and possession of psychoactive substances in prison. We have developed and introduced new tests for specified psychoactive substances into all prisons, and have trained 300 dogs to detect such substances.
We are working with healthcare partners to provide effective drug treatment programmes and on communications to make sure that prisoners are aware of the dangers of taking psychoactive substances and visitors of the consequences of attempting to bring them in.
We will shortly set out further details of our plans to make prisons places of safety and reform in a white paper.
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children with refugee status in the UK have been granted permission to sponsor family members to join them under the refugee family reunion rules in each of the last three years.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Under the Family Reunion Rules, children cannot sponsor family members. Any grant of leave in such cases would be on an exceptional basis outside the Immigration Rules. To obtain the information would involve examining individual case records and would incur a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what steps he is taking to stimulate economic growth in Northern Ireland.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
The Government’s long-term economic plan is working for Northern Ireland. Last year legislation was passed to allow the devolution of corporation tax rate-setting powers which has the potential to boost investment and could bring benefits for an estimated 34,000 companies of all sizes in Northern Ireland.
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has (a) received and (b) made to the Egyptian government on investigations in Egypt into non-governmental organisations and their funding which form part of Case No. 173 (2011).
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
We have received representations from both Parliamentarians and non-governmental organisations in relation to this case.
We are deeply concerned by growing restrictions on civil society in Egypt, including asset freezes and travel bans against human rights defenders and NGOs. I have frequently raised this with the Egyptian Ambassador and issued a statement on 22 March. Officials regularly raise our concerns with representatives of the Egyptian Government in both Cairo and London, most recently in May.
Asked by: Neil Carmichael (Conservative - Stroud)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of ISIL on migration flows in the Middle East.
Answered by Desmond Swayne
The appalling violence that Daesh inflicts is a contributory factor to migration both within and from the Middle East. There are 13.5 million vulnerable and displaced people inside Syria, and over 4.8 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring counties. That is why the UK has pledged over £2.3 billion to Syria and the region, the largest ever UK response to a humanitarian crisis.