Month: February 2023

Bishop of Southwark asks about humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh

The Bishop of Southwark received the following written answer on 20th February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of Southwark asked His Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 31 January (HL4816), what consideration they have given to increasing the £350,000 given in aid to the Start Fund for Nagorno-Karabakh due to the ongoing blockade of (1) food, and (2) medicine, caused by the closure of the Lachin corridor.

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Bishop of St Albans asks about backdated tax allowance payments for married couples

The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answer on 20th February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the total amount of backdated marriage allowance payments that have been paid in (1) 2022, (2) 2021, (3) 2020, and (4) 2019; and what estimate they have made of how much has not yet been claimed.

Baroness Penn (Con): The information requested is not readily available to HMRC and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost.

Hansard

Bishop of Gloucester asks about funding for development of food banks into alternative social programmes

The Bishop of Gloucester received the following written answer on 20th February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of Gloucester asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for a funding programme for food banks to develop into alternative forms of initiative, such as food clubs or social supermarkets.

Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con): Food Banks are independent, charitable organisations where local communities come together to support one another. This is a great example of the generosity of spirit across the country. The Government has no role in their operation.

Hansard

Bishop of Gloucester asks about automatic registration for free school meals

The Bishop of Gloucester received the following written answer on 20th February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of Gloucester asked His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the cost of the software that would be required to introduce an automatic registration system for income-related free school meals.

Baroness Barran (Con): An assessment has not been made of the specific costs of any software for automatic registration because there are also complex data, systems, and legal implications to such a change. The department continues to explore the delivery feasibility of improving existing systems including the development of auto-enrolment functionality.

Hansard

Bishop of St Albans asks about financial services for blind and partially sighted people

The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answer on Monday 20th February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support financial inclusion for blind and partially-sighted people.

Baroness Penn (Con): The Government works closely with regulators, industry, and consumer groups to promote financial inclusion. The Economic Secretary recently invited the Royal Institute of Blind People (RNIB) to attend the latest Financial Inclusion Policy Forum for a discussion of accessibility issues and consideration of what further action can be taken.

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Bishop of Gloucester asks about issues with statistics on violent crime

The Bishop of Gloucester received the following written answer on 20th February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of Gloucester asked His Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by the Minister of State for the Ministry of Justice on 18 October 2022 (59996), what issue resulted in undercounting convictions for offences under the Assaults on Emergency Workers Act 2018; and whether it was rectified for data published in and after November 2022.

Lord Bellamy (Con): While improving our data processing in 2022, a data mapping issue was discovered in the Courts Proceedings Database production. As detailed in the Criminal Justice System statistics December 2021 publication, an estimated 3,220 convictions for the offence under the Assaults on Emergency Workers Act 2018 were not correctly mapped to the offence of Assault on Emergency Worker between 2019 and 2021 meaning an undercount for that offence in those years. This issue was reflected in the known issues tabs of our published data tools and tables. Convictions in 2018 were not affected.

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Bishop of Durham asks about treatment of asylum seekers and conditions in immigration centres

The Bishop of Durham received the following written answers on 2oth February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of Durham asked His Majesty’s Government what is the average wait before an individual is returned following acceptance of a voluntary deportation from the UK.

Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con): The average processing time of voluntary return applications is not routinely captured. To capture numbers would require a manual trawl of data and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.

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Bishop of St Albans asks about biodiversity in Hertfordhire

The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answer on 20th February 2023:

The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support biodiversity in Hertfordshire.

Lord Benyon (Con): In England we have set four legally binding targets for biodiversity:

– By 2030: to halt the decline in species abundance

– By 2042: to reverse declines; to reduce the risk of species extinction; and to restore or create more than 500,000 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat.

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Bishop of Southwark asks about refugees from Iraq

The Bishop of Southwark received the following written answers on 20th February 2022:

The Lord Bishop of Southwark asked His Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the number of Iraqi refugees in Jordan that have (1) applied for, and (2) been granted, asylum in the UK since 2014.

Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con): The Home Office publishes data on asylum and resettlement in the ‘Immigration Statistics Quarterly Release(opens in a new tab)’. Data on the number of asylum applications and initial decisions by nationality are published in table Asy_D01 and Asy_D02 respectively of the asylum and resettlement detailed datasets(opens in a new tab). Information on how to use the datasets can be found in the ‘Notes’ page of the workbook. The latest data relates to Q3 2022.

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Church Commissioners Written Questions: Meetings with CofE groups, Tackling Antisemitism, Festivals and Special Occasions

Andrew Selous MP, representing the Church Commissioners, gave the following written answers to questions from MPs on 14th February 2023:

Mr Ben Bradshaw MP (Lab): To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what meetings he has held in his capacity as Second Church Estates Commissioner with (a) evangelical groups and (b) groups representing other traditions in the Church of England in the last 12 months.

Andrew Selous MP (Con): In the twelve month period since February 2022 I have met with representatives of the groups listed below. This is in addition to the large number of regular meetings I have held with the National Church Institutions boards, committees and officials, and with individual bishops, Government ministers, officials, and Members of Parliament.

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