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Lord Tanlaw – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Tanlaw on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for the civil timescale Greenwich Mean Time being renamed Greenwich Meridian Time, with a value of UT1 at longitude zero based on GPS rather than the historic location of the prime meridian.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

As the reference frame for the Global Positioning System (GPS) is established through a mathematical interpretation of satellite radio signals, rather than a physical meridian, it is not conceptually appropriate to represent it in the same way as other meridians have historically been marked at Greenwich.

We do not see any practical benefit in changing the reference point for UT1 even if it was a decision the UK Government could make unilaterally. Such a change could cause confusion as could use of the term “Greenwich Meridian Time”. In line with the International Telecommunication Union Radio Regulations, all time‑signal broadcasts in the UK transmit. the international timescale UTC, and so any change to UT1 or GMT would have no impact on the time-signal available to the UK public.

01/12/2022
Baroness Worthington – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Worthington on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures are in place to limit the exposure of the public purse to costs arising through reliefs and repayments of Ring Fence Corporation Tax, Petroleum Revenue Tax, and the Supplementary Charge, incurred by the decommissioning of North Sea oil and gas infrastructure.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The Government believes in making the most of the UK’s oil and gas resources – to date the oil and gas industry has contributed £330bn to the Exchequer and is the UK’s largest industrial investor, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs, supplying a large portion of the UK’s primary energy needs and making a significant contribution to GDP. With between 11 and 21 billion barrels of oil equivalent still to be exploited, the UK Continental Shelf can continue to provide considerable economic benefits for many years to come.

The Government is committed to ensuring decommissioning programmes represent value for money, which is why we have introduced provisions through the Energy Bill to:
- require decommissioning programmes to be cost effective;
- ensure the Oil and Gas Authority has the powers it needs to scrutinise companies’ decommissioning plans to ensure they are cost effective; and
- enable the Secretary of State to require a company to take specific action to reduce the costs of decommissioning to address cost overruns.
01/12/2022
Lord Laird – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Dunlop on 19 October (HL2605) concerning the government of the Republic of Ireland and recent talks at Stormont, whether the government of the Republic of Ireland has been represented in any way at any discussions under section 1 of the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

Lord Dunlop

As noted in response to Written Question HL2605, a commitment always to uphold the three-stranded approach in cross-party talks was contained in the Government’s Northern Ireland manifesto at the General Election. The involvement of the Irish Government is in accordance with this established three-stranded approach to Northern Ireland affairs and the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

01/12/2022

Lord Laird – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in each year since 1995, how many passports have been issued by the appropriate office in Belfast.

Lord Bates

I refer to the attached table which provides by calendar year the volume of passport applications issued by the Belfast office from 2005 to 2014. Her Majesty’s Passport Office does not hold readily available data prior to 2005 and the cost of extracting this data would be disproportionate.

Year	Number of passports processed by Belfast Office
2005	359,224
2006	336,306
2007	364,821
2008	341,898
2009	370,622
2010	364,688
2011	408,628
2012	427,422
2013	433,530
2014	628,528

01/12/2022

Lord Laird – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laird on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much the government of the Republic of Ireland has borrowed from Her Majesty’s Government, and what are the arrangements for repayment.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

I refer the noble Lord to the most recent statutory report which the Treasury provided to Parliament as required by Section 2 of the Loans to Ireland Act 2010. The last report was laid before Parliament on 15 October 2015 and is available in the Printed Paper Office

This report shows the outstanding loan principal is £3,226,960,000, with repayments due in tranches from 15 April 2019, until 26 March 2021.

01/12/2022
Baroness Uddin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Uddin on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the lessons that can be learnt from the case of Connor Sparrowhawk in order to improve services for those with autism and learning difficulties.

Lord Prior of Brampton

This is a deeply distressing case, and I hope its lessons will be noted by all provider and commissioning authorities. This Government is fully committed to ensuring the best quality care for everyone, and all providers are expected to prioritise the safety and dignity of all patients.

Where a care provider delivers unacceptable standards of care, it must be held to account. The Government has introduced new fundamental standards as requirements for registration of care homes with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The CQC has a range of enforcement powers it can use where a provider does not meet these fundamental standards. Where a failure to meet these standards causes harm or a serious risk of harm to service users, the CQC will be able to prosecute both the provider organisation as well as its Directors.

Where a provider is convicted, it will face a maximum penalty of an unlimited fine. A Director of a care home can also be prosecuted if he or she has consented or connived in the provision of seriously poor care that has caused harm. In addition, the CQC has the power to remove board-level Directors who are not fit and proper to carry out the roles to which they are appointed.

This is a major step forward to ensure that those who are responsible for organisations in which abuse and poor standards of care are allowed to occur are held to account.

More generally, the Care Act 2014 heralds a changed approach to adult safeguarding, as embodied by the work that the Department has done with Local Authorities and stakeholders on the programme Making Safeguarding Personal.

NHS England, the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services will shortly publish their National Transformation Plan aimed at reducing reliance on inpatient care, strengthening community provision and driving transformative change for people with learning disability and/or autism who display behaviour that challenges, including those with a mental health condition. In its role as system steward, the Department will be holding system partners to account for delivery and ensuring that the plan is robust, fit for purpose and is equally clear about when families and individuals can expect to see results.

01/12/2022
Baroness Uddin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Uddin on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assistance will be given under the proposed Conflict, Stability and Security Fund.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The thematic breakdown of Conflict, Stability and Security Fund spending was provided in a Written Ministerial Statement of 12 March 2015 by the Minister for Government Policy at the Cabinet Office, which was repeated in the House of Lords on the same day by the noble Lord Wallace of Saltaire (HLW379). For reasons of national security, we cannot provide specific details of allocations for partner countries.

01/12/2022
Baroness Uddin – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Uddin on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund will be allocated for survivors of sexual violence in conflict zones.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

Seven million pounds has so far been allocated to Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative activity in 2015-16. We are currently finalising subsequent allocations.

01/12/2022
The Earl of Clancarty – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Earl of Clancarty on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government under what legislation and on what grounds courts in the United Kingdom can make orders for the destruction of (1) original photographs, (2) paintings, and (3) artwork in other media.

Lord Faulks

There is a range of powers that enable the forfeiture of such items.

Section 143 of the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 provides a general power of forfeiture allowing the courts, on conviction of an offence, to make an order depriving an offender of any rights in lawfully seized articles or articles in the possession or under the control of the offender at arrest or summons which were used, or intended to be used, for the purpose of committing, or facilitating the commission of, an offence or in relation to which the offender was convicted of an offence involving unlawful possession of property.

Section 5 of, and the Schedule to, the Protection of Children Act 1978 allows the forfeiture of any indecent photograph, pseudo-photograph or prohibited image of a child and any property which it is not reasonably practicable to separate from that property following any lawful seizure. The police must give notice of any intended forfeiture of such property and where forfeiture is contested the court must determine the issue.

Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 allows the courts power to order the forfeiture of obscene articles kept for publication which have been seized under a warrant issued under that section.

01/12/2022
Lord Condon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Condon on 2015-10-19.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage first aid training in secondary schools, and whether, in particular, they are taking steps to offer CPR training, which is offered free of charge by some volunteer organisations.

Lord Nash

All schools are required to teach a balanced and broadly based curriculum that promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils, and prepares them for adult life. The new national curriculum focuses on the essential knowledge so that teachers can design a wider school curriculum that best meets the needs of their pupils.

Schools have the freedom to teach subjects or topics such as First Aid training beyond the prescribed curriculum to ensure that children receive a rounded education.

The Government welcomes the work of expert organisations such as the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and the British Heart Foundation to support schools in this aspect of teaching and are currently working with the sector to provide information to young people about first aid, CPR and how to deal with medical emergencies.

01/12/2022