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  • Lord Pendry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Lord Pendry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Pendry on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of reports that a doctor prescribed performance-enhancing drugs to 150 athletes, what steps they are taking to ensure that sports in the UK are free from doping.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The Government is deeply concerned by these allegations. Sports fans are entitled to be sure that what they are watching is true and fair with all athletes competing on a level playing field. We are grateful for the investigative journalism by the Sunday Times for bringing these apparent abuses to light, and we have asked for there to be an urgent independent investigation into what action was taken when these allegations were first received and what more needs to be done to ensure that British sport remains clean. The Government is also looking at whether existing legislation in this area goes far enough. If it becomes clear that stronger criminal sanctions are needed then we will not hesitate to act.

  • Lord Sharkey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Lord Sharkey – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Sharkey on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government who will be the lead UK representative at the International Civil Aviation Organisation Assembly in Montreal between 27 September and 7 October.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    The UK has not yet nominated its delegation for the 39th Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization, but will do so in the coming months. In the past the UK’s Chief Delegate has been the Director General of Civil Aviation.

  • Baroness Buscombe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Baroness Buscombe – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Buscombe on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their rationale for continuing to offer British Citizenship to EU migrants.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    The requirements for naturalisation are set out in the British Nationality Act 1981 and include a period of lawful residence, settled status, good character, and knowledge of language and life in the United Kingdom. These apply equally to EEA and non-EEA nationals.

  • Lord Hunt of Chesterton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Lord Hunt of Chesterton – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Chesterton on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether UK government agencies were providing remote sensing data to detect, forecast and provide warning of the recent earthquakes in Afghanistan to the affected communities and government agencies.

    Baroness Verma

    The science is clear on this matter – earthquakes cannot be forecast with any degree of reliability. Remote sensing does exist, but can only operate in extremely technically sophisticated environments, and even then can only provide limited warning of a few seconds or minutes in which to respond. As such the UK Government does not provide remote sensing data to detect, forecast, and provide warning of earthquakes in Afghanistan.

    When it comes to other forms of natural disaster, DFID funds a resilience and disaster risk reduction programme in Afghanistan which provides £9.6m over four years (2015-18) to an NGO consortium called Afghanistan Resilience Consortium (ARC). Implementation is focused in the eight northern provinces of Afghanistan which are the most disaster prone.

  • Baroness Jowell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Baroness Jowell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jowell on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what they estimate will be the net gain in social housing from the planned route for HS2.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    For Phase One the Government has committed to work with local authorities, housing associations, tenants and other key stakeholders in order to ensure that lost social rented housing is replaced in a manner sympathetic to local needs and reflective of the strategic approach to social housing driven by local authorities. Naturally the approach adopted for Phase One will inform that for Phase Two.

  • Baroness Jowell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Baroness Jowell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jowell on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the number of people who are street homeless in London for each year since 2010.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    One person without a home is one too many and we are committed to doing all we can to prevent homelessness. That is why we have increased central investment to tackle homelessness over the next four years to £139 million.

    This will include a new national £10 million programme to support innovative ways to tackle rough sleeping, and will build on the success of our No Second Night Out initiative, which saw two-thirds of rough sleepers in London come off the streets after a single night.

    DCLG publishes regular statistics on rough sleeping. These are available (the latest figures are attached) at:

    https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-in-england-autumn-2015

    The GLA collects more detailed statistics on rough sleeping in London. These are available at: http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/chain-reports

    “

  • Lord St John of Bletso – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Lord St John of Bletso – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord St John of Bletso on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to provide aid to assist in alleviating the impact of the current drought in Zimbabwe.

    Baroness Verma

    The UK was one of the first to respond widespread food insecurity resulting from a poor 2015 harvest and the emerging El Niño. Since September 2015, we have been supporting over 350,000 people in the worst affected areas, through cash transfers, in a £15m programme ending in July 2016.

    An estimated 2.8 million people currently face food insecurity in Zimbabwe, so the UK is also helping to build their longer term resilience to future droughts. Our programmes provide training to smallholder farmers strengthening their ability to cope with the effects of climate change; and supporting them to grow drought resistant crops – such as ground nuts, sesame and mung bean for sale to the market.

  • Lord Watson of Invergowrie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lord Watson of Invergowrie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Watson of Invergowrie on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the BBC’s proposal to provide every child in Year 7 with the micro:bit codeable computer.

    Lord Nash

    The Government welcomes this initiative from the BBC that will provide every child in year 7 with a free micro:bit codeable computer.

    The national curriculum in computing, which was introduced in 2014, includes coding at all key stages. At primary school pupils are taught about algorithms and how to design and write codes to accomplish specific goals, using sequencing, selection and repetition. This is extended at secondary school where pupils are taught to use at least two coding languages to solve a variety of computational problems.

    We want every student to have the opportunity actively to create new technology products. Our reformed programme of study for computing in the national curriculum emphasises the academic discipline of computer science. Through studying topics such as computational logic, algorithms and data representation, pupils are obtaining insight into how the digital technologies that they use every day work and understand how these technology products result from rational design processes.

  • Lord Watson of Invergowrie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lord Watson of Invergowrie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Watson of Invergowrie on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many Studio Schools currently exist in the UK; how many of those schools are standalone; and how many of those schools have closed.

    Lord Nash

    40 studio schools are currently open. Of these nine are standalone academies.

    Seven studio schools have closed since 2013, of which three were standalone and the remainder were in multi-academy trusts.

  • Lord Watson of Invergowrie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lord Watson of Invergowrie – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Watson of Invergowrie on 2016-04-12.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what modelling they have done to establish the scale of gains and losses that are likely to result from the introduction of the National Funding Formula for schools.

    Lord Nash

    On 7 March, we published our first consultation on a national funding formula for schools and high needs. It outlined the principles of the funding system and the funding factors that we believe should define the formula.

    The detailed design of the national funding formula – and therefore its impact on local authorities and schools – will only be finalised once we have had the opportunity to thoroughly consider all responses to our first consultation, which closed on 17 April. We intend to set out those proposals and the impacts of the proposed formula on local authorities and schools in a second stage consultation later this year. We are thinking carefully about how the transition to new funding levels can be managed and will set out further detail on this in the second consultation.