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  • Victoria Atkins – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Victoria Atkins – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Victoria Atkins on 2016-04-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress her Department is making on ensuring that funding is distributed fairly across schools.

    Mr Sam Gyimah

    The fair distribution of funding is a priority for this Government. A National Funding Formula will ensure that every school is allocated funding fairly and transparently according to need. The first stage of a two part consultation closed last week and we are currently considering the responses. It is important that we get such a significant change right and so we will publish our response to the first stage, and second consultation, later this year.

  • Caroline Flint – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Caroline Flint – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Flint on 2016-04-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to require all primary and secondary schools to become academies.

    Nick Gibb

    Two-thirds of secondary schools and one-third of primary schools are already academies. All schools yet to convert have six years to work with their local authority and Diocese to plan effectively for a sustainable future.

    We expect many will choose to partner with other schools and form or join new, local partnerships. However, no school has to rush into an arrangement that is not right for them and they will be supported throughout this process.

  • Chris White – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Chris White – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris White on 2016-04-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what measures her Department has implemented to support children who are permanently excluded from school.

    Edward Timpson

    Exclusion from school is not the end of a pupil’s education. Where a pupil has been permanently excluded, the Local Authority must arrange suitable full-time education for them to begin no later than the sixth school day following the exclusion.

    In the White Paper ‘Educational Excellence Everywhere’ we announced reforms to the system of alternative provision which will strengthen the accountability of schools when permanently excluding pupils. Under these changes schools will remain accountable for the education of pupils in alternative provision and will be responsible for commissioning high quality provision. In addition to this, the reforms include a number of measures to raise the standards of alternative provision providers so that every child is given the best possible opportunity to fulfil their potential. The full text of the Educational Excellence Everywhere White Paper can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/educational-excellence-everywhere.

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  • Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government under what conditions they would refer an incident or a series of incidents of suspected mass killings or alleged human rights abuses to the UN Security Council for a determination on whether genocide was occurring as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    The Government believes that recognition of genocides should be a matter for international courts, not political bodies. It should be a legal, rather than political determination, decided by international judges after consideration of all the evidence available in the context of a credible international judicial process.

  • Baroness Barker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Baroness Barker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Barker on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what advice the Department for Work and Pensions gives to trans individuals about how their confidentiality is maintained by that department on its database.

    Lord Freud

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) provides its staff with information about providing services for transgender customers but does not provide information relating to data confidentiality specifically for transgender customers. DWP has a Personal Information Charter which informs all customers of the standards they can expect when we handle their personal information.

    The DWP Special Customer Records (SCR) policy provides additional controls to transgender customers. These additional controls include clerical records being held securely by a senior manager, and access to computer records only being allowed to specific employees for specific business reasons and automatic notification of any unauthorised attempt to access records.

  • Baroness Barker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Baroness Barker – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Barker on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what advice trans individuals are given about how to manage the accuracy and maintain the integrity of their data on the Department for Work and Pensions database.

    Lord Freud

    The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) provides its staff with information about providing services for transgender customers but does not provide information relating to the management of data accuracy or maintenance of data integrity specifically for transgender customers. DWP have a Personal Information Charter which informs all customers of the standards they can expect when we handle their personal information.

  • Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government why water customers are being required to pay for the financing and legal fees of the shareholders of the consortium, Bazalgette Tunnel Ltd., which was awarded the licence for the Thames Tideway Tunnel.

    Lord Gardiner of Kimble

    A water and sewerage company’s management and investors are responsible for determining the company’s capital and financing structure. This is an important feature of the water industry as it encourages investment by enabling a company to put in place a structure that works for it. However, accountability for a water or sewerage company’s capital and financing structure rests with investors and not customers.

    Bazalgette Tunnel Ltd (trading as Tideway) is an infrastructure provider, appointed and licenced under the Water Industry (Specified Infrastructure Projects) (English Undertakers) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/ 1582). Any costs incurred by Tidewayand its shareholders for its financing and other corporate arrangements are prevented under their project licence from being met by customers and are instead borne by the shareholders. This includes costs incurred both before and after licence award in August 2015.

  • Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government under what legislative provision OFWAT is able to waive the need for a public procurement process for lawyers and financiers for the Thames Tideway Tunnel for services contracts with fees of open-ended value, in the light of the limit for services contracts under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 of £345,028.

    Lord Gardiner of Kimble

    The statutory provision is regulation 6(8) of the Water Industry (Specified Infrastructure Projects) (English Undertakers) Regulations 2013 (S.I. 2013/ 1582) ("the SIP Regulations"). This confers a power on Ofwat to waive the requirement imposed on a licensed infrastructure provider (being Tideway, in respect of the Thames Tideway Tunnel project) to put certain contracts out to tender under a modified version of the Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016 as set in Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the SIP Regulations. Tideway is neither a contracting authority nor a utility within the meaning of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 or Utilities Contracts Regulations 2016 and so is not subject to the normal procurement rules.

    Following a public consultation, Ofwat issued two notices under this provision that waived Tideway’s obligation to comply with the modified version of the Utilities Contracts Regulations in certain limited and defined circumstances. The second notice issued by Ofwat provided Tideway with a narrow exemption for certain specified professional services relating to their financing and corporate arrangements, and only to the extent that those services will be paid for by its shareholders rather than customers.

  • Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of their current initiatives on the use of tax havens and issues about the use of off-shore companies, what assessment they have made of the use by Thames Water of a Cayman Islands company to raise over £5 billion of debt, and of Thames Water being owned and controlled from Luxembourg.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) does not disclose details of its work on the affairs of particular taxpayers.

  • Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-04-18.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government when the Minute to Parliament describing the contingent liability with an indicative value of up to £500 million, as created by the Market Disruption Facility agreed and signed by the Secretary of State and Bazalgette Tunnel Limited on 24 August 2015 in connection with the Thames Tideway Tunnel project was published, in the light of the fact that the potential exposure of the public purse exceeds £300,000; and when a Minute to Parliament was published in respect of the further contingent liability created by the Secretary of State in connection with the same project through his agreement to the Contingent Equity Support Agreement, signed on the same day with the same party, in the light of the fact that the liability could be as great or greater than that in the Market Disruption Facility.

    Lord Gardiner of Kimble

    Defra did not submit departmental Minutes on the various limbs of the Government’s contingent financial support package for the Thames Tideway Tunnel because the Secretary of State has statutory authority to give financial assistance for major water or sewerage infrastructure projects under section 154B of the Water Industry Act 1991. This is consistent with the approach set out in HM Treasury’s guidance, Managing Public Money, paragraph A5.4.21 & Box A5.4C.