The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Elmore on 2016-07-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department has taken to support agriculture in South Wales since May 2015.
George Eustice
Agricultural policy is devolved. Support for agriculture in South Wales is the responsibility of the Welsh Government.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Farron on 2016-09-13.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of the hospitality industry workforce in (a) Cumbria and (b) Westmorland and Lonsdale constituency was born in another EU country.
Chris Skidmore
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by William Wragg on 2015-11-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps she is taking to ensure that smart meters provide the maximum possible benefits for consumers.
Andrea Leadsom
Smart meters will bring and end to estimated bills, make switching faster, and give bill payers more control ovr their energy use. It is vital that all consumers in Britain can benefit, so we’re requiring energy suppliers to offer a smart meter to every home and small business by the end of 2020.
Good progress is being made – over 1.7 million meters are already operating under the Programme.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Lord Bishop of Coventry on 2015-12-08.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what has been the financial cost to date of UK air strikes against Daesh in Iraq.
Earl Howe
It is not possible to separate out the costs of military action in Iraq from that of wider counter-Daesh operations due to the inter-related nature of UK military activity. The net additional cost of UK counter-Daesh operations to date is approximately £150 million. This includes around £80 million for military operations between August 2014 – 31 March 2015 and a net additional cost to date in this financial year of around £70 million.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stewart Jackson on 2016-01-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to improve teacher recruitment in local education authority areas with poor educational attainment; and if she will make a statement.
Nick Gibb
The Government is committed to achieving educational excellence everywhere so that children in every part of the country, regardless of their background and circumstances, have access to an outstanding education.
High-quality teachers are central to that ambition, and we have recently announced the establishment of a new National Teaching Service (NTS) that will second outstanding teachers and middle leaders into the schools that most need support, particularly in areas of the country that find it hardest to retain and recruit good teachers. Our ambition is that by 2020 there will be 1,500 NTS teachers/middle leaders in underperforming schools in areas of the country facing particular challenges in terms of teacher quality and recruitment. The NTS will begin with a pilot of 100 outstanding teachers and middle leaders in the North West from September 2016. Following the pilot the national programme will be rolled out from September 2017 where it will be extended into other regions.
We are also increasing the number of high-achieving graduates teaching in disadvantaged schools by supporting the geographical expansion of Teach First into every region of England. This gives Teach First the scope to reach 90 per cent of eligible schools by 2016, boosting the Government’s commitment to recruit more top teachers throughout England, including in more rural, coastal and disadvantaged areas. We are continuing to increase the proportion of initial teacher training that is led by schools, and our School Direct programme is giving more head teachers the ability to select, train and employ the teachers they need in their local areas.
The pay reforms that we have introduced since September 2013 give schools greater autonomy and more freedom to decide how much they pay teachers and how quickly pay progresses. Schools may also choose to use their pupil premium funding to attract or retain the best teachers. This increased flexibility gives schools in disadvantaged areas more scope to attract and recruit the high quality teachers that they need to deliver outstanding education in the most challenging circumstances.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-02-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2016 to Question 22981, if he will ask Ofcom to publish an assessment of whether the 26 per cent of BT’s ducts identified as being empty in the report, Telecoms infrastructure access – sample survey of duct access, published in March 2009, reflected the proportion of BT’s ducts that were able to have fibre blown through them without further civil works in the superfast broadband rollout.
Mr Edward Vaizey
I understand from Ofcom that the sample surveyed in the Ofcom report ‘Telecoms infrastructure access – sample survey of duct access’, published in March 2009, provided an indicative rather than representative assessment of the potential spare capacity in BT’s ducts.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Thomas on 2016-03-08.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when his Department last reviewed the arrangements at RAF Northolt on the safety of residents living under the flight path and nearby vicinity; and if he will make a statement.
Mark Lancaster
Military safety regulations mandate that a continual assessment of air safety risks are carried out. This provides not only internal assurance of operating procedures and air safety standards, but considers wider safety aspects such as the risks to individuals’ off-station.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) actively manages air safety via this system, across all of its aerodromes, publishing any mitigated or permitted deviations via the individual stations’ Defence Aerodrome Manual.
For MOD aerodromes that accept commercial/civilian flying activity, these processes have additional Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) oversight and assurance. Commercial operators are required to have similar safety management systems by the CAA, including those operating into RAF Northolt. The MOD and the CAA requires commercial operators to satisfy themselves that RAF Northolt is suitable for the safe operation of their particular aircraft.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Green of Deddington on 2016-04-11.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many illegal entrants were detected (1) on arrival at a UK ferry port, and (2) subsequent to having entered in a vehicle that had arrived at a UK ferry port, in each of the last three years for which figures are available.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Our records currently indicate that the number of clandestine entrants detected at UK ferry ports was:
2013 756
2014 1,480
2015 1,305
As part of recent changes to the way data is recorded, management information from April 2011 has been refreshed and may differ from the data released in earlier responses.
Previous figures provided for PQ 21106 showed that, at that time, our records indicated that 678 detections had been made at seaports in 2013. Under the new improved recording and reporting system, this figure has been updated to 756.
Clandestine entrants detected in-country with a declared port of departure that is a ferry port:
2013 676
2014 1,343
2015 1,630
This is provisional management information that is subject to change. It has not been assured to the standard of Official Statistics. Because the source of this data is a live operational system, operational reports taking data from the system at different times will continue to reflect slightly different numbers.
As part of recent changes to the way data is recorded, management information from April 2011 has been refreshed and may differ from the data released in earlier responses.
Immigration controls operate at Calais, and as such detections at Dover are normally counted as in country. For the purposes of this question, detections at Dover are counted as "at a UK ferry port".
For part (2), data on the ferry port of departure has been used as a proxy for port of arrival, as the latter is not recorded.
Regarding part (2), it must be noted that data for port of departure is incomplete: over the three year period there are more than 15,000 clandestines detected in country with no port of departure recorded. The data for part (2) excludes clandestine entrants whose declared port of departure is Coquelles, as this is a rail port.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Williams on 2016-05-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what her Department’s policy is on restricting the import of cheap, inferior-quality coal to the UK.
Andrea Leadsom
The decision of where to source coal is a commercial decision for companies. Through our efforts to decarbonise our electricity system, we are increasing the diversity of our energy mix and reducing our reliance on unabated coal.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2016-07-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment the Government has made of the safe levels of acetaldehyde to which workers in the chemical industry can be exposed.
Justin Tomlinson
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has no plans to commission an assessment of the levels of acetaldehyde that workers are exposed to in the UK chemical industry.
Acetaldehyde has been assigned a Workplace Exposure Limit (WEL). WELs are concentrations of hazardous substances in the air, averaged over a specified period of time, referred to as a time-weighted average (TWA). Two time periods are used; long-term (8 hours) and short-term (15 minutes). For acetaldehyde these are concentrations of 37 milligrams per cubic meter (mg.m-3) and 92mg.m-3 respectively.
Substances that have been assigned a WEL are subject to the requirements of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH). COSHH requires employers to prevent or control exposure to hazardous substances. Under COSHH, control is defined as adequate only if a) the principles of good control practice are applied; b) any WEL is not exceeded; and c) exposure to asthmagens, carcinogens and mutagens are reduced as low as is reasonably practicable. As part of the assessment required under regulation 6 of COSHH, employers should determine their own working practices and in-house standards for control of exposure.