Category: Speeches

Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2015-12-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the UK’s membership of the European Union in comparison to membership of the European Economic Area.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The EU Referendum Act 2015 sets out the Government’s commitment to publish information about rights and obligations that arise under EU law as a result of the UK’s membership of the EU, and examples of countries that are not members of the EU, but have other arrangements with the EU. This information will be published at least 10 weeks before the referendum.

January 1, 2023
Seema Malhotra – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Seema Malhotra on 2016-01-26.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what modelling his Department undertakes on the effect on changes to pension contributions of changes to (a) annual allowance and (b) lifetime allowance; and what sources his Department uses for such modelling.

Harriett Baldwin

The Government does not hold its own records on total accumulated pension wealth, only on pension contributions. For the purposes of the Lifetime Allowance, officials have used data from the ONS Wealth and Assets Survey, which includes estimates of pension wealth.

The Government assessed the effects of changes to the Annual Allowance and Lifetime Allowance by considering how many people would have to reduce their saving in response to these reductions. This methodology was agreed with the OBR.

The reduction in the Lifetime Allowance will affect only 4% of savers currently approaching retirement. The Lifetime Allowance will be reduced to £1 million from April, but the average pension savings of someone approaching retirement is only £85,000.

Just 1% of savers make contributions of £40,000 per year, the level of the Annual Allowance since April 2014. The average saver contributes £6,000 per year.

The introduction of the Tapered Annual Allowance for individuals who earn over £150,000 in April 2016 will impact less than 2% of people saving into a pension.

The Government laid out its modelling on the effect of changes to the Annual and Lifetime Allowances on pension contributions in its policy costings documents at the March and Summer Budgets 2015.

For changes to the Lifetime Allowance, the Wealth and Assets Survey was used to estimate pension wealth, and this was projected forward using assumed pension contributions and estimates of the real rate of return on pensions savings taken from the OECD and the Government Actuary’s Department.

For the Tapered Annual Allowance, modelling used estimates from the Survey of Personal Incomes, HMRC operational data on personal pension contributions, the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, and the Occupational Pension Scheme Survey.

January 1, 2023
Lord Truscott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Truscott on 2016-02-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in the light of the experience in Oklahoma in the US, they plan to commission a detailed study into the potential correlation between fracking in the UK and more frequent earthquakes.

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

Waste water re-injection in the US has been linked to seismic activity, but this technique has not been proposed in the UK and the Environment Agency will not permit re-injection of waste water into any formation at this stage.

In the UK, we have over 50 years’ experience regulating the onshore oil and gas industry. Our regulator regime is robust and we have strong controls in place to mitigate the risk of any seismic activity in the UK.

January 1, 2023
Mark Hendrick – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2016-03-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 11 March 2016 to Question 30239, if her Department will collect centrally information on the number of warrants that are being issued in order to establish whether women are being trafficked.

Karen Bradley

The Home Office has no current plans to collect information on the number of warrants issued specifically in relation to trafficking offences. Warrants are one tool used by law enforcement officers to pursue potential perpetrators and collect evidence. We are already seeing an increase in the number of prosecutions and convictions for modern slavery offences and we will continue to ensure that the police have the necessary powers to tackle modern slavery wherever it occurs.

January 1, 2023
Tommy Sheppard – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tommy Sheppard on 2016-04-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what reports he has received of plans by the Israeli government to use its security services to disrupt and gather information on supporters of a boycott of Israel; and if he will make an assessment of the potential effects of such plans on UK citizens.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

We are aware of media reporting on this issue. No assessment has been made.

January 1, 2023
Lord Oates – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Oates on 2016-05-18.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assistance they are providing to the government of Ethiopia in dealing with the displacement of people as a result of the recent flash flooding in southern Ethiopia.

Baroness Verma

Extensive spring rains have come at a time when Ethiopia is experiencing its worst drought in 30 years, which has already left 18 million people in urgent need of relief. Britain is scaling up its response to help the Government of Ethiopia provide lifesaving support to thousands of families in urgent need after severe flooding.

Emergency humanitarian supplies – including 34,000 shelter kits, 60,000 blankets, 30,000 kitchen sets, clean water devices and other equipment – have begun arriving in Ethiopia to help 150,000 people in immediate need cope with the aftermath of intense flooding.

The UK is already the second largest bilateral humanitarian donor in Ethiopia, and this new support, at around £3.5 million, brings our total funding to the current humanitarian response in Ethiopia to £145 million.

January 1, 2023

Luciana Berger – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-07-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much funding from the (a) European Regional Development Fund and (b) European Social Fund was spent in (i) Liverpool, Wavertree constituency and (ii) each borough of the Liverpool City Region in each year since 2010.

Margot James

Information is not held for individual constituencies or boroughs. Figures are recorded for Merseyside and are from the 2007-13 programming period where projects could spend money up to the end of 2015, with some reimbursements taking place in 2016.

The figures for the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) are:

Year	£m Merseyside
2009	£77.30
2010	£25.00
2011	£28.80
2012	£27.00
2013	£29.70
2014	£21.60
2015	£33.50
2016	£20.75
Total	£263.65

For the European Social Fund (ESF) figures as follows:

Year	£m Merseyside
2010	£44.04
2011	£20.58
2012	£11.61
2013	£8.75
2014	£7.70
2015	£9.93
2016	£0.29
Total	£102.90

January 1, 2023

David Simpson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the conclusion in the Flood Resilience Review, published in September 2016, that a 20 to 30 per cent increase in winter rainfall is possible over the next 10 years.

Dr Thérèse Coffey

The National Flood Resilience Review identified that over the next 10 years we could see extreme rainfall events that could be up to 20-30 per cent higher than recent past extreme rainfall events.

The Environment Agency will use 20 and 30 per cent extreme rainfall scenarios with local detailed models used to design new flood risk management schemes.

The scenarios will also be considered for wider flood incident planning and operational readiness that might be needed by relevant responders.

January 1, 2023
Stephen McPartland – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen McPartland on 2015-11-17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress the National Group on Sexual Violence Against Children and Vulnerable People has made on establishing a Child Sexual Exploitation Response Unit; and if she will make a statement.

Karen Bradley

The actions which stemmed from the National Group’s work have been incorporated into a cross-Whitehall CSA Programme which includes the actions from the “Tackling CSE” report published in March 2015, and the WeProtect Summit in December 2014.

Good progress is being made across the range of commitments in the CSA Programme, including that to establish a new national response unit to help local areas when child sexual exploitation is a particular concern. The Government will publish a progress report on all actions within the Programme one year on from the publication of “Tackling CSE”.

January 1, 2023
Barry Sheerman – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2015-12-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what cross-departmental initiatives there are to tackle cyberbullying and protect young people from abuse online.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) is a multi-stakeholder forum that brings together three government departments, alongside industry, law enforcement, academia, charities and parenting groups to work in partnership to help to keep children and young people safe online. It develops and promotes effective tools and information for children and parents.

The board is co-chaired by Ministers from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Education, and the Home Office. Officials from the Department of Health are also standing observers to Board meetings.

The risks UKCCIS is seeking to protect children from are typically understood under four broad categories: content (such as violent or offensive content), contact (such as by online groomers), conduct (such as cyber bullying) and commerce (such as fraud)

As part of this work, the UK’s Communications regulator, Ofcom, is leading a working group to develop best practice guidance for emerging social media platforms to encourage responsible practice from industry, and ensure children using their services are able to do so in a safe and protected way. This guidance has just been published. All the key players are round the table in this important collaborative project, including Twitter, Facebook, Google, Ask.FM, MindCandy and Microsoft.

The Government Equalities Office has also recently provided £500,000 to the Safer Internet Centre to deliver updated cyberbullying guidance for schools, and a PSHE toolkit to help schools deliver sessions about cyberbullying, peer pressure and sexting; and support to professionals through a hotline and online safety briefings. They have engaged with DCMS and DfE in the development of this guidance.

January 1, 2023