Category: Speeches

  • Lord Aberdare – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Lord Aberdare – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

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

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the Institute for Apprenticeships will take over any of the functions carried out by Ofsted, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education or Ofqual, such as the inspection of apprenticeship provision or the regulation of qualifications, and if so, which.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The role of the Institute for Apprenticeships will be to ensure the quality of apprenticeship standards.

    Apprenticeships will only attract funding from government or the levy if they are against an approved standard or framework. Each standard will contain a plan for how the apprenticeship will be assessed. Although this will be approved by the Institute, the Institute will not assess the apprenticeship training itself: the register of training providers is owned by the Skills Funding Agency and Ofsted will continue to inspect providers.

    The Institute will, however, need to ensure there is consistency between the levels of assessment being applied, as part of its role in approving standards and assessment plans.

  • Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-07-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to his Department’s distributed ledger technology benefits payments trial, what blockchain technology is being used for that trial; whether he plans to dismantle that blockchain technology once that trial has ended; and which organisations outside the Government will have access to (a) that blockchain technology and (b) the data stored as part of that trial.

    Damian Hinds

    The DWP works continuously with industry partners to identify and test new innovations that could save taxpayer money, safeguard information and better protect payments to customers.

    The DWP is undertaking some small scale research involving blockchain technology which is expected to last 3-6 months with the results available in the last quarter of 2016. It uses a private permissioned distributed ledger to allow participants to store their transactions, including payments from DWP. Those transactions can then be viewed securely on a mobile application so that they can, if they wish, monitor and allocate their spending into categories, check their available balance and plan future spending. There are currently about 12 people in the trial which we expect to increase to around 24 people by the close.

    The participants in the trial have complete control over their data and how it is used; the government does not receive or see any of that data. The DWP takes privacy and security extremely seriously and this will form part of the learning from the trial.

  • Kerry McCarthy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Kerry McCarthy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the number of requests made to slaughterhouses with CCTV to release their footage for independent review in each of the last five years; and in how many of those cases that footage was released.

    Nicola Blackwood

    The Food Standards Agency (FSA) Authorised Officers can and do review CCTV footage with the permission of the Food Business Operator (FBO). Where they have grounds to believe an offence has occurred FSA Authorised Officers can seize footage relevant to the offence.

    As part of the regular audit and/or inspection process in slaughterhouses an Authorised Officer may ask an FBO for access to CCTV footage. Whilst the outcome of the reviewed footage will be recorded at a local level we do not keep a national log of such requests and therefore the FSA does not hold a record of this information. Similarly, we do not keep a national record of the number of cases where CCTV footage was released.

  • Kirsten Oswald – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Kirsten Oswald – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kirsten Oswald on 2015-10-27.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what work his Department has commissioned to identify the distribution across the nations and regions of the UK of exchange-only lines on the telecom network that are incompatible with fibre to the cabinet broadband technology.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The vast majority of phone lines across the UK connect to the nearest telephone exchange via a street cabinet, which can be upgraded to deliver fibre broadband. Estimates are not available of the number of premises served by exchange only lines which connect directly to the local exchange rather than via one of BT’s street cabinets. There are a variety of reasons why exchange only lines are created. For example, for rural exchanges serving few premises where there was no need for cabinets, or for urban exchanges where it may have been a more cost-effective. Exchange only lines present a greater engineering challenge to deliver fibre broadband than those connected via street cabinets but technical solutions are available. One solution is to rearrange the existing network, lay new cables to reroute lines to new cabinets. This technique was developed as part of the BDUK Superfast Broadband Programme, and the number of exchange only lines is reducing all the time as roll out under the programme continues.

  • Lord Hylton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Hylton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hylton on 2015-11-24.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are making representations to the Kurdistan Regional Government about the case of Niaz Aziz Saleh.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    We have not made representations to the Kurdistan Regional Government on this particular case. However, Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers and officials at our Consulate General in Erbil regularly raise human rights concerns with the Kurdistan Regional Government.

  • Seema Malhotra – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Seema Malhotra – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Seema Malhotra on 2015-12-15.

    To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what meetings he has had on his Department’s proposed review of business rates.

    Mr David Gauke

    The Government has held a range meetings with stakeholders and received a large number of submissions in response to the business rates review. The review will be fiscally neutral and will report at Budget 2016.

  • Debbie Abrahams – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Debbie Abrahams – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Debbie Abrahams on 2016-01-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the universal credit in-work conditionality pilots track outcomes for people who are no longer in receipt of that credit.

    Priti Patel

    We will track the outcomes of all people who participate in the In-Work Progression Randomised Control Trial, including those who are no longer claiming Universal Credit.

  • Lord Pearson of Rannoch – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Lord Pearson of Rannoch – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Pearson of Rannoch on 2016-02-11.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Freud on 10 February (HL5883), why the incorrect reference to the 20 November 2014 answer has been repeated, and whether they will now state what is the annual cost of paying in-work benefits to non-UK citizens from other EU countries in each of the last five years.

    Lord Freud

    The November 2014 answer (HL 5012) incorrectly referred to question number 211618 as having been responded to by Priti Patel, when in fact the answer was provided by Esther McVey.

    I would like to apologise again for this, but would like to be clear that the mistake was to incorrectly state the name of the Minister providing the original response (211618)) and did not relate to the question number. Both responses HL 5012 and 5883 correctly referred the Honourable Lord to question number 211618.

    The original reference to question 211618 was provided because the information has not changed; information on benefit receipt by nationality is not available.

  • Barry Gardiner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Barry Gardiner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2016-03-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, whether she was consulted about the decision to remove the discussion on raising EU climate ambition in light of the Paris Agreement from the European Council agenda for 17 to 18 March 2016.

    Andrea Leadsom

    The agenda for the European Council is set by the President of the European Council.

  • Anna Turley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Anna Turley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2016-04-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what estimate she has made of the number of people from the North East of England working offshore in each year since 2010.

    Andrea Leadsom

    Oil and Gas UK in the UK Continental Shelf Offshore Workforce Demographics Report 2015 estimate that of the total number of offshore workers resident in the UK, 13.8 per cent (7,711) live in the North East of England.