Category: Speeches

Baroness Tonge – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2015-11-30.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they have taken to ensure that local authorities do not enter into contracts with companies that also work in countries that they believe are breaking, or have broken, international law and the Geneva Convention.

Lord Bridges of Headley

The new Public Contracts Regulations 2015 impose a legal obligation on public authorities when awarding contracts above certain thresholds to treat EU and GPA suppliers equally. Decisions on sanctions for breaking international law and the Geneva Convention are for the Government’s foreign policy, and it is inappropriate and illegal for local authorities in some cases to prejudice suppliers on the basis of their "beliefs". This policy has been in place for many years under successive governments.

01/01/2023
Laurence Robertson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Laurence Robertson on 2016-01-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, for what reason his Department sets an age limit for the receipt of funding for Masters degrees; and if he will make a statement.

Joseph Johnson

The new loan to support Master’s study has an upper age limit to ensure the scheme overall is affordable and offers value for money. The new postgraduate loan will be repaid from earnings on an income contingent basis, in this case 6% of earned annual income above the threshold of £21,000. We are therefore limiting eligibility to cover those likely to continue in employment and enter repayments.

01/01/2023
Lord Naseby – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Naseby on 2016-02-01.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the grant awarded to Action on Smoking and Health for 2015–16 relates to activities to be delivered beyond the end of the financial year; and, as the grant conditions stipulate that such activities must be delivered prior to that day, whether they will investigate.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The proposed budget estimates received from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) for each of the last five years for a Section 64 grant is attached. Commercially sensitive information has been redacted.

As the agreed project outputs make clear, the 2015-16 Section 64 grant funding awarded to ASH will be spent in the current financial year, including work relating to preparation for legislation coming into force later in 2016.

01/01/2023

Jonathan Ashworth – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Ashworth on 2016-02-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much his Department has paid to staff in overtime in each of the last 24 months.

Mr Edward Vaizey

Sums paid to Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) staff for overtime for the last 24 months, for which figures are available, were as follows:

£000s	January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December
2014	–	5.1	10.9	2.6	6.8	4.3	7.3	23.7	7.0	7.1	3.7	10.8
2015	2.2	3.9	28.0	6.2	31.0	5.8	4.3	8.3	6.6	4.3	8.6	7.1
2016	6.3	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–

DCMS is the smallest government department, with 509 full time equivalent (FTE) permanent employees (as of 31 January 2016). Overtime is a cost-effective way of managing peaks in workload in order to reduce the need for contractors or adding to the department’s headcount. Annual expenditure on overtime accounts for just under 0.3% of the DCMS paybill.

DCMS has responsibility for high profile policy, which includes staging national First World War commemoration events – this is reflected in our overtime figures for August 2014 and May 2015.

Recent machinery of government changes has also seen DCMS take on additional policy areas, including the digital economy unit, digital inclusion, data protection, the sponsorship of the National Archives and the Information Commissioner. The figure for March 2015 reflects the addition of the 2014-15 total overtime cost for the Digital Economy Unit following its Machinery of Government transfer to DCMS; monthly analysis of this sum is not available.

01/01/2023

Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the potential cost to industry of the proposal in Question 35 of the Department for Health consultation on the extension of charging overseas visitors and migrants using the NHS in England.

Alistair Burt

In relation to the Department’s recent consultation on extending charging to overseas visitors using the National Health Service in England, a lack of available data means that it has not been possible to estimate the cost to industry of the proposal to remove the exemption from charge category for overseas visitors working on United Kingdom-registered ships. However, the proposal was included in the Impact Assessment and is thought to be small overall.

We are currently analysing responses to the consultation.

01/01/2023
Greg Knight – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to further restrict the use of drones to ensure (a) the safety of aircraft and (b) privacy of members of the public.

Mr Robert Goodwill

There are existing regulations in place that require users of drones to maintain direct, unaided visual contact with their vehicle and to not recklessly or negligently cause or permit their craft to endanger any person or property. There are also tough existing penalties, including up to five years imprisonment for endangering an aircraft. Guidance on tackling the risks of criminal drone use has been provided to constabularies across the UK. The Secretary of State has written to the Police to request their assistance in raising awareness of drone risks and restrictions.

The Department continues to work with the CAA and industry partners to assess the safety risk of drones. It is also currently working with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to develop consistent, EU-wide safety rules for drones. A public consultation is planned for the summer. This will look at a range of options including registration and licensing options, and the potential for restrictions on purchase and use.

Operators of drones that might collect personal data must comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) unless a relevant exemption applies. The requirements of the DPA are regulated by the independent Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and their website provides clear guidance to operators.

01/01/2023
Karl McCartney – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karl McCartney on 2016-06-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will place in the Library the raw data from each English Housing Survey detailing the nationalities of the Household Representative Person.

Brandon Lewis

Raw data from the English Housing Survey are publicly available via the UK Data Service (archive for survey and economic data). These publicly available datasets undergo rigorous disclosure control to ensure the anonymity of our respondents is protected and, as such, do not include individual level nationality data.

01/01/2023
Sarah Wollaston – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sarah Wollaston on 2016-09-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the average length of time is from joining for an employee to qualify as a (a) maritime operations commander, (b) maritime operations controller, (c) senior operations officer and (d) maritime operations officer.

Mr John Hayes

The length of time taken to train Coastguard Officers is entirely dependent on their level of experience and competence when they join Her Majesty’s Coastguard and the level of experience of competence they gain prior to any internal promotion. Therefore an average for these would be misleading.

On entry to HM Coastguard as a Maritime Operations Officer it will take between six and 12 months to become trained, depending on previous maritime experience and competence.

HM Coastguard do not recruit direct entry Senior Maritime Operations Officers, they are internally recruited from the cadre of fully trained Maritime Operations Officers who will then undertake a further six months of training for this post.

As roles that can be directly recruited from outside HM Coastguard the training for both Maritime Operations Controllers and Maritime Operations Commanders is entirely dependent on their prevailing maritime experience and is in effect bespoke for the individual concerned.

It should be noted that the roles senior watch manager, watch manager, watch officer and watch assistant no longer exist within HM Coastguard.

01/01/2023
Lord Kennedy of Southwark – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2016-10-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking with local government to promote green infrastructure.

Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

The government is committed to developing a 25 year plan to improve the environment and this will include the importance of green infrastructure as a key underpinning of both the economy and well being.

The government is spending more than £600 million by 2020 to support the development, manufacture and uptake of electric ultra low emission vehicles in the UK. Part of this includes assisting local authorities by providing grant funding through the On Street Residential Scheme and Workplace Chargepoint Scheme to help meet the cost of installing electric vehicle chargepoints on streets in residential areas without access to off-street parking. Under the Go Ultra Low City Scheme the government is supporting a variety of infrastructure programmes for both public and domestic chargepoints across eight cities/regions of Bristol/West of England, London, Nottingham, Milton Keynes, York, Dundee, Oxford and the North East.

The government has made £1.5 million available to communities to create ‘Pocket Parks’, turning unused spaces into sensory gardens, wildlife habitats and food growing areas. The government has also submitted written evidence to the Select Committee inquiry on the future of public parks and will respond to any recommendations made as a result of this inquiry in due course.

01/01/2023

Owen Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2015-11-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many disabled people have been helped back to work by the Access to Work scheme in each of the last five years.

Justin Tomlinson

The table below lists annual totals for people who have been helped by Access to Work in each of the last five years.

Customer Type	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15
Existing customer	22,480	20,760	20,670	22,850	24,730
New customer helped	13,330	10,010	10,830	12,720	12,080
Total	35,810	30,780	31,500	35,560	36,820

Access to Work is not an exclusively back-to-work scheme and the department’s data do not distinguish between those helped into new employment opportunities and those helped to retain existing work. The data quoted here are for total numbers helped by Access to Work.
These figures are taken from the latest statistics for Access to Work, which show figures for people helped by the scheme going back to 2007 and are published quarterly here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/468889/access-to-work-statistics-apr-jun-2015.pdf

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01/01/2023