Category: Speeches

David Mackintosh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-06-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that computer coding is taught to children from an early stage in their education.

Nick Gibb

Demand for high-level skills in computing will only grow in the years ahead and will be crucial to supporting a successful economy. It is essential that we have a generation of pupils who have the knowledge and understanding they need to become active creators of digital technology, and not just passive consumers of it. We want them to have a deeper understanding of how digital technologies work and be able to write computer programs.

Since 2014, computing has been part of the National Curriculum at all four key stages. This replaced the outdated Information and Communications Technology (ICT) programme of study. The computing curriculum focuses on teaching children how computers work, the basics of programming, and encourages them to design computer programs to address real world problems. This includes introducing coding to primary pupils. At primary school, pupils are being taught what algorithms are, how to design and write programs to accomplish specific goals using sequencing, selection and repetition and how to apply logical reasoning to detect and correct errors.

01/01/2023
Tom Tugendhat – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Tugendhat on 2016-09-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the announcement on page 4 of her Department’s publication entitled Central Government Funding for Flooding and Coastal Erosion, published in September 2016, that decisions on where to allocate the remaining funding set aside for flood defences have yet to be made, (a) which Department or agency will make those decisions and (b) when she expects those decisions to be made.

Dr Thérèse Coffey

Decisions on allocating the remaining headroom from the £700 million uplift to flood defence and resilience measures announced at Budget 2016 will be made on the basis of a rigorous assessment of local needs and value for money. HM Treasury, in consultation with other government departments including Defra and the Environment Agency, will make allocation decisions in due course.

01/01/2023
Steve McCabe – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2015-11-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2015 to Question 10566, what recent steps he has taken to encourage all parties in the conflict in Yemen to allow freedom of access for humanitarian and commercial supplies.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

During his visit to Saudi Arabia on 28 October, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) made clear the need for all sides to take all reasonable steps to facilitate access for humanitarian aid, and the importance of the non-politicisation of aid, as well as the need to facilitate access for commercial goods. We welcome the commitments of the Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister and Yemeni President Hadi in recent weeks that all of Yemen’s ports are open and that commercial ships, including fuel tankers, are now arriving in Yemeni ports, including Hodeidah. We are using diplomatic channels to urge the Saudi and Yemeni Governments to ensure commercial access is sustained. The Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) have expressed the UK’s readiness to support the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM) and DFID has committed £1.4 million to the UN to support its establishment.

01/01/2023
Khalid Mahmood – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Khalid Mahmood on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to support the West Midlands Police Force respond to an increase in the levels of gun crime in Birmingham.

Mike Penning

The Government and police work nationally, and with international partners, to reduce the threat to the UK from the criminal use of firearms. In 2013/14, firearms were used in a small and diminishing proportion of total police recorded crime, 0.2%. We also support local areas to take action against gang violence to reduce offending and protect vulnerable people. Under the Ending Gang and Youth Violence programme, Birmingham was subject to a peer review in 2012 and has implemented and integrated the recommendations from the review into their local strategic plans. The Home Office does not hold data centrally on the number of arrests made in connection with gun crime. The UK has some of the toughest gun laws in the world and the government and the police continue to work together to reduce the threat from the criminal use of firearms. We will be reviewing options to strengthen the current legislation to ensure it safeguards against abuse by criminals following representations made by the police (and other stakeholders) during the Law Commission’s scoping consultation on firearms legislation. The number of offences involving firearms (excluding air weapons) in the West Midlands has fallen by 40% since 2010, from 903 offences in 2009/10 to 540 in 2013/14.

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

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Balfe on 2016-01-14.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take steps to prevent the Egyptian cleric Fadel Soliman from speaking at British universities.

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

The Government introduced a duty on universities in September 2015 to ensure that they have due regard to the need to prevent people being drawn into terrorism. The statutory guidance which accompanies the duty makes clear that universities must ensure that they assess the risks associated with organisations and speakers at events on campus, putting mitigations in place where necessary or cancelling events where the risk cannot be mitigated.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has been appointed as the body to monitor compliance at English universities, including where potential breaches of the duty are reported. Appropriate arrangements will apply in Wales and Scotland.

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

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Robinson on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will make an assessment of the implications for his Department’s policies on shop workers’ rights to opt out of Sunday working of the findings of a recent USDAW survey on the number of shop workers who (a) feel under pressure to work longer hours on a Sunday and (b) want to work fewer hours on a Sunday.

Anna Soubry

In formulating its final proposals, the Government has carefully considered all the evidence submitted during the consultation process.

A number of respondents expressed concern that extended opening hours could increase pressure on shop workers to work longer hours on Sundays. We therefore propose to enable shop workers to opt out of working additional hours on Sundays, to shorten the notice period for shop workers at large shops who wish to opt out of Sunday working altogether, and to strengthen and clarify the duty on employers to notify shop workers of their opt-out rights.

01/01/2023
Tom Watson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Watson on 2016-03-04.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much his Department spent on advertisements using Facebook in each of the last three years.

Matthew Hancock

Cabinet Office did not spend anything in 2013/14 on Facebook advertising. In 2014/15 there was a total of £17,511.16 spent by Cabinet Office on Facebook advertising. Fully auditable figures are not available for the 2015/16. All figures include VAT.

01/01/2023

Meg Hillier – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Meg Hillier on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what her policy is on priority categories in Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

Karen Bradley

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) processes applications in date order and is reliant on the police completing their checks in a timely manner. In very exceptional cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant, the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the relevant police force.

The table below shows the average time spent by each police force in England to process disclosure applications between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016.

Force Name	Average Days Taken By Force
Avon And Somerset	7.4
Bedfordshire	3.5
Cambridgeshire	10.9
Cheshire	10.7
City of London	9.0
Cleveland	8.6
Cumbria	13.8
Derbyshire	14.8
Devon And Cornwall	4.7
Dorset	76.6
Durham	15.3
Essex	16.2
Gloucester	11.1
Greater Manchester	12.8
Hampshire	11.4
Hertfordshire	10.5
Humberside	9.8
Kent	18.5
Lancashire	5.0
Leicestershire	7.7
Lincolnshire	9.2
Merseyside	8.2
Metropolitan	85.2
Norfolk	1.6
North Yorkshire	17.9
Northamptonshire	17.1
Northumbria	13.9
Nottinghamshire	10.9
South Yorkshire	21.7
Staffordshire	10.7
Suffolk	8.8
Surrey	13.1
Sussex	17.5
Thames Valley	60.3
Warwickshire	7.2
West Mercia	9.3
West Midlands	21.2
West Yorkshire	12.3
Wiltshire	4.8

01/01/2023

Gareth Thomas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Thomas on 2016-05-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January 2016 to Question 21679, when her Department’s investigations into applications for family reunion from Kuwaiti Bidoon people were initiated; when she expects those investigations to be concluded; whether there is a maximum length of time for which a decision will not be taken on the outstanding applications in that cohort; and if she will make a statement.

James Brokenshire

In 2014, UK Visas & Immigration in Jordan became aware of potential abuse of the Family Reunion route by individuals claiming to be the dependants of someone granted refugee status in the UK as a Kuwaiti Bidoon. Investigations commenced at this time.

UK Visas & Immigration has concluded the majority of the applications referenced in the response to Question 21679 and continues to work through those applications that have not yet been concluded.

UK Visas & Immigration aims to resolve all applications for UK entry clearance within published customer service standards. Where there is a problem with an individual application or if it is complex, UK Visas & Immigration write to the affected applicant to explain why the application will not be decided within the normal standard. All outstanding applications for UK entry clearance from family members of individuals granted refugee status as a Kuwaiti Bidoon which have not been concluded within published customer service standards are currently being prioritised.

01/01/2023
Andrew Rosindell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2016-06-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, when he plans to meet his US counterparts to discuss the effect of the recent EU referendum on UK-US relations.

Mr Hugo Swire

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), met Secretary of State John Kerry in London on 27 June. Both Governments agree that an unbreakable bond exists between the US and the UK; that Britain’s global role remains undiminished, and that the Special Relationship remains a strong and crucial relationship.

01/01/2023