Category: Speeches

  • Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will maintain the level of funding of the Charity Research Support Fund in real terms over the next five years.

    Joseph Johnson

    The Government has protected the science budget in real terms to the end of the Parliament. Our intention is to formally allocate budgets to individual funding bodies in the coming weeks. The Government recognises the significant contribution made by charitable funders of research, which the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), has reflected through the charity support element of Quality Related research funding. Decisions by HEFCE on any funding beyond 2015-16 will be taken once they have received their annual Grant Letter which, sets out their funding allocations.

  • Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Royston Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Royston Smith on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what additional training provision and schemes his Department plans to put in place to support job losses arising as a consequence of the national living wage.

    Nick Boles

    The 2015 spending review made provision for a major expansion of adult further education, to increase employment and productivity levels.

    The Government has maintained funding for the core adult skills participation budgets in cash terms at £1.5bn and is also increasing opportunities in technical and professional education by doubling the level of spending on apprenticeships by 2019-20 in 2010-11 cash terms, including income from the new apprenticeship levy. It will be almost £900 million higher in 2019-20 than in 2015-16. By 2019-20, spending on apprenticeships in England will be £2.5 billion.

    The combination of the levy, the protection of the AEB, the extension of advanced learner loans, and the introduction of the youth obligation means that by the end of the Parliament, the cash value of core adult FE funding to support participation will be at its highest ever. The total spending power of the FE sector to support participation will be £3.41bn by 2019-20, which is a cash terms increase of 40% compared with 2015-16 (real terms 30%).

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-04-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) his Department and (b) Highways England are improving their assessments of user satisfaction in relation to the strategic road network.

    Andrew Jones

    The Department appointed Transport Focus (TF) as the road user watchdog and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) as the Highways Monitor on the formation of Highways England on 1 April 2015. In addition to reporting from TF and ORR, officials regularly meet with Highways England to discuss all aspects of their performance, including customer satisfaction.

    TF is developing a new Strategic Roads User Survey to measure satisfaction among those using Highways England’s network with input from the Department. It is intended to pilot this throughout 2016 and then launch the new survey during 2017. This will run in parallel with Highways England’s existing National Road User Satisfaction Survey until that ceases in March 2018.

  • Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-05-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many successful applicants to the Schools Direct scheme there were in each of the last five years; and what the cost of that scheme was to her Department in each such year.

    Nick Gibb

    The School Direct scheme began as a pilot tuition fee based programme in the 2012/13 academic year. The programme was extended to include School Direct (salaried) programmes from the 2013/14 academic year.

    The number of successful applicants (trainees who secured and took up a place) on School Direct programmes, and the associated cost (where available), from 2012/13 to 2014/15 are given in table 1:

    Academic year

    Number of School Direct (tuition fee) trainees

    Number of School Direct (salaried) trainees

    Cost of training bursaries for SD (fee) trainees

    Cost of salary grants for SD (salaried) trainees

    2012/13

    349

    N/A

    Unavailable

    N/A

    2013/14

    4,203

    2,473

    Unavailable

    £40,320,214

    2014/15

    6,311[1]

    2,759

    £36,539,000

    £43,031,709

    Table 1: Number of School Direct trainees and associated costs from 2012/13 to 2014/15.

    We are unable to provide the training bursary costs specific to School Direct only for trainees for 2012/13 and 2013/14, as the data captured did not make a distinction between core and school direct tuition fee places for the purpose of bursary funding.

    Data for the 2015/16 academic year will not be available until after the end of the academic year when data submissions will be finalised and subsequently validated.

    [1] Of the 6,311 tuition fee trainees in AY 2014/15, 4,264 received a bursary.

  • Rachael Maskell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Rachael Maskell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rachael Maskell on 2016-07-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on future levels of migrant labour from other EU countries in the farming industry.

    George Eustice

    Workers from other EU countries are an important and valued part of our workforce. Over the next two years whilst we negotiate a new relationship with the EU, nothing changes.

    This will be one of the issues that will have to be resolved as part of our exit negotiation and future relationship with the EU.

  • Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the current value is of Farepak unclaimed funds.

    Margot James

    The current value of Farepak unclaimed funds is £1,007,267.41.

    The agency will hold the funds for the next six years, people can however continue to claim indefinitely. The Insolvency Service has liaised with media outlets and the matter has been covered by BBC Moneybox, MoneySaving Expert and BBC Watchdog, to draw attention to any unpaid creditor or has yet to come forward.

  • Norman Lamb – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    Norman Lamb – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Norman Lamb on 2015-11-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the number of new claimants of employment and support allowances who will be placed in the work-related activity group from April 2017 to May 2020; and whether he has made an estimate of the number of those claimants who will be people with cancer.

    Priti Patel

    Information regarding the number of new claimants who will be placed in the work related activity or limited capability for work groups can be found in the following table, for each of the financial years in the time period requested :

    2017/18

    2018/19

    2019/20

    2020/21

    Total work related activity or limited capability for work group decisions from new claims to ESA or UC

    100,000

    100,000

    100,000

    100,000

    Figures are consistent with the Autumn Statement 2015 forecasts, which do not separate out ESA and UC.

    We do not hold estimates on the number of claimants we expect with specific conditions.

  • Lord Falconer of Thoroton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Lord Falconer of Thoroton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Falconer of Thoroton on 2015-12-08.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government (1) how many, and (2) what percentage of, prison governors have worked at two or more prisons in the last five years.

    Lord Faulks

    Of the governors of public sector prisons in post at 30 September 2015, a total of 90 (85%) had worked at two or more prisons in the previous five years.

  • Andrew Stephenson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Andrew Stephenson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Stephenson on 2016-01-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much Veterans UK has spent on providing support to veterans in (a) Pendle, (b) Lancashire and (c) the North West since 2010.

    Mark Lancaster

    Your question concerning how much Veterans UK has spent on providing support to Veterans has been interpreted to mean assistance provided by the Veterans UK Welfare Service.

    This information is not held in the format requested.

  • David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    David Hanson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the average hourly earnings of (a) female, (b) male, (c) full-time and (d) part-time employees of his Department were in each of the last five years.

    Matthew Hancock

    The information is not available.