The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Lexden on 2016-06-08.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to continue the Official History Programme; and if so, how.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I refer the Noble Lord to the statement given by my Noble Friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 10 December 2015.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-09-05.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether consultants working for HS2 Ltd will be prevented from participating in any tender for main contractor roles in the design and delivery of HS2 in order to avoid any conflict of interest and to ensure a fair tender process.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
HS2 Ltd has a Conflicts of Interest Panel that considers actual, potential and perceived conflicts of interest on a case-by-case basis. This Panel is chaired by HS2 Ltd’s General Counsel. This Panel is supported by an in-house Compliance team.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Rennard on 2016-10-20.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reported concerns about (1) the use of ordinary pencils for ballot papers as opposed to pens or pencils with indelible ink, and (2) ballot papers being changed, during the EU referendum ballot; and whether they are planning to ensure that polling stations are provided with special ballot pens or pencils using indelible ink.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen
The Government has noted the Electoral Commission’s comments on this issue in its report on the EU Referendum. The rules governing the conduct of the referendum, which were based on the legislation in place for UK Parliamentary elections, did not specify the type of writing implement that electors must use to complete their ballot paper and voters were able to use the pencil provided or mark their ballot paper with a pen if they preferred. There were also specific safeguards in place to protect the integrity of the ballot.
We are not aware of any cases of ballot papers being changed at the referendum.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-09.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to encourage schools to teach (a) CPR and (b) other life-saving methods.
Edward Timpson
All schools are required to teach a balanced and broadly based curriculum that prepares them for adult life. The new national curriculum focuses on the essential knowledge so that teachers can design a wider school curriculum that best meets the needs of their pupils.
Many schools already choose to include CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and defibrillator awareness as part of their PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) teaching. The non-statutory PSHE Programme of Study produced by the PSHE Association, teaches young people how to recognise and follow health and safety procedures, ways of reducing risk and minimising harm in risky situations, and how to use emergency and basic first aid.
Many schools also make use of organisations such as the Red Cross and St John Ambulance, to provide information to young people about first aid and dealing with emergencies.The British Heart Foundation has offered to provide free CPR training kits to every secondary school in the country, allowing young people to gain first-hand experience of this important life-saving skill. We have promoted this kit to schools through the all schools termly email and social media channels and we expect many schools to take up this offer.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2015-12-02.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 30 November 2015 to Question 17530, what information his Department holds on which foreign armed forces British military personnel were embedded within the last five years; and if he will make a statement.
Michael Fallon
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 30 November 2015 to Question 17530 to the hon. Member for Coventry South (Jim Cunningham).
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Danny Kinahan on 2016-01-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions she has had with her Northern Ireland counterpart about the provision of England-based teaching jobs for unemployed teachers in Northern Ireland.
Nick Gibb
Officials at the Department for Education have regular discussions with their Northern Ireland counterparts. The National College of Teaching and Leadership has worked with a range of partners in Northern Ireland to ensure that teaching opportunities in England are widely promoted. These partners include:
Irish National Teachers’ Organisation
Department for Employment and Learning Employment Service
Department of Education Northern Ireland
General Teaching Council Northern Ireland
Together with these partners, the Department has helped prospective teachers in Northern Ireland find vacancies in England through the Get Into Teaching website. The Teaching School Council and Regional School Commissioners also promoted teaching opportunities in England. Schools in the West Midlands, North West and East of England engaged with and benefited from these initiatives.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gavin Shuker on 2016-02-08.
To ask the Attorney General, how many people have been charged with paying for sexual services of a child under section 47 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 where (a) the victim was under 18, and those charged did not reasonably believe that the victim was 18 or over and (b) the victim was under 13 in each of the last three years.
Robert Buckland
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain a central record of the number of defendants prosecuted for offences brought under section 47 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 or the ages of victims. This information could only be obtained by examining CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost. However, records are held showing the overall number of offences, rather than defendants, in which a prosecution commenced at magistrates’ courts. These are detailed below.
|
2012-2013 |
2013-2014 |
2014-2015 |
|
|
Sexual Offences Act 2003 S.47 |
26 |
36 |
49 |
Note: A single defendant may be prosecuted for multiple offences.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Carswell on 2016-02-26.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Prime Minister’s Oral Statement of 22 February 2016, Official Report, column 35, on the European Council, whether his Department is undertaking planning in the eventuality of a majority leave vote in the EU referendum.
Michael Fallon
At the February European Council the Government negotiated a new settlement, giving the United Kingdom a special status in a reformed European Union. The Government’s position, as set out by the Prime Minister to the House on 22 February 2016, is that the UK will be stronger, safer and better off remaining in a reformed EU.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ruth Cadbury on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many emergency landings there have been at Heathrow Airport in the last five years.
Mr Robert Goodwill
The Department does not collect data on how many emergency landings there have been at Heathrow Airport. However if serious enough, such incidents would be counted amongst data for safety related events. These are defined as an event which endanger or which, if not corrected or addressed, could endanger an aircraft, its occupants or any other person. They have to be reported to the Civil Aviation Authority as part of the Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme (MORS).
Occurrence reporting is now covered by (EU) Regulation No 376/2014. The Regulation requires that the reporting, analysis and follow-up to such occurrences remain confidential. However, the Regulation does permit information to be released on request to interested parties that have a genuine safety related need for the information. An application can be made at www.caa.co.uk.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jack Dromey on 2016-05-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office of 26 April 2016, Official Report, column 1363, on the Policing and Crime Bill, what steps she is taking to ensure that cybercrime is included in the crime statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics.
Mike Penning
In April 2012, the Home Secretary transferred the responsibility for the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and the publication of crime statistics to the independent Office for National Statistics (ONS) – to ensure the public had confidence in the statistics after years of poor data management.
A major strength of the CSEW has been its ability to compare crime types over time back to the 1980s. As ONS have acknowledged, over a period of time, new technologies such as the internet have expanded the scope of existing crime types and developed new ones, particularly in fraud and cybercrime. Therefore, following a period of extensive development work, ONS introduced new questions to the CSEW in October 2015. ONS have said that they will release estimates of fraud and cyber crime based on the first six months data (October 2015 to March 2016) alongside the main statistical bulletin in July 2016 and will label them as experimental statistics.
It is important to recognise that these data are not simply uncovering new crimes, but finding better ways of capturing existing crimes which were not measured as well in the past.