The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Wheatcroft on 2014-05-06.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many women prisoners had GCSE C-grade or equivalent in English and maths on being imprisoned in (1) 2010, (2) 2011, and (3) 2012; and how many had such qualifications upon release.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
We do not centrally hold information on the prior attainment of prisoners or their qualifications upon release.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Andrew Smith on 2014-03-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many journeys through the Rotherhithe tunnel were made by bicycle in 2013.
Robert Goodwill
Data for 2013 are not yet available; the remainder of this answer refers to 2012 data.
A table providing the 2012 estimated pedal cycle annual average daily flow (AADF) for the road link covering the Rotherhithe tunnel (for both directions combined) is shown in the table below:
|
2012 AADF |
Pedal Cycles |
|
Rotherhithe Tunnel |
239 |
This figure gives an estimate of the number of pedal cycles travelling along the individual section of road on an average day of the year.
To calculate an estimate of the annual pedal cycle usage of the tunnel (for both directions combined); this daily AADF estimate would be multiplied by the 365 days in a year.
AADF data for individual motorway and ‘A’ road links for 2000 – 2012 are available on our website, here:
http://data.gov.uk/dataset/gb-road-traffic-counts
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what support his Department is giving to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict for the campaign to eradicate the recruitment of children by government armed forces by 2016.
Anna Soubry
The Ministry of Defence provides no formal support to the UN Special Representative, but is taking steps to ensure that our recruitment activities are in accordance with Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as stated in the answer given on 13 May 2013, (Official Report, column 98W) to the hon Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson).
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-17.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what recent estimate he has made of the number of jobseekers over the age of (a) 50 and (b) 60 years in Vale of Clwyd constituency.
Nick Hurd
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when he plans to bring forward legislative proposals on the use of wild animals in circuses.
George Eustice
We will introduce a Bill to end the use of wild animals in circuses when parliamentary time allows.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Andy Slaughter on 2014-03-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of maintained schools that have opened since September 2011 have changed their headteacher since that date.
David Laws
The information requested is not held centrally.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cathy Jamieson on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many requests for discharge were made by soldiers aged (a) 19 and (b) 20 years who had served at least three years in the regular Army in the last five years; and what the outcome was of each such request.
Anna Soubry
Soldiers must normally serve a minimum of three years before they can voluntarily discharge with a year’s notice. Consequently, the number of applications from 19 year-olds is lower than from those aged 20 years of age. "Requests for discharge" has been interpreted as Voluntary Outflow Applications which are recorded on the Joint Personnel Administration system.
The number of applications for voluntary discharge made by trained Regular Soldiers aged 19 and 20 between 1 March 2009 and 1 March 2014 are shown in the following table
| Age on Application | No of Applications |
| 19 | 50 |
| 20 | 330 |
| Total | 380 |
Source: Defence Statistics (Army)
These figures include some personnel who applied for voluntary release, but who were subsequently discharged for other reasons. The actual numbers discharged between 1 March 2009 and 31 March 2014, and the reasons for the discharge are shown below:
Age on Application
19 20
Voluntary Outflow 20 240
Administrative discharge 10 30
Medical/Other – 10
Total 30 270
Source: Defence Statistics (Army). Figures have been rounded to 10; numbers ending in "5" have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.
These figures exclude requests for medical, administrative and disciplinary discharges. Some applications may have been withdrawn at a later date and that some individual soldiers may have applied for voluntary discharge more than once.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-17.
To ask the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, pursuant to the Answer of 22 Janaury 2013, Official Report, columns 131-3W, on the electoral register, what assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the reasons for the increase from 8 to 58 in the number of electoral registration officers who failed performance standard 3 between 2010 and 2011.
Gary Streeter
The Electoral Commission informs me that it has previously corresponded with the honourable member on this issue.
Within that correspondence the Electoral Commission set out that following its 2010 report assessing the performance of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) it became aware of anecdotal evidence suggesting that for various reasons, including local authority budget reductions, there may have been a greater number of EROs who were not meeting performance standard 3. Therefore, in addition to the 2011 performance standard return, the Commission asked all EROs for the first time to confirm specifically whether or not they carried out a personal canvass of all non-responders and, if not, to provide an explanation as to the reasons why.
The Commission subsequently requested further data from EROs who had not confirmed that they carried out a personal canvass of all non-responders in order to make a better-informed assessment of performance against performance standard 3. This data included the number of non-responding households that were not contacted by a personal canvasser or by any other method (not including forms and reminders); how many of these households had entries confirmed by other records; and how many of those households had entries that could not be confirmed and were removed.
Following this process, the Commission revised the assessments of 51 EROs to ‘below’ the standard. This meant that, including the seven EROs who originally reported that they did not meet the standard, there were 58 EROs who did not meet this standard in 2011.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dominic Raab on 2014-06-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many public authorities in each category of public authority published equality information and objectives under the Equality Act (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 in each year since they came into force.
Mr Edward Vaizey
The specific information requested is not collected or held centrally.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), an independent statutory body, is responsible for the enforcement, monitoring and assessment of how public bodies comply with the public sector Equality Duty (PSED) and specific duties. The EHRC has published two reports to date which look at the performance of public bodies in England under the PSED and specific duties:
• ‘Publishing equality information: Commitment, engagement and transparency’ was published in December 2012. This report looked at how public authorities had performed with regard to the first specific duty (publication of equality information). Data for this assessment was collected between February and April 2012 and covered 1,159 public authorities in England. The report indicated that about half of the public authorities reviewed were publishing equality information on their workforce and service users by April 2012. Many more (78%) were publishing information on either their staff or their service users.
• ‘Assessment of the publication of equality objectives by English public authorities’ was published in Autumn 2013. This report sets out the findings of an assessment of how public authorities in England are publishing equality objectives. Data for the assessment was collected between September and December 2012 and covered 2,010 public authorities.
These reports do not estimate the associated costs of producing and publishing equalities information.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Ruane on 2014-03-17.
To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2014, Official Report, column 570W, on the electoral register: young people, how many times the student forum has met since its creation; and what the main outcomes of the forum have been in the last three years.
Greg Clark
The Student Forum has met 16 times across all regions since its launch on 18 July 2013.
The Forum has secured the involvement of the Higher Education sector to support Electoral Registration Officers in reaching students on an individual basis after the transition to Individual Electoral Registration and promoting the use of online electoral registration after it is launched in England and Wales in June.