The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Jones on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the number of people who are (a) employed on zero-hours contracts and (b) paid at a rate below that defined by the Living Wage Foundation as a living wage in Warrington North constituency.
Mr 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 Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many of (a) those in prison and (b) those in prison who self-identified as Muslim were (i) under the age of 18, (ii) aged between 18 and 21, (iii) aged between 21 and 25, (iv) aged between 26 and 30, (v) aged between 31 and 40, (vi) aged between 41 and 50, (vii) aged between 51 and 65 and (viii) aged over 65 years on 1 January 2014.
Jeremy Wright
Data are held centrally on the prison population in England and Wales on the last day of each month, so figures have been provided for 31st December 2013 (with the exception of PQ 197068 which has been answered as at 30 June 2013 – the latest available data for criminal history information).
For PQ 197067, Table 1 below provides the number for the sentenced prison population by sentence length for self-declared Muslim prisoners and the total for all religions.
For PQ 197068, Table 2 provides the number of offenders in prison on 30th June 2013 who identified themselves as Muslim and all other religions by the number of previous custodial sentences received.
For PQ 197069, Table 3 provides the prison population by nationality for self-declared Muslims and the total for all other religions.
For PQ 197090, Table 4 provides the prison population by age group for self-declared Muslims and the total for all other religions.
Please note that the religion of prisoners is self declared and prisoners are under no obligation to declare their religion.
These figures have been drawn from administrative IT systems which, as with any large scale recording system, are subject to possible errors with data entry and processing.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, for what reasons the closed wings at (a) HM Prison Hull and (b) HM Prison Chelmsford were (i) closed and (ii) re-opened.
Jeremy Wright
We will always have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts and continue to modernise the prison estate so that it delivers best value for the taxpayer
This Government has a long term strategy for managing the prison estate. We will have increased the adult male prison capacity so that we have more places than we inherited from the previous Government.
The retention of significant spare prison capacity over and above what is required is expensive and cannot be justified given the current financial climate. The mothballing of spare capacity at HM Prisons Chelmsford and Hull saved the taxpayer £3.6m in the financial year 2013-14. This compares to the significantly lower cost of maintaining this accommodation on a mothballed basis, so that it could be reactivated if necessary.
We have reviewed the refurbishment requirements at both sites and believe that, with minor investment, they can now be reopened on a contingency basis without carrying out a full refurbishment. These costs are anticipated to be around £132k by the time they have reopened. From the end of March to date, around £12k has been spent on Chelmsford, and around £107k has been spent on Hull.
The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Hull is around 65 members of staff – of which approximately 40 are uniformed. The indicative additional staffing requirement to reactivate the places at Chelmsford is around 30 members of staff – of which approximately 20 are uniformed grades. This means we are able to create additional places at an average cost of £7k per place (subject to final benchmarking review), as opposed to the average cost of a prison per place of £26,139.
The staffing requirement will initially be met by short term detached duty from other prisons, before looking to redeploy staff permanently where surpluses exist – and if necessary through external recruitment.
Subject to certification, Hull will create 282 places and Chelmsford 148 places, with prisoners due to start arriving this summer.
The reactivation of these places is a prudent and good value for money response to an increased prison population. Under the previous administration, police and court cells were turned into temporary prisons, with over 50,000 prisoners held in these cells in 2007-08 alone.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much has been spent on converting HM Prison The Verne for use as an immigration removal centre to date.
James Brokenshire
£4 million has been spent to date on the conversion of HM Prison The Verne into
an Immigration Removal Centre. The work is about 60% complete and in total is
expected to cost approximately £8.5 million in line with the approved budget.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Bob Ainsworth on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what his Department’s recruitment targets are for its Joint Cyber Reserve Unit.
Mr Mark Francois
I refer the Rt hon. Member to the answer I gave on 24 March 2014, (Official Report, column 56W) to the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue).
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Flint on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, pursuant to the Oral Answer of 3 April 2014, Official Report, column 994, on energy efficiency, how many of the 600,000 households that have received energy-efficiency improvements received assistance under the (a) Energy Company Obligation and (b) Green Deal.
Gregory Barker
The number of households benefitting from energy efficiency measures installed through ECO and Green Deal are published in Table 1a of my Department’s monthly Official Statistics release on Green Deal and ECO statistics. The latest published figures show that, up to the end of February 2014, 569,234 households had measures installed under ECO and 883 had measures installed using the option of Green Deal finance. Some households may have had measures installed through more than one delivery mechanism and there is therefore a small level of double counting. Further installations that have been funded through the cashback scheme are also reported in Table 1a.
The monthly release can be found at:
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Percy on 2014-04-29.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many foreign-registered vehicles were reported by the public to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency for being untaxed in the last five years.
Stephen Hammond
The number of reports received specifically from the public is not captured.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency records information notified about foreign registered vehicles, including those that are unlicensed, from offence reports provided by the police, other enforcement agencies and sightings from members of the public. Between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2014, 20,349 notifications were received.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what research he commissioned on the effects of the closure of the Hull Official Receiver’s office before the decision to close that office; and if he will make a statement.
Jenny Willott
Before taking the decision to close the Hull office the Insolvency Service reviewed the impact on customers, employees, and the agency’s finances; the strategic viability of the move; and how it could be delivered.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gregory Campbell on 2014-04-28.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much the government of the Irish Republic currently owes the UK; and when he expects the amount outstanding to be repaid in full.
Nicky Morgan
In accordance with the Loans to Ireland Act 2010, HM Treasury reports to Parliament every six months including information on the outstanding principal. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the report laid on 28 April 2014 which is also available online, alongside all previous reports submitted by HM Treasury, on the following site:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/bilateral-loan-to-ireland.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2014-04-28.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many months of imports the UK’s reserves can cover; and if he will make a statement.
Nicky Morgan
The UK has not operated an exchange rate targeting monetary policy regime since 1992. Rather, foreign exchange reserves are currently held on a precautionary basis, to be used in the event of unexpected shocks.
Latest data shows that the value of the reserves is $110.9bn, up from $71.2bn in June 2010. UK imports averaged £44.4bn per month over 2013.