The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lisa Nandy on 2014-05-06.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much was spent by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister on tea and biscuits in (a) 2012-13 and (b) 2013-14.
Mr Francis Maude
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minster is an integral part of my department.
The information requested is not held centrally.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lucy Powell on 2014-03-18.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the number of parents of children whose nursery costs are (a) £2,000, (b) £1,800, (c) £1,600, (d) £1,400, (e) £1,200, (f) £1,000, (g) £800, (h) £600, (i) £400 and (j) £200 per year who will benefit from tax-free childcare.
Nicky Morgan
The information requested is not available.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Ritchie on 2014-05-06.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions he has had with the Minister for Health in Northern Ireland on the establishment of a cancer drugs fund; and if he will make a statement.
Norman Lamb
We have had no such discussions.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Andrew Smith on 2014-03-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if he will take steps to regulate hydraulic fracturing to minimise the leakage of methane from shale gas production into the environment.
Michael Fallon
The Environment Agency has set out its regulatory controls over leakage of methane from shale gas exploration in its draft technical guidance. The Agency expects operators to aim for 100% containment of fugitive emissions of methane on shale gas exploration sites and the operator will need to provide details of how their monitoring, inspection and maintenance regime will achieve this. The Environment Agency is assessing its regulation of full production facilities and the expectation is that the requirement for 100% containment will remain in place.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Wills on 2014-05-06.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Stowell of Beeston on 9 April (WA 304), whether the range of services to which they refer includes electoral registration.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston
Local authorities are statutorily required to provide a number of services including electoral registration. Section 8 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 provides for the appointment of an officer of the council to be the Registration Officer for the registration of parliamentary and local government electors, and section 54 of that Act provides that expenses properly incurred by a registration officer in the performance of his registration duties shall be paid by the local authority by whom the registration officer was appointed.
Additionally, the Government has committed to funding all net costs of the transition to Individual Electoral Registration to ensure that authorities are not left with unfunded burdens in line with the New Burdens Doctrine. In April 2014 the programme paid non-ring fenced section 31 grants to local authorities in England and Wales and paid invoices directly to Scotland to cover core Individual Electoral Registration costs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dan Jarvis on 2014-03-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what categories of personal information are contained on each relevant database managed by his Department and its executive agencies; on what date each category of information was first collected; and if he will make a statement.
Simon Hughes
I can confirm that the Ministry of Justice and its executive agencies including Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS), the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) and the Legal Aid Agency (LAA), currently have no plans to introduce any new HR-related centralised, multi-user database systems.
In order to ascertain the individual categories of personal information across all existing, relevant centralised HR-related databases, we would be required to either allocate specialist business resources to identify the requirements and produce the data, or commission it directly from third party IT suppliers. All this would be at a disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2014-05-06.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government in respect of which vessels engaged on domestic passenger routes in the United Kingdom the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has notified the European Commission of regulatory exemptions and equivalencies to Directive 2008/45/EC used by the MCA to issue EU Passenger Ship Safety Certificates from 2012; and whether there are any vessels operating for which notification has not taken place.
Baroness Kramer
Her Majesty’s Government has notified the European Commission of a regulatory equivalence to Directive 2009/45/EC in respect of the MV SCILLONIAN III. No other vessels operating on domestic passenger routes in the United Kingdom require exemptions or equivalencies.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr John Leech on 2014-03-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he plans to take steps to ensure that employers with employees who earn less than £10,000 per year will be legally obliged to provide those employees with an auto-enrolment pension scheme.
Steve Webb
Jobholders who earn less than the automatic enrolment earnings trigger of £10,000 and who are not eligible for automatic enrolment may opt in to pension saving. Employers are legally obliged to enrol anyone who opts into an automatic enrolment qualifying scheme and to pay the required employer contribution.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Avebury on 2014-05-06.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why data on the presence of asbestos were not covered in the Property Data Survey Programme in United Kingdom schools; and what are their plans for removing any remaining asbestos from United Kingdom schools.
Lord Nash
The Property Data Survey gathers high-level condition data across the state-funded educational estate in England only. The surveyors employed on the programme are general building surveyors and they perform a visual, non-intrusive survey. In comparison, considerably more detailed surveys are required to assess asbestos and that is why asbestos is not included as part of the Property Data Survey.
The Department for Education does not have a programme for the phased removal of all asbestos from schools in England. Under the Control of Asbestos Regulations, the employer – either the school or local authority – has clear responsibilities to manage asbestos containing materials in schools safely. The advice from the Health and Safety Executive is that it is safer to leave undisturbed or undamaged asbestos in place and to carefully manage it rather than to risk disturbing or damaging asbestos unnecessarily. If asbestos is managed effectively, as required by the regulations, the safest and most effective way to plan for its removal is when existing buildings are refurbished or replaced.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Andrew Smith on 2014-03-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many vehicle crossings of the Thames were made through the Rotherhithe and Blackwall tunnels 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 annual average daily flows (AADFs) for road links covering the Rotherhithe and Blackwall Tunnels (for both directions combined) are shown in the table below:
|
2012 AADF |
Total Motor Vehicles |
|
Rotherhithe Tunnel |
32,615 |
|
Blackwall Tunnel |
69,243 |
These figures give estimates of the number of vehicles travelling along individual sections of road on an average day of the year.
To calculate an estimate of the annual usage of the tunnels (for both directions combined); these daily AADF estimates 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
“