The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will place in the Library copies of his Department’s force structure cost model.
Mr Philip Hammond
I am withholding the information requested as its disclosure would be commercially sensitive and would prejudice the economic interests of the United Kingdom as well as the capability, effectiveness and security of the Armed Forces.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if he will write to Sussex county councils setting out detailed reasons why the bid to the Green Deal Communities Fund from Sussex Energy Saving Partnership was turned down and how the organisations involved could have strengthened their bid; whether there is a process for unsuccessful bids to be reviewed; if he will publish (a) copies of all bids received and (b) the reasons for each decision on such bids; whether there are funds remaining in the Fund; whether there will be further opportunities for projects to bid; and when further bids will be entertained.
Gregory Barker
All Green Deal Communities bids were assessed against the criteria set out in the published application pack using a consistent process, treating each bid equally. For your information I attach a list of the lead LAs for the 24 successful bids. These utilised all the available Green Deal Communities’ funds.
LIST OF SUCCESSFUL LEAD LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND AMOUNTS AWARDED
|
Authorities to which grant is to be paid |
Total funding |
|
East Hampshire |
£2,944,668 |
|
Dartford |
£4,026,855 |
|
Leeds |
£4,943,200 |
|
Bristol |
£7,292,200 |
|
Nottingham |
£5,473,300 |
|
Hillingdon |
£2,975,900 |
|
Telford |
£4,859,900 |
|
Worcestershire |
£3,630,100 |
|
Lewisham |
£1,656,222 |
|
Broadland |
£1,444,300 |
|
Woking |
£2,550,491 |
|
Plymouth |
£3,068,800 |
|
South Bucks |
£2,574,991 |
|
Oldham (Greater Manchester) |
£6,119,700 |
|
Ashfield |
£1,097,098 |
|
Suffolk |
£5,712,600 |
|
Cambridgeshire |
£7,857,400 |
|
Peterborough |
£3,945,100 |
|
Haringey |
£6,560,012 |
|
Bracknell Forest |
£1,820,714 |
|
Eastleigh |
£3,336,900 |
|
Nuneaton |
£2,084,502 |
|
Harrow |
£1,457,100 |
|
Bath |
£929,300 |
|
Total |
£88,361,353 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the Government’s policy is on developing international frameworks and forums to provide refugees from climate-induced displacement with legal protection, including legally-worded definitions for such cases.
Mark Simmonds
The Government supports work to establish how existing international institutions and frameworks can be used to address climate change induced migration. Refugee status under existing international and EU legislation is based on the risk of persecution, and it is government policy to avoid developing separate frameworks that could duplicate or contradict this. The Government is also committed to securing an ambitious and legally-binding climate agreement next year at Paris COP 21 to limit the damage caused by anthropogenic climate change.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Hanson on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the current membership is of the Overseas Domestic Workers Steering Group.
Karen Bradley
The Overseas Domestic Worker Steering Group no longer meets, therefore there is
no current membership. The last meeting was on 19 November 2010.
The Home Office is carefully considering all the recommendations of the
Pre-Legislative Scrutiny Committee’s report on the Modern Slavery Bill.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many people have been (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted for sending illicit or unauthorised items through the post to prisoners in establishments in England and Wales in each of the last four years.
Jeremy Wright
Prisons employ a range of measures to detect, disrupt and deter the trafficking of illicit items into prisons. Any contraband detected coming into the prison will be recorded on a central incident reporting system. However, to identify the manner in which the contraband entered the prison and any subsequent referral to the police would require a manual interrogation of incident reports. This could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.
Information on prosecutions and convictions for these offences is not held centrally and could only be obtained by asking each prison to source information locally. This, again, could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sheila Gilmore on 2014-04-28.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people applied for the personal independence payment in (a) Edinburgh East constituency and (b) Scotland since June 2013; how many have been awarded the payment in each case; how many have requested that a refusal of the payment be reconsidered; how many have been awarded the payment following a request for reconsideration; how many have appealed against a refusal of the payment; and how many have been awarded the payment following an appeal.
Mike Penning
I refer the hon Member to the answer I gave to the hon Member for Liverpool, West Derby and the hon Member for Airdrie and Shotts, official report, 5 March, column 850W.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Graeme Morrice on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Attorney General, whether the Law Officers’ Departments have any plans to end the employee trade union membership dues check-off system.
Oliver Heald
These arrangements are kept under review.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Katy Clark on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much the Government spent on full-time university education for undergraduates in 2013-14.
Mr David Willetts
Full-time undergraduate student support expenditure by the Student Loans Company for the 2013-14 financial year included £8.9bn of cash outlay on maintenance and fee loans and £1.9bn of grant expenditure (on maintenance grants and other allowances). These totals include expenditure on English-domiciled students in the UK and EU students in England.
For the financial year 2013-14, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) estimate that £2.1bn of the expenditure set out in the 2014 grant letter refers to teaching grant for full-time undergraduate study. It is not possible to calculate a full-time undergraduate share of every element of recurrent teaching grant such as Senior Professional pay, teaching strategy funding, institution-specific initiatives or additional funding for Equivalent Level Qualifications and vulnerable science subjects.
The figures do not include expenditure by other Governments departments.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the Government’s target is for the proportion of (a) women, (b) people from black and minority ethnic communities and (c) disabled people in senior management posts in central government departments.
Mr Francis Maude
Appointments and promotion in the Civil Service should be made on merit through fair and open competition. To ensure our civil service delivers the best for Britain we must draw on the widest possible pool of talent. We want to ensure that the best people – irrespective of who they are – rise to the top of the Civil Service but are concerned that for too long the very top ranks do not reflect those further down. We have commissioned independent research to look at the blockages women face making it to the very top and will use this to drive a new strategy for managing talent.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Menzies on 2014-04-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to help local shops in (a) England and (b) Lancashire with the cost of business rates.
Brandon Lewis
At the Autumn Statement we announced a £1 billion package of business rates support to help shops and local firms. This included a £1,000 discount for two years for smaller shops, pubs and restaurants. Based on local authority reports of the amount of relief awarded, we estimate that 272,300 properties will benefit in England, including 7,740 in Lancashire.
The support package also included a 50 per cent discount for businesses taking on long-term empty shops, the doubling of small business rate relief for another year, a 2% cap on RPI increases for 2014-2015, allowing businesses to spread their business rates payments over 12 months, and allowing ratepayers that take on a second property to keep their small business rate relief for an extra year.
The Localism Act has also made it easier for small firms to claim small business rate relief.