Category: Speeches

Tom Brake – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Brake on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he consulted (a) the National Security Council, (b) the Attorney General, (c) the Foreign Secretary and (d) other Cabinet colleagues on the decision to authorise the US to use RAF Lakenheath to launch airstrikes in Libya; and whether any of those bodies or people were required to give approval for that authorisation.

Michael Fallon

I am responsible for authorising the use of UK bases for operations of this nature. There is a long standing convention that whether the Attorney General has or has not advised on a matter it is not disclosed.

January 1, 2023
Lord Green of Deddington – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Green of Deddington on 2016-04-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of (1) the effect of immigration, and (2) the effect of immigration from the EU, on the UK’s GDP per head in the last 10 years.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

No such estimate has been made.

January 1, 2023
Barry Gardiner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Gardiner on 2016-05-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, for what reasons it has not been practicable for her Department to lay the Committee on Climate Change report on Compatibility of Onshore Petroleum with meeting UK carbon budgets before Parliament.

Andrea Leadsom

The Department has received the Committee on Climate Change report. We are considering the report and will lay it before Parliament with our response in due course.

January 1, 2023
Anna Turley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2016-07-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department takes to monitor the levels of acetaldehyde that workers are exposed to in the chemical industry; and what steps he is taking to reduce routine exposure to acetaldehyde in that industry.

Justin Tomlinson

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has no plans to commission an assessment of the levels of acetaldehyde that workers are exposed to in the UK chemical industry.

Acetaldehyde has been assigned a Workplace Exposure Limit (WEL). WELs are concentrations of hazardous substances in the air, averaged over a specified period of time, referred to as a time-weighted average (TWA). Two time periods are used; long-term (8 hours) and short-term (15 minutes). For acetaldehyde these are concentrations of 37 milligrams per cubic meter (mg.m^-3) and 92mg.m^-3 respectively.

Substances that have been assigned a WEL are subject to the requirements of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH). COSHH requires employers to prevent or control exposure to hazardous substances. Under COSHH, control is defined as adequate only if a) the principles of good control practice are applied; b) any WEL is not exceeded; and c) exposure to asthmagens, carcinogens and mutagens are reduced as low as is reasonably practicable. As part of the assessment required under regulation 6 of COSHH, employers should determine their own working practices and in-house standards for control of exposure.

January 1, 2023
Mark Pritchard – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Pritchard on 2016-09-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his policy to introduce a statutory workplace maximum temperature.

Penny Mordaunt

The Government has no plans to introduce a statutory workplace maximum temperature. For information on the existing law and guidance on workplace temperature, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 09 September 2016 to Question UIN 44106.

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January 1, 2023
Hilary Benn – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2015-11-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, with reference to her Department’s summary of its work in Indonesia 2011-15, published in June 2013, how many hectares of natural forest have been saved since the programme to protect forests in that country started.

Mr Desmond Swayne

Our programme with Indonesia helps it to achieve low carbon growth and reduce poverty by managing its forests, land and natural resources in a sustainable way, and assists the country to meet its emissions targets. As part of this the UK supported the development of a Provincial Spatial Plan in Papua which was agreed in 2013. The spatial plan commits to preserving 90% of forest cover by 2100. The UK is providing support to the Papua Provincial Government to ensure effective implementation and monitoring of the Spatial Plan. If this target of 90% is realised, the spatial plan will preserve around 28 million hectares of natural forest. As with all projects, performance against indicators is published on an annual basis. Multilateral forest programmes, which the UK supports through the World Bank, and a centrally-managed programme, which assists the Indonesian government to tackleillegal logging, also contribute towards efforts to halt deforestation in Indonesia.

January 1, 2023
Lord Falconer of Thoroton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Falconer of Thoroton on 2015-12-08.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government (1) how many prison staff, and (2) what proportion of prison staff, have received Prevent awareness training for each (a) prison, and (b) young offender institution.

Lord Faulks

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has a range of Prevent awareness training and briefing packages available for staff. Since April 2015 data has been collated recording the amount of training provided to staff in prisons and probation on extremism awareness.

Between April 2015 and September 2015, 4,100 hours of training were delivered to over 4,900 staff in prisons directly managed by NOMS. The training is targeted at staff in prisoner facing roles. A further 650 staff from contracted establishments have also received training during this period. There figures do not include any staff trained before April 2015.

Since April 2015 new Prison Officers receive Extremism Awareness Training as part of their entry level training, a total of 1,566 since this date.

Some of the training sessions described above were delivered to staff from more than one prison and therefore to provide information on proportions of staff trained from each establishment would involve disproportionate cost.

January 1, 2023
Hilary Benn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Hilary Benn on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations he has made to the Turkish government on the arrest of academics (a) in general and (b) at the Kocaeli University in north-western Turkey.

Mr Philip Hammond

I was concerned to hear reports of academics being arrested for expressing their views on the conflict in southeast Turkey. This included 15 academics from Kocaeli University who have subsequently been released. Our Ambassador in Turkey released a public statement on the issue, expressing concern. We regularly underline the importance of Fundamental Freedoms, including freedom of expression as part of our dialogue with the Turkish government. Freedom of expression and public debate must be respected without fear of intimidation.

January 1, 2023
Emily Thornberry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2016-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 2.2.72 of his Department’s Annual Report and Accounts 2014-15, for which roles responsibility has been transferred from military to civilian personnel since 2010.

Mark Lancaster

The potential for non-operational Armed Forces roles to be filled by civilian personnel is routinely considered under the Whole Force Approach. However, details of these changes are not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

January 1, 2023
Ivan Lewis – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ivan Lewis on 2016-03-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to tackle underperformance in schools in Greater Manchester.

Nick Gibb

The Government is committed to educational excellence everywhere. The Education and Adoption Bill includes powers designed to help raise standards in Greater Manchester, ensuring that all failing maintained schools become academies with strong sponsors and coasting schools will be challenged to improve. The Regional Schools Commissioner has already prioritised Greater Manchester for the Northern Fund and brought a new, high-performing sponsor into the area. Where standards are unacceptably low in academies, she has held sponsors and academy trusts to account and has used the Secretary of State’s powers to issue Pre-Termination Warning Notices (PTWNs) to trusts that have failed to drive forward the necessary improvements at pace.

The department publishes all PTWNs at:

www.gov.uk/government/collections/letters-to-academies-about-poor-performance#termination-notices

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January 1, 2023