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  • Lord Stoddart of Swindon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Stoddart of Swindon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of reports that the German Chancellor has promised to facilitate the full entry of Turkey to the European Union, what assessment they have made of (1) the impact of Turkish membership of the European Union on the United Kingdom’s voting powers, and (2) whether all Turkish nationals would have rights of access to the United Kingdom under the existing free movement provisions.

    Baroness Anelay of St Johns

    The British Government supports EU enlargement, subject to candidate countries meeting the requirements. Any impact on the UK’s voting powers would depend on the specific issue being discussed and be contingent on the provisions in place on voting weights following any new accession.

    Arrangements on free movement of people of any new Member state depends on transitional controls at the time of accession to the EU. The Government recognises the concern caused by the large-scale movement of people that has followed the accession of new countries to the EU. This issue would be subject to negotiation as part of the accession process. The Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron), has made clear that there needs to be reform of the transitional controls on free movement of workers before any further countries join the EU.

  • Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what amendments were made to the formula for police funding following the consultation process with individual police forces.

    Lord Bates

    We received over 1,700 responses to our recent public consultation on proposed police funding reforms. The overwhelming view from respondents was supportive of a new formula and the principles we set out. We have carefully analysed the feedback received and, in light of this, are proposing a number of refinements to the model:

    – retain population volume and households with no adults employed and dependent children as core indicators;

    – clarify that the second population characteristic we intend to use is the updated ‘urban adversity’ version of the Acorn 5 indicator which has replaced the old ‘hard pressed’ version (this ensures that the model is in line with CACI Limited’s current Acorn classifications);

    – revise the bar density measure so that it takes account of bar volume as well as bar density, reflecting strong consultation feedback that this better captures scale and the impact of clusters of bars and the night-time economy within a force area;

    – remove ‘Band D equivalent properties’ as a core indicator, reflecting strong consultation feedback that this variable did not adequately capture the ability to raise additional precept income as intended;

    – add an Area Cost Adjustment (ACA) to the model to reflect regional variations in the cost base.

    These proposed refinements to the model produce an adjusted set of weightings across the remaining four core indicators as follows:

    Variable

    Weighting

    Population volume

    30%

    Households with no adults employed and dependent children

    31%

    Urban adversity/Acorn 5

    31%

    Volume and density of bars

    8%

    The Policing Minister wrote to all PCCs and Chiefs on 8 October to provide detail on the proposed refinements and to set out the indicative force-level impact and invite further comments.

    We will then finalise the model in light of further feedback received.

  • Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much surplus land owned by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and its agencies they estimate is suitable for building new houses on; how much has been released in each year since 2010–11; and how much they expect to release in (1) the current year, and (2) each year to 2020–21.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    During the last Parliament, the Government exceeded its ambition to release surplus land with capacity for 100,000 homes. The housing capacity of the land released by Government Departments and their arms length bodies is set out in the attached table.

    Over this Parliament, the Government is committed to releasing surplus public sector land with capacity for up to 150,000 homes by 2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government is working with Departments to review their land holdings in order to identify suitable surplus public sector and finalise disposal plans for this Parliament.

  • Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much surplus land owned by the Department for International Development and its agencies they estimate is suitable for building new houses on; how much has been released in each year since 2010–11; and how much they expect to release in (1) the current year, and (2) each year to 2020–21.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    During the last Parliament, the Government exceeded its ambition to release surplus land with capacity for 100,000 homes. The housing capacity of the land released by Government Departments and their arms length bodies is set out in the attached table.

    Over this Parliament, the Government is committed to releasing surplus public sector land with capacity for up to 150,000 homes by 2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government is working with Departments to review their land holdings in order to identify suitable surplus public sector and finalise disposal plans for this Parliament.

  • Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much surplus land owned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and its agencies they estimate is suitable for building new houses on; how much has been released in each year since 2010–11; and how much they expect to release in (1) the current year, and (2) each year to 2020–21.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    During the last Parliament, the Government exceeded its ambition to release surplus land with capacity for 100,000 homes. The housing capacity of the land released by Government Departments and their arms length bodies is set out in the attached table.

    Over this Parliament, the Government is committed to releasing surplus public sector land with capacity for up to 150,000 homes by 2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government is working with Departments to review their land holdings in order to identify suitable surplus public sector and finalise disposal plans for this Parliament.

  • Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much surplus land owned by the Department for Education and its agencies they estimate is suitable for building new houses on; how much has been released in each year since 2010–11; and how much they expect to release in (1) the current year, and (2) each year to 2020–21.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    During the last Parliament, the Government exceeded its ambition to release surplus land with capacity for 100,000 homes. The housing capacity of the land released by Government Departments and their arms length bodies is set out in the attached table.

    Over this Parliament, the Government is committed to releasing surplus public sector land with capacity for up to 150,000 homes by 2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government is working with Departments to review their land holdings in order to identify suitable surplus public sector and finalise disposal plans for this Parliament.

  • Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much surplus land owned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its agencies they estimate is suitable for building new houses on; how much has been released in each year since 2010–11; and how much they expect to release in (1) the current year, and (2) each year to 2020–21.

    Baroness Williams of Trafford

    During the last Parliament, the Government exceeded its ambition to release surplus land with capacity for 100,000 homes. The housing capacity of the land released by Government Departments and their arms length bodies is set out in the attached table.

    Over this Parliament, the Government is committed to releasing surplus public sector land with capacity for up to 150,000 homes by 2020. The Department for Communities and Local Government is working with Departments to review their land holdings in order to identify suitable surplus public sector and finalise disposal plans for this Parliament.

  • Lord Morris of Aberavon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Lord Morris of Aberavon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Morris of Aberavon on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 20 October, what consideration they gave to discussing with the European Union the possibility of mothballing some of the steel plants recently announced for closure; what assessment they have made of the difficulties in mothballing a plant; and what estimates they have made, if any, about the costs of doing so.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The state aid rules on giving operating, rescue and restructuring aid to steel companies are unambiguously clear and all such interventions are prohibited. This includes Government financial support for mothballing of steel plant. Given the lack of ambiguity there has been no need to discuss these matters with the European Commission.

    We know that the SSI Redcar plan had made losses of over £600m in over three years. When the company went into liquidation, the Official Receiver bought supplies to keep certain operations such as the coke ovens going in the hope of funding a commercial buyout. Unfortunately no commercial buyer could be found to maintain operations at the plant. While this was deeply disappointing news, with such large losses and debts, and the price of steel produces expected to stay depressed for some considerable time, it was perhaps not surprising.

  • Lord Falconer of Thoroton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Lord Falconer of Thoroton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Falconer of Thoroton on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many immigration and asylum cases in the years 2013–14 and 2014–15 have involved children as claimants in their own right; of those, how many received funding for legal help or representation; and in what percentage of these cases was the child represented.

    Lord Faulks

    The First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) received 15,134 in 2013-14 and 13,981 appeals in 2014-15 where the appellant stated they were below the age of 18 when their appeal was lodged.

    Data on the number of child appellants who are in receipt of funding are not held centrally by HMCTS.

  • Lord Falconer of Thoroton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Lord Falconer of Thoroton – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Falconer of Thoroton on 2015-10-20.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to publish on the Legal Aid Agency website or legislation.gov.uk a consolidated version of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 and related regulations.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The revised version of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 is due to be published and available by the end of 2015.