The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2014-06-10.
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the principal cause of preventable premature mortality, measured in preventable years of life lost, in people up to the age of 60 years.
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 Julie Elliott on 2014-03-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether he has any plans to reduce the number of trains per hour on the East Coast Main Line from London to Newcastle following the opening of High Speed 2.
Stephen Hammond
It is too early to set the service pattern for the GB rail network in the 2020s and beyond. However, one of the key principles that will guide future service patterns is that all towns or cities which currently have a direct service to London will retain broadly comparable or better services once HS2 is complete. The future design, calling pattern and frequency of network services once HS2 opens will be developed openly, and in partnership.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2014-06-10.
To ask the Attorney General, with reference to the Answer of 6 May 2014, Official Report, column 8W, on freezing orders, for each of the restraint orders granted since 2010-11, what the length of time was between receipt by the prosecution agency of the freezing request and the granting of the order.
Oliver Heald
Since 2010-11 the Serious Fraud Office has obtained two restraint orders for overseas jurisdictions. The length of time from date of receipt of the requests to the granting of the orders, are shown in the following table;
|
Year |
Time |
|
2010 |
3 days |
|
2011 |
7 days |
The length of time between receipt of freezing requests by the Crown prosecution Service and the granting of the order is shown in the table below. There were two cases (one in 2010/11 and one in 2012/13) which took a significant amount of time to execute as detailed work needed to be done with the requesting country in order to prepare the applications for restraint orders.
|
Year |
Number of overseas restraint orders |
Number of days from the receipt of the external request to the granting of the order |
|
2010/11 |
7 |
Request 1 – 22 Request 2 – 96 Request 3 – 9 Request 4 – 17 Request 5 – 17 Request 6 – 95 Request 7 – 645 |
|
2011/12 |
2 |
Request 1 – 1 Request 2 – 26 |
|
2012/13 |
6 |
Request 1 – 27 Request 2 – 39 Request 3 – 438 Request 4 – 34 Request 5 – 28 Request 6 – 11 |
|
2013/14 |
3 |
Request 1 – 16 Request 2 – 1 Request 3 – 35 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Adam Afriyie on 2014-03-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress he has made on encouraging computer science and programming in UK schools.
Elizabeth Truss
As part of the reforms to the national curriculum, the Department for Education is strengthening the teaching of computing in schools by replacing information and communications technology with computing. The new programmes of study for computing, which will be taught in maintained schools from September 2014, have a much greater emphasis on computer science. For example, pupils at key stage 1 will be taught to create and debug simple programs and key stage 3 pupils will be taught to use two or more programming languages.
We also working with exam boards and sector experts to review the computer science GCSE and A level so that they reflect and build upon the changes made to the curriculum. The inclusion of computer science in the English Baccalaureate will provide further encouragement for pupils to take up the subject at GCSE level. We are also providing funding for several projects to help teachers acquire the necessary subject knowledge and skills to teach the new computing curriculum.
We are funding the British Computer Society to build a network of 400 ‘Master Teachers’, create online teach-yourself resources and deliver 800 in-school workshops to help primary school teachers improve their subject knowledge. A further £500,000 competitive match-funded scheme was announced on 4 February to support excellent computing teaching and lever additional investment and engagement from business.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Fitzpatrick on 2014-06-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many local authorities have not conducted any sampling to check food composition over the last 12 months.
Jane Ellison
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) collects food law enforcement monitoring returns from local authorities annually. Data for the period 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014 is currently being collected. Following collation and analysis, the FSA plans to publish this data in November 2014.
The FSA advises that the following local authorities did not report any food composition sampling in 2012-13 via the Local Authority Enforcement Monitoring System (LAEMS):
Armagh
Birmingham
Blackburn
Bolton
Darlington
Isle of Wight
Leicester City
Plymouth City
Redcar and Cleveland
Rochdale
Rutland
South Lanarkshire
Swindon
Tameside
All of these authorities reported taking other labelling or microbiological samples in 2012-13.
A table has been placed in the Library which shows how many food standards samples (composition and labelling) each local authority reported via LAEMS in 2012-13, together with a comparison against the number reported in 2011-12 and how many food standards samples each local authority reported through a FSA-funded project.
All of the reported food standards samples were official samples and would have been submitted to the local authority’s appointed Public Analyst for analysis. Out of 22,055 food standards samples in 2012-13, 4,387 were funded by the FSA, all other food standards samples would have been paid for by the local authority. By comparison, in 2011-12, the FSA funded 5,072 out of 21,970 food standards samples.
For some local authorities, the FSA funded sampling figure is larger than the number included in the LAEMS report. The difference will be due to the LAEMS reports only including samples for which the analytical result was received from the Public Analyst before 31 March 2013.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Frank Field on 2014-03-17.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much was paid in service charges to housing associations for adaptations to accommodation for disabled tenants in the last year for which figures are available.
Esther McVey
The information requested is not available. Information about service charges paid by all tenants is not collected.
Eligible service charges for Housing Benefit would not include the cost of making an adaptation.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kelvin Hopkins on 2014-06-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what protection of existing (a) staffing levels and (b) tickets revenue sharing arrangements with other train operating companies were secured in negotiations with Govia over the extension from the London passenger rail franchise; and if he will seek such protections in future negotiations over the planned direct award of the franchise to Govia.
Stephen Hammond
Staffing levels are a matter for the train operator, as long as they continue to deliver services that meet the requirements of the Franchise Agreement. The 7-period extension announced on 9 June was a priced option in the current Franchise Agreement.
Any existing ticket revenue sharing arrangements continue through the extension. Although preliminary negotiations have taken place with regard to a Direct Award to run services from April 2016, no timetable for formal negotiations is yet in place, and formal negotiations are yet to take place.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mr Barry Sheerman on 2014-03-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether his Department has carried out any form of assessment of the number of state-funded schools where religious items or articles of clothing form part of the school’s (a) pupil and (b) staff uniform policy.
David Laws
The Department for Education has not conducted any assessment of the number of state-funded schools where religious items or clothing form part of the uniform policy for pupils or staff.
It is for the governing body of each school to decide whether pupils should wear a uniform, and if so, what that should be. We do, however, expect schools to have full regard to their responsibilities under equalities law, and to act sensibly, fairly and flexibly in the interests of all their students in setting their school uniform policy.
Any dress code for school staff is an issue for the employer, whether that is the governing body or the local authority. As part of the general terms and conditions of employment agreed with employees, employers should consider an appropriate dress code, relevant to the individual setting, taking into account the requirements of the post and having proper regard to equality and diversity considerations.
School uniform guidance can be found at:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-uniform
“
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Karen Lumley on 2014-06-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Answer of 8 May 2014, Official Report, column 276W, on motor vehicles: exhaust emissions, if he will place the data from his Department’s 2006 study of liquefied petroleum and petrol vehicles in the Library.
Stephen Hammond
The report produced for the Department at the end of the study (Ref: M. Clark, P. Sayer, Euro 3 LPG Retrofit Emissions Factor Testing, Tickford Powertrain Test Ltd., ER07/015, June 2007) contains the data captured by the testing. Copies of the report will be placed in the in the Libraries of the House.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Swinfen on 2014-03-13.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the passports of everyone arriving in and leaving the United Kingdom are properly checked.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Border Force is, through its Operating Mandate, required to undertake checks on the passports of all passengers who enter the United Kingdom at the Primary Control Points. Border Force undertakes electronic checks on most outbound passengers and physically checks passports on a strictly targeted basis. The Government and the Civil Aviation Authority work closely with air carriers in the UK to ensure that proper checks are in place. The Government is further committed to introducing exit checks on all modes by 2015.