Tag: 2015

Zac Goldsmith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Zac Goldsmith on 2015-11-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will require Heathrow Airport Limited to respond publicly to the recommendations of the Airport Commission that, in order to mitigate the effects of a third runway at Heathrow, (a) there should be a commitment in Parliament not to build a fourth runway, (b) there should be a ban on all scheduled night flights in the period 11.30pm to 6.00am, (c) a third runway should allow periods of predictable respite to be more reliably maintained and (d) additional operations at an expanded Heathrow Airport must be contingent on acceptable performance on air quality.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Government has yet to decide on the need for additional airport capacity and will not make any decisions on the next steps until it has considered the large amount of very detailed analysis contained in the Airports Commission’s final report.

That being said, the Government recognises that effective mitigation measures to assuage any adverse effects airports may have on the surrounding environment and communities is essential to the success of any major airport; this allows everyone to share in the benefits airport expansion can bring.

January 1, 2023
Nia Griffith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nia Griffith on 2015-12-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what proportion of the forms on his Department’s website is available in Welsh.

Mike Penning

There are 60 Ministry of Justice forms published on gov.uk. Of these, three are translated into the Welsh language, which is five percent of the total. This does not include forms from agencies or arms’ length bodies of the Ministry of Justice. We are committed to providing our forms in the Welsh language where it is clear there is demand.

Guidance for departments on the translation of documents for the Government website is provided by the Government Digital Service and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design/welsh-language-on-gov-uk

“

January 1, 2023
Emily Thornberry – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-11-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average reduction in entitlement to universal credit was which resulted from a claimant taking up paid work in the most recent month for which figures are available.

Priti Patel

The information you have requested is not currently available. The Department published its strategy for releasing official statistics on Universal Credit (UC) in September 2013. As outlined in the strategy, officials are currently quality assuring data for UC therefore it is not yet possible to give a definitive list of what statistics will be provided in the future. These statistics however will be published in accordance with the relevant protocols in the Code of Practice for official statistics.

The latest official experimental statistics on UC and the Departments release strategy can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/universal-credit-statistics.

“

January 1, 2023

Nadine Dorries – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nadine Dorries on 2015-12-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many trains were cancelled on the Govia Thameslink rail line due to driver shortage in the most recent period for which figures are available.

Claire Perry

Figures for driver attributed cancellations the whole of the TSGN franchise in the last four periods are below. This data represents the first four periods since Southern Railway joined Govia Thameslink Railway at the end of July. This data does not differentiate between cancellations due to driver shortage and operational issues.

	Rail Period 1605 26/7-22/8	Rail Period 1606 23/8-19/9	Rail Period 1607 20/9-17/10	Rail Period 1608 18/10-14/11
Full cancellations	1093	1331	723	706
Part cancellations	458	410	406	411
Total	1551	1741	1129	1117

The Department does not hold information on cancellations due to sickness.

January 1, 2023

Owen Smith – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Owen Smith on 2015-11-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how much his Department has spent on (a) temporary agency staff, (b) consultants, (c) non-payroll staff, (d) administration and (e) marketing and advertising in real terms in each year since 2010-11.

Justin Tomlinson

Administration has been assumed to be the Departmental Expenditure Limit Administrative spend and has been taken from the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts for 2014/15 (Table 4, page 184).

The information that is available is in the table below:

The Department for Work and Pensions spent the following amounts:

	Temporary Agency Staff £m	Consultants £m	Administration £m
2010/11	30.8	14.3	5,610
2011/12	11.5	8.7	1,333
2012/13	12.6	8.4	1,180
2013/14	13.1	11.7	1,091
2014/15	31.1	10.5	894

Information on marketing and advertising costs could only be provided at disproportionate cost. To put this into context, the cost of temporary agency staff was just over 1% of the Department’s paybill in 2014-15.

January 1, 2023

Nadine Dorries – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nadine Dorries on 2015-12-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to require improvement of the punctuality and reliability of Govia Thameslink train services.

Claire Perry

I am chairing a monthly meeting involving Network Rail, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), Southeastern and Transport Focus to monitor and co-ordinate improvements in both performance and passenger experience in the South East. This work builds upon the Joint Improvement Plan that was developed in the Spring. This Group is absolutely committed to see improvement and, crucially, to make sure that rail customers see the benefits of these improvements.

GTR failed to meet their benchmark for cancellations set out in their Franchise Agreement and in the view of the Secretary of State they are also likely to exceed their delay minutes benchmark in the near future. In order to address their poor performance and hold them to account we issued them with a Remedial Plan Notice that requires them to set out the measures they will take to improve their performance. GTR have submitted their plan and once the measures are agreed by the Secretary of State they will become contractually binding through a Remedial Agreement. Officials regularly monitor GTR’s performance and this will include the delivery of the measures and performance improvements agreed through the Remedial Plan. Non-compliance may result in further enforcement action in line with the Franchise Agreement should the need arise.

Network Rail’s performance is regulated by the Office of Rail and Road, who have recently agreed a £4.1m package of improvements to be delivered by Network Rail on the Southern part of GTR franchise area in order to address performance issues.

January 1, 2023
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2015-11-04.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what surplus they forecast for the NHS Pension Scheme in 2015–16 and 2016–17.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The NHS Pension Scheme is a ‘pay as you go’ pension scheme without financial assets. The last valuation in 2012 identified a deficit of £10.3 billion in the notional fund which is met by contributions from employers.

No additional contribution is expected from the National Health Service in 2016-17. NHS employers will continue to pay the standard employer contribution rate of 14.3%.

January 1, 2023
Lord Alton of Liverpool – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2015-12-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they are giving to the call by Save the Children for the UK to stop selling arms to any party involved in the conflict in Yemen while there is a risk that they might be used to violate international humanitarian or human rights law.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

We are aware of reports of alleged violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in Yemen by the Coalition, including alleged airstrikes resulting in civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, and take these very seriously. We have regularly raised our concerns with the Saudi-Arabian authorities and received assurances that they are complying with IHL. We continue to engage with Saudi Arabia on those assurances and have offered advice and training to demonstrate best practice and to help ensure continued compliance with IHL.

The UK operates one of the most rigorous and transparent export control regimes in the world. All exports of arms and controlled military goods are assessed on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing criteria, taking account of all relevant factors at the time of the application. Risks around human rights violations are a key part of our assessment against the Consolidated Criteria. A licence will not be issued, for any country, if to do so would be inconsistent with any provision of the UK Licensing Criteria, including where we assess there is a clear risk that it might be used in the commission of a serious violation of IHL.

January 1, 2023
Lord Kilclooney – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kilclooney on 2015-11-04.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they participated in the election observer presence at the recent elections in Azerbaijan; and whether OSCE or Council of Europe observer delegations were also present at those elections.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly decided not to send observers. However the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe sent a 28 member observation team.

January 1, 2023
Lord Greaves – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-12-03.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the current backlog of applications for land registration at the Land Registry, and how long is the average delay in registration.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

There are approximately 234k applications awaiting completion at Land Registry, 93k of which cannot be processed as they are awaiting replies to queries sent to the originating conveyancer or solicitor, or notices sent to the registered proprietor(s) of the land or property. This leaves 141k applications available for Land Registry to process. Registration takes place after the transaction has been completed and the priority of all of these pending applications is protected upon receipt. Last year, Land Registry received 5.9m applications for registration.

The average number of days taken to complete all applications for registration is 11 days, with applications to update an existing register taking an average of just under 7 days, and applications that result in the creation of new registered titles taking an average of 42 days to complete.

January 1, 2023