The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-12-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many civil servants in his Department are in the redeployment pool.
Mr Julian Brazier
As at 31 October 2015 the number of Ministry of Defence civil servants in the redeployment pool was 240 (rounded to the nearest 10).
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Valerie Vaz on 2015-11-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to ensure that the skills of steel industry employees are maintained.
Anna Soubry
From my visits to Scunthorpe, Redcar, Port Talbot and Cardiff, I know first-hand what a dedicated and skilled workforce exists in the industry and am determined that they have a future, with the action the government has taken and will continue to take to help the industry.
For those workers that have unfortunately lost their jobs, the government is committed to doing all we can to give them the support and training needed to quickly return to work. We have made available up to £80 million for Redcar and announced up to £9 million for Scunthorpe to support those who have been affected.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Hendrick on 2015-12-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children in each county and unitary council area in the North West are currently receiving free school meals under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999.
Mr Sam Gyimah
The number of children eligible and receiving free school meals (FSM) is available at regional and local authority level online at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015.
We do not hold information on the qualifying benefits of individual claimants.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2015-11-03.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the size of the current account balance in 2014.
Mr David Gauke
The current account deficit in 2014 was 5.1% of GDP, with this net borrowing from the rest of the world helping fund the budget deficit. The Government’s plan to repair the public finances through fiscal consolidation should in turn improve the current account deficit, as set out in the latest forecasts of the Office for Budget Responsibility.
The Government is also working to boost UK exports, including a £20m package of support for first time exporters and working alongside a more effective UKTI and better export finance.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nigel Dodds on 2015-12-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Pet Travel Scheme in tackling pet smuggling.
George Eustice
The carriers which carry out checks to ensure pets animals are compliant with Pet Travel Scheme rules are audited by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and the results show that they are performing satisfactorily. In 2014, APHA audited close to 6,000 pets. Of these only 0.9% of the pets were found not to comply with the entry rules. These pets were either detained until their compliance could be established, re-exported or placed into quarantine.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alasdair McDonnell on 2015-11-03.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he expects revenue to be generated to the public purse from the sale of assets, buildings and land in Northern Ireland during 2015-16; and if so for what amount.
Greg Hands
The devolved administrations have the capacity to generate income from asset sales and should do so where this is a sensible way of realising value for taxpayers and freeing up resources for investment.
The Government has committed to securing good value for money for taxpayers by establishing UK Government Investments to deliver the sale of a wide range of publicly-owned assets.
The Stormont House Agreement contains specific measures whereby the Treasury would allow the Northern Ireland Executive to retain the proceeds of specific agreed asset sales in their entirety, and give exceptional consideration to those funds being used for a combination of both capital and resource spending.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2015-12-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of children who receive mental health assessments on entering care; and what assessment he has made of recent trends in such figures.
Alistair Burt
Data is not collected nationally on the number of children entering care who receive a mental health assessment.
Local authorities are responsible for making sure that a health assessment is carried out for every child they look after when they start to be looked after. The care planning regulations specify that this should include an assessment of the child’s emotional and mental wellbeing. The Department for Education annually collects data from local authorities on the numbers of children continuously looked after for at least 12 months at 31 March who received their statutory annual health assessment during the year. At 31 March 2014, 88.4% of these looked-after children did so.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Liz McInnes on 2015-11-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what change there was in the number of firefighter posts in Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service in 2013-14.
Greg Clark
Information on the number of full time equivalent firefighter posts for each fire and rescue service and for each year, together with greater detail, is available in the Department’s Fire and Rescue Operational Statistics publication (Table 2 for full time equivalent posts) at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/fire-and-rescue-authorities-operational-statistics
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-12-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many civil servants in her Department are in the redeployment pool.
Karen Bradley
There are 104 staff in the redeployment pool. This data is from the Home Office redeployment database.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2015-11-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an assessment of the number of spare parts his Department has for equipment no longer in use; and what steps his Department has taken to ensure that spare parts for such equipment are not held in storage.
Mr Philip Dunne
Since the introduction of the Defence Equipment and Support Inventory Management Strategy (IMS) in 2012 the level of obsolete stock held has substantially reduced; currently, items identified as obsolete represent less than 0.2 per cent of the total value of inventory held by the Ministry of Defence. As at 1 April 2015 the IMS has achieved an overall stock reduction of £8.7 billion against a strategic target of £9.5 billion set for 31 March 2016. We are also working with industry to optimise inventory further and reduce the logistics footprint, while supporting operations and maintaining availability to the Front-line Commands.