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Tag: 2015

  • Baroness Crawley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Baroness Crawley – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Crawley on 2015-10-22.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the pilot programme by HM Revenue and Customs of the tobacco industry’s Codentify trading and tracing system in the light of the United Kingdom’s obligations under the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and its protocol.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    HM Revenue and Customs has made no assessment of the effectiveness of the Codentify tracking and tracing system.

  • Lord Patten – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    Lord Patten – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Patten on 2015-10-22.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government when ministers last met representatives of the Investment Association to discuss fund management industry matters.

    Lord O’Neill of Gatley

    Treasury Ministers have meetings with a wide variety of organisations in the public and private sectors as part of the process of policy development and delivery.

    Ministers’ Quarterly Transparency Returns provide details of ministerial meetings with external organisations on departmental business and are published on a quarterly basis and can be found on the Government’s website.

  • Lord Storey – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the The Lord Chairman of Committees

    Lord Storey – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the The Lord Chairman of Committees

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Storey on 2015-10-22.

    To ask the Chairman of Committees how many consultants have been employed in the House of Lords in the last three years; and what has been the cost of each firm or independent consultant.

    Lord Laming

    Payments for the last three financial years are as follows:

    Firm

    2012-13 £

    2013-14 £

    2014-15 £

    Work undertaken

    Beamans Ltd

    –

    –

    31,050

    Costs related to a pay and grading review

    BHBi Consultancy Ltd

    14,800

    –

    –

    Audit of an ongoing capital project

    Bostock Marketing Group

    23,025

    –

    20,238

    Costs of the independently-managed Member and staff surveys

    Capita Business Services

    –

    6,913

    –

    Support for an equal pay audit

    Catering Consultancy Bureau

    –

    6,128

    13,662

    Branding project for Catering and Retail Services (CRS) outlets and delivery of communications workshops

    Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply

    –

    23,118

    –

    Support for a review of procurement services

    Government Actuary’s Department

    5,400

    5,000

    7,500

    Annual accounting valuation of the House of Lords staff pension scheme

    Helena Bayler

    275

    –

    825

    Design and amendment of specialist forms

    Information Accreditor

    2,125

    13,770

    24,735

    Proportion of costs to provide the two Houses with assurance on the security of new IT systems

    JM HR Solutions Limited

    15,000

    7,750

    –

    Human resource review support

    Panache Consultancy Limited

    2,952

    –

    –

    Review of staffing requirements for certain CRS outlets

    Sage Food Design and Development

    –

    10,761

    8,269

    CRS consultancy regarding food covering: menus, kitchen production, kitchen organisations and structure

    Stern Consultancy

    –

    3,468

    –

    Income generation project support

    The Litmus Partnership Limited

    –

    7,982

    18,400

    CRS smarter procurement support and related services including supplier price challenge

    The Mystery Dining Company

    –

    555

    395

    Mystery shopping of catering venues

    Turpin Smale

    –

    4,400

    –

    CRS outlet-specific consultancy to support the Change Programme

    University of Portsmouth Ltd

    4,157

    –

    –

    Specialist support to develop a facility to search for records from the Parliament Archives online catalogue by place

    TOTAL

    68,775

    90,720

    125,074

    N/A

    The House seeks only to engage external consultant support when it is more economical to engage specialist services on a fixed term basis than to embed capacity in-House, when specific external advice is beneficial, or when capacity issues necessitate it.

    Most of the spending on consultancy in Catering and Retail Services has been to support an ambitious Change Programme which is seeking to deliver a step change in food quality and service by empowering individuals in order to provide better value for money to both the Member and the taxpayer. This investment should help the House reduce the cost of catering provision.

  • Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-10-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of efficiency savings arising from his Department’s digital strategies in (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15.

    Joseph Johnson

    The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) aims to build digital services that are simpler, clearer and faster to use. In 2013-14 and 2014-15 BIS took the lead in developing five exemplar “digital by default”projects. These focused on transforming key areas in which BIS engages with the public: student finance, Land Registry data, renewing patents, redundancy payments and apprenticeships. By the end of 2014-15 all five BIS digital exemplars were either live or in trial(“beta”) use.

    Each of these is starting to bring significant benefits. For example, each year there are around 400,000 transactions for renewals of patents. The new digital patent renewal service allows patent owners and agents to complete the renewal process online in just a few minutes whereas the older, paper based service took up to 6 days to process.

  • Andrew Stephenson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Andrew Stephenson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Stephenson on 2015-10-22.

    To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many deaths in (a) Pendle, (b) the North West and (c) England have been caused as a result of people taking legal highs in each of the past three years.

    Mr Rob Wilson

    The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

  • Jamie Reed – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Jamie Reed – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2015-10-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what investment in the road network the Government plans to make in (a) Copeland constituency and (b) Cumbria as part of the Northern Powerhouse initiative.

    Andrew Jones

    The Government is working with Transport for the North to determine future transport investment priorities for the next road and rail investment periods in the North of England. This work builds on the “Northern Powerhouse: one Agenda, One economy, One North” report published in March this year with a further report focussing on investment priorities due in March 2016.

    In the meantime, Government is undertaking a Northern Trans-Pennine strategic study to examine the case for improving or dualling one or both of the A66 and A69 between the A1(M) and M6.Improvements to either of these routes would benefit the economy of Cumbria and further help the development of a northern powerhouse.

    Government is also providing £7.638m for integrated transport improvements and £75.981m for highways maintenance to Cumbria council for the three years 2015/16 to 2017/18, both of which can be used to invest in the road network in Cumbria and Copeland. Over £8m of Local Growth Funding has been provided to the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership for three local road projects in Kendal, Ulverston and Workington, although none of these are in the Copeland.

  • Kevan Jones – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Kevan Jones – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kevan Jones on 2015-10-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 61 of his Department’s Defence Equipment Plan 2015, what the reasons are for the decrease in planned spending in the air support sector; and how that decrease will be achieved.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    I refer the hon. Member to the Defence Equipment Plan 2015, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-defence-equipment-plan-2015. Paragraph 11 explains the movements in the high level elements of the equipment plan from the previous financial year. Each of the operating centre breakdowns in Section C of the Equipment Plan contains an explanation of any increase or decrease in spending from the previous financial year.

    “

  • Maria Eagle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Maria Eagle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2015-10-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to maximise the role that UK suppliers can play in the development of the Type 26 programme.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    In February 2015 the Government signed a £859 million Demonstration Phase contract for the Type 26 (T26) Global Combat Ship. Around 1,700 jobs in the UK will be sustained as a result with 600 of those jobs safeguarded in Scotland where T26 will be built.

    The majority of sub-contractors to the T26 Global Combat Ship programme are selected by BAES through competition.

    The use of competition remains the cornerstone of defence procurement and this approach has been successful in driving efficiency into the UK defence industry. UK suppliers have had an equal opportunity to bid for work on the T26 programme with selections based on cost and the ability of suppliers to meet the schedule and performance requirements.

    To date BAES has placed eight design development agreements (DDAs) and six design and manufacture contracts with UK based companies. These are shown in the table below:

    Design Development Agreements – UK based companies only

    Company

    Equipment supplying

    Location

    Cathelco

    Hull preservation

    Chesterfield

    L3

    Platform management system

    Bristol

    Marine Systems Technology Ltd

    Doors, scuttles and hatches, X-Y crane

    Middlewich

    Rolls Royce

    Steering Gear System

    Derby

    Rolls Royce

    Stabilisers

    Dunfermline

    Salt Separations Ltd

    Reverse osmosis plant

    Rochdale

    TOD

    Sonar dome

    Weymouth

    Tyco Fire & Integrated Solutions

    Fixed fire fighting system

    Reading

    Design & Manufacture Contracts – UK based companies only

    Company

    Equipment supplying

    Location

    Babcock

    Air weapons handling system

    Leicester

    BAE Systems

    Meteorological and oceanic (METOC) sensors UK

    Dorchester

    David Brown Gear Systems

    Propulsion gearbox

    Huddersfield

    GE Energy

    Electronic integration test facility, Propulsion motor and drive system

    Warwickshire

    Rohde and Schwarz UK Ltd

    Communications

    Fleet

    Rolls Royce

    Gas Turbines

    Derby

    We anticipate that more UK based sub-contracts will be appointed as the programme progresses.

  • Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Louise Haigh – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Louise Haigh on 2015-10-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate she has made of the number of secondary school teachers accessing continuing professional development in design and technology in (a) 2010, (b) 2011, (c) 2012, (d) 2013, (e) 2014 and (f) 2015 to date.

    Nick Gibb

    The government does not collect data on the number of teachers accessing professional development. Decisions relating to teachers’ professional development rest with schools, individual teachers and head teachers, who are in the best position to judge their own requirements.

  • Peter Kyle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Peter Kyle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Peter Kyle on 2015-10-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, when her Department plans to publish its response to its consultation on feed-in tariffs.

    Andrea Leadsom

    DECC is aiming to publish its response to this consultation later this year.