Tag: 2016

  • Jamie Reed – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Jamie Reed – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jamie Reed on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will take steps to ensure that jobs created by the (a) new nuclear project at Moorside and (b) the Solway Firth Tidal Lagoon project are available to local people.

    Anna Soubry

    The Government is working with the energy industry to maximise economic benefits from new electricity generation projects and is providing support to enhance the competitiveness of the supply chain, including improving the skills and employability of the construction workers in the industry.

    In addition Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership has identified nuclear and energy excellence as a key priority contributing significant growth opportunities for the Cumbria economy. The Local Enterprise Partnership has strong ambitions to drive growth across the Cumbria area by improving the delivery of skills, infrastructure, environmental sustainability and business support.

  • David Mackintosh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    David Mackintosh – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-03-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether his Department has put incentives in place to encourage uptake of apprenticeship schemes from private companies.

    Nick Boles

    There have been over 2.4 million apprenticeship starts over the previous parliament, and 153,100 between August and October 2015, demonstrating the continued expansion of the apprenticeships programme.

    We are taking action to support and encourage the growth of apprenticeships in all sectors to meet our commitment to reaching 3 million starts by 2020. The UK-wide levy will be introduced in April 2017 for all employers in public and private sector with a pay bill of £3m or more, to help fund the increase in quantity and quality of apprenticeship training in England. All employers that hire apprentices will benefit from the levy.

    Our apprenticeship reforms are giving employers the opportunity to create new apprenticeship standards. More than 1300 employers are involved with 204 new standards published (of which over 60 are Higher and Degree Apprenticeships) and more than 150 are in development. So far there have been over 1,000 starts on the new standards.

    We are continuing to support small employers to hire apprentices through the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers (AGE), which provides eligible employers with a £1,500 grant per apprentice (aged 16 to 24) for up to five new apprentices currently. The AGE will continue to operate until the apprenticeships levy is introduced in April 2017. From April 2016, all employers will not be required to pay employer National Insurance contributions for apprentices under age of 25 on earnings up to the upper earnings limit.

  • Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-04-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to ensure that (a) his Department and (b) Highways England are improving their assessments of user satisfaction in relation to the strategic road network.

    Andrew Jones

    The Department appointed Transport Focus (TF) as the road user watchdog and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) as the Highways Monitor on the formation of Highways England on 1 April 2015. In addition to reporting from TF and ORR, officials regularly meet with Highways England to discuss all aspects of their performance, including customer satisfaction.

    TF is developing a new Strategic Roads User Survey to measure satisfaction among those using Highways England’s network with input from the Department. It is intended to pilot this throughout 2016 and then launch the new survey during 2017. This will run in parallel with Highways England’s existing National Road User Satisfaction Survey until that ceases in March 2018.

  • Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-05-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many successful applicants to the Schools Direct scheme there were in each of the last five years; and what the cost of that scheme was to her Department in each such year.

    Nick Gibb

    The School Direct scheme began as a pilot tuition fee based programme in the 2012/13 academic year. The programme was extended to include School Direct (salaried) programmes from the 2013/14 academic year.

    The number of successful applicants (trainees who secured and took up a place) on School Direct programmes, and the associated cost (where available), from 2012/13 to 2014/15 are given in table 1:

    Academic year

    Number of School Direct (tuition fee) trainees

    Number of School Direct (salaried) trainees

    Cost of training bursaries for SD (fee) trainees

    Cost of salary grants for SD (salaried) trainees

    2012/13

    349

    N/A

    Unavailable

    N/A

    2013/14

    4,203

    2,473

    Unavailable

    £40,320,214

    2014/15

    6,311[1]

    2,759

    £36,539,000

    £43,031,709

    Table 1: Number of School Direct trainees and associated costs from 2012/13 to 2014/15.

    We are unable to provide the training bursary costs specific to School Direct only for trainees for 2012/13 and 2013/14, as the data captured did not make a distinction between core and school direct tuition fee places for the purpose of bursary funding.

    Data for the 2015/16 academic year will not be available until after the end of the academic year when data submissions will be finalised and subsequently validated.

    [1] Of the 6,311 tuition fee trainees in AY 2014/15, 4,264 received a bursary.

  • Rachael Maskell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    Rachael Maskell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Rachael Maskell on 2016-07-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the effect of the outcome of the EU referendum on future levels of migrant labour from other EU countries in the farming industry.

    George Eustice

    Workers from other EU countries are an important and valued part of our workforce. Over the next two years whilst we negotiate a new relationship with the EU, nothing changes.

    This will be one of the issues that will have to be resolved as part of our exit negotiation and future relationship with the EU.

  • Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Jessica Morden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-13.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the current value is of Farepak unclaimed funds.

    Margot James

    The current value of Farepak unclaimed funds is £1,007,267.41.

    The agency will hold the funds for the next six years, people can however continue to claim indefinitely. The Insolvency Service has liaised with media outlets and the matter has been covered by BBC Moneybox, MoneySaving Expert and BBC Watchdog, to draw attention to any unpaid creditor or has yet to come forward.

  • Ruth Cadbury – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Ruth Cadbury – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ruth Cadbury on 2016-01-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of relocation of Ofcom departments from London to other areas of the country on Ofcom’s ability to maintain its service standards.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    The location of Ofcom departments and its offices is a matter for Ofcom, who are independent from Government.

  • Ian Austin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Ian Austin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Ian Austin on 2016-02-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what consideration his Department plans to give to local availability of courses in area reviews of further education.

    Nick Boles

    Government will produce an evaluation of the area review programme and its potential to impact on groups protected by the Equality Act 2010. The reviews do not however, mandate action, and colleges are independent corporations, so it will be for each college’s governing body to assess the potential impact on groups protected by the Act, as part of its decision to accept or reject any recommendation requiring a change to their provision.

    Each area review steering group will consider relevant data relating to current courses delivered within their area, assess the relevance of these courses to local learner and employer needs and determine how current and future demand can be best met through the recommendations of the area review.

    Individual area reviews are expected to take about four months, the timescale being dependent on the number of colleges and complexity of the local issues involved in each area. The overall review process has been divided into five waves of area reviews and is scheduled to be completed by March 2017

    We expect the costs of completing an area review to be met within existing budgets, with minimal additional costs to the colleges, local authorities or LEPs involved. The Departments and their agencies will undertake this work with no additional staffing. Additional costs will be minimal.

    The costs arising from the recommendations of each review will be explored as part of the process. We expect the colleges, alongside local authorities and LEPs with devolved skills budgets, to consider how these costs can be met locally. Where there are costs that cannot be met, but which are essential to the successful implementation of the review, we have announced a facility for transitional funding to support this. We will provide more detail in due course.

  • Steve Reed – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Steve Reed – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve Reed on 2016-03-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of his Department’s weekly collection support scheme; whether that scheme is still in use; and how many local authorities were awarded funding through that scheme.

    Mr Marcus Jones

    The Department’s Weekly Collection Support Scheme has been a success. It has protected weekly collections of residual waste for 6 million households and demonstrated how councils with weekly collections can deliver cost-effective, convenient waste services for residents while seeing their recycling rates increase. Light-touch monitoring of the scheme has ensured councils are spending money on the projects set out in their bids, and has captured good practice. The 81 local authorities awarded funding through the scheme are expected to monitor and evaluate the performance of their projects and to volunteer to make that data publicly available.

    While the scheme’s funding was allocated over the course of three years (2012-15), the scheme runs for five years and comes to an end in November 2017.

    This Government continues to encourage councils to support the wishes of local people about regularity of bin collections and champions frequent and convenient waste collections which protect the environment and public health.

  • Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Lord Berkeley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Berkeley on 2016-04-11.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon on 30 March (HL7064), what was the actual number of HS2 trains of both sizes, and for Phases 1 and 2, used in the Rolling Stock Strategy previous to the one currently in the process of completion.

    Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

    HS2 Ltd are in the process of completing their Rolling Stock Strategy which will contain greater detail on the fleet sizes expected to be procured. Our current assumption is outlined below.

    Phase 1

    Phase 2

    Total

    Classic Compatible

    45

    50

    95

    Captive

    16

    54

    70

    Total

    61

    104

    165