The below Parliamentary question was asked by Julie Cooper on 2016-04-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times he has attended public meetings of the Transport Committee since his appointment.
Mr Robert Goodwill
Attendance at Committee meetings is a matter of public record. Transcripts of appearances can be found in Hansard and on Committee web pages.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Pearson of Rannoch on 2016-05-25.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the operations of the European Gendarmerie Force.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The European Gendarmerie Force is not a European Union force. It has its own separate treaty between the countries that participate, which does not include the UK, and is not part of the European Union framework. The Government notes the work of the European Gendarmerie Force, but has no plans to pursue membership.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Philip Davies on 2016-07-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has received any complaints about the organisation Action on Smoking and Health in the last five years.
Nicola Blackwood
A grant of £160,000 has been awarded to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) for financial year 2016/17 and a copy of the signed award letter, including the detailed deliverables of the grant, is attached.
Grants made under Section 64 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 can be made in a number of ways. The grant awarded to ASH has been assessed as most appropriate for the non-competed route.
The Department received a complaint about the deliverables of the 2015/16 grant awarded to ASH in June this year. The Department responded to the complainant, confirming it was satisfied that none of the deliverables were in breach of the provisions of Section 64.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Steve McCabe on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, (a) how many and (b) what proportion of staff employed by his Department are non-UK nationals.
Mark Lancaster
All Government Departments are bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules.
Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment into the Civil Service as part of wider pre-employment checks, but there is no requirement on departments to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose.
More broadly, the Government will be consulting in due course on how we work with business to ensure that workers in this country have the skills that they need to get a job. But there are no proposals to publish lists of the number or proportion of foreign workers.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2015-12-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what representations she has made to (a) Public Health England and (b) the Department of Health on the inclusion of (i) environmental criteria and (ii) the work of her Department’s Green Food Project in the review of the Eat Well Plate.
George Eustice
The 2012 Green Food Project was a joint initiative between Government, the food and farming industry and environmental organisations.
One piece of follow-up work to the Green Food Project was a group of stakeholders who came together in 2013 to develop principles for a healthy and sustainable diet. Public Health England and Department of Health were part of this working group. Its conclusion, ‘The Principles of Healthy and Sustainable Eating Patterns’ were published by the Global Food Security Programme in May this year. (http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/healthy-sustainable-eating-patterns-report.pdf)
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-01-27.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the low oil price since summer 2014 on the number of UK seafarers employed on offshore supply vessels in the North Sea.
Mr Robert Goodwill
The 2015 seafarer statistics have just been published. We estimate that there were 23,380 UK seafarers active at sea in 2015, an increase of 2 per cent on the previous year. We are aware that the current downturn in the offshore sector may not yet be fully reflected in these figures.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Rosindell on 2016-02-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will estimate the cost to the economy of unreliable internet connectivity and speeds in 2014-15.
Mr Edward Vaizey
We are not aware of any existing research about the annual cost to the UK economy of unreliable broadband internet connectivity or speeds in 2014-15. However, the economic benefits of broadband access are clear, for example, SQW Consulting’s UK Broadband impact study in 2013 estimated that the availability and take-up of faster broadband speeds will add about £17 billion to the UK’s annual Gross Value Added (GVA) by 2024.
In November, the Prime Minister announced the Government’s intention to implement a new broadband Universal Service Obligation (USO) and our ambition is to set this at 10 Mbps. This new broadband USO will give people the legal right to request an affordable broadband connection from a designated provider, up to a reasonable cost threshold, no matter where they live. A consultation, which has now closed, was published on 23 March setting out the Government’s proposed approach to taking this work forward.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Burrowes on 2016-03-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many online sellers of knives have been (a) prosecuted and (b) convicted under section 141A of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 for selling knives to people under 18 since that section came into force; and what sentences were handed down to people so convicted.
Andrew Selous
This information is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Ansell on 2016-04-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to assist teachers in managing their workload.
Nick Gibb
We are continuing our extensive work with the profession to remove unnecessary workload so that teachers can concentrate on teaching and not bureaucracy and paperwork.
This includes establishing three review groups to tackle the top issues raised by teachers in the Government’s Workload Challenge in 2014: marking, lesson planning, and data management.
The reports from these review groups were published on 26 March 2016. We have accepted all their recommendations for Government.
As the reports make clear, it is for everybody involved in education to act on the principles and recommendations in these reports so teachers can focus on what really matters – inspiring their pupils to achieve their full potential.
We will continue to work with the teaching profession to make sure they have the ongoing support they need. We have recently conducted the first biennial Teacher Workload Survey, a commitment which will allow us to track teacher workload over the coming years. The results of the first survey will be published later this year.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Alton of Liverpool on 2016-05-25.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the Treasury ascertains that the funds of UK companies that operate in North Korea do not contribute to that country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme or its human rights violations.
Lord O’Neill of Gatley
The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) in HM Treasury is responsible for ensuring that financial sanctions, including those relating to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (North Korea), are properly understood, implemented and enforced in the United Kingdom.
OFSI is not an investigative or prosecutorial body but reviews suspected breaches of financial sanctions and then passes information to law enforcement bodies who would determine whether an investigation and or prosecution is appropriate.