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Tag: 2016

  • Drew Hendry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    Drew Hendry – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Drew Hendry on 2016-02-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether his Department has decided on a date for the conclusion of the public sector spectrum release.

    Mr Edward Vaizey

    Budget 2016 announces a new government commitment that 750MHz of valuable public sector spectrum in bands under 10GHz will be made available by 2022, of which 500MHz will be made available by 2020. All revenue from spectrum auctions is paid into the Consolidated Fund operated by HM Treasury.

  • Henry Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

    Henry Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Henry Smith on 2016-03-01.

    To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps her Department is taking to encourage body confidence in young disabled people.

    Caroline Dinenage

    The government wants all young people to be confident and positive about their body image. My department has worked with a range of bodies, including the Advertising Association and the National Citizen Service, to develop materials that support good practice and encourage young people to become more informed and resilient consumers of media content; and with the PSHE Association to provide guidance for teachers on teaching about body image using accredited resources.

  • Gareth Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Gareth Johnson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Johnson on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of places available in local authority maintained nurseries in (a) Dartford and (b) Kent.

    Mr Sam Gyimah

    Local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare and early education places, and make this report available and accessible to parents. The Department does not hold borough-level estimates centrally of the number of places in local authority maintained nursery schools. However, the number of pupils attending local authority maintained nurseries can be found in the statistical first release and underlying data published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015

    The Local authority and regional tables: SFR16/2015 (Table 7b)[1] indicates that 90 pupils were registered as attending local authority maintained nursery schools in Kent in 2015.

    [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/445755/SFR16_2015_LA_tables.xlsx

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  • Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Greg Mulholland – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Mulholland on 2016-05-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the Children’s Act 1989 to protect children from the effects of Parental Alienation syndrome and implacable hostility.

    Caroline Dinenage

    Guidance on Parental Alienation Syndrome is not issued to family court judges as the ‘syndrome’ is not recognised as such by many professionals in this country.

    The Children Act 1989 contains adequate provisions to protect against the effects of parental alienation or implacable hostility. These include the requirement for the court to ascertain the wishes and feelings of a child who is the subject of a parental dispute, commensurate with that child’s age and level of understanding and the power to request Cafcass to prepare a welfare report into any matters relevant to the child or the family.

    Cafcass practitioners are aware of the potential for children to be influenced or alienated by parental views and are alert to this possibility throughout the case.

  • Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-06-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that customers are able to receive utility and other bills in paper form on request.

    George Freeman

    My Department does not intervene in the billing arrangements of individual businesses in the regulated utilities.

    But I understand that most utility and other providers give customers the option to receive bills in paper form if they so request.

  • Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    Daniel Zeichner – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Daniel Zeichner on 2016-09-12.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to increase the number of people in the UK with high-level specialist skills in data science.

    Joseph Johnson

    The Government recognises the need to increase the number of people with high-level skills in data science for the benefit of the UK, and is taking a range of measures to boost the supply of people with these skills.

    The Alan Turing Institute is a £67 million joint venture between the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and five leading UK Universities (Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, UCL and Warwick). It is the UK’s national institute for data science, and training the next generation of researchers is a key part of its mission.

    Other institutes supported by the Research Councils include the Hartree Centre (a centre of excellence in High Performance Computing), the Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research, and the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge, which are all helping researchers to develop their skills to make better use of data.

    The Research Councils are taking other steps to increase the supply of researchers with data skills, for example all Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council-funded doctoral students are required to be trained in informatics, data analysis and computational methods as a core part of their training. They support numerous Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) involved in data analysis, including the University of Edinburgh’s Data Science CDT, and the Big Data and Cloud Computing CDT at the University of Newcastle. And the £19.5 million Q-Step programme is designed to promote a step-change in quantitative social science training in the UK.

  • Douglas Chapman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Douglas Chapman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Douglas Chapman on 2016-01-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many sorties of the Watchkeeper UAV have been flown from RAF Ascension in each month since January 2015.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    None.

  • Christopher Chope – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Christopher Chope – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Christopher Chope on 2016-02-09.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will place in the Library a copy of the application made by Twynham Learning Federation to establish a new primary academy in West Christchurch which is proposed to open from September 2016 and a copy of her response.

    Edward Timpson

    The Secretary of State is happy to make available the proposal by Twynham Learning Federation and also a copy of the decision letter signed by Sir David Carter, the former Regional Schools Commissioner for the South West. These documents will be published on the department’s website in May, along with other successful central free school applications.

  • Helen Goodman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Helen Goodman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Goodman on 2016-03-01.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what the annual cost to HM Revenue and Customs is of administering probate.

    Caroline Dinenage

    The Ministry of Justice is responsible for administering probate.

    The amount of fee income accrued to the public purse in probate fee charges (after remission) increased from £19m in 2013/14 to £41.5m in 2014/15 following fee increases introduced in April 2014.

    The annual cost to the Ministry of Justice of administering probate in 2014/15 was £42.5m.

  • Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Barry Sheerman – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Barry Sheerman on 2016-04-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the capital and revenue costs of free schools in London that (a) have been provided to date, (b) are to be provided in 2016-17 and (c) are projected to be provided between 2017 and 2020.

    Edward Timpson

    The Department for Education’s accounts show that the total capital spend on free schools up to the end of 2013-14 was £1.029bn; the accounts for following years will be published in due course. The capital costs of individual projects are published once contracts are finalised and are no longer commercially sensitive. They are published, along with the costs of sixteen projects in London and one project in Kirklees, on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/capital-funding-for-open-free-schools

    The total pre- and post-opening revenue expenditure for free school projects that opened in 2011 to 2013 is also published on GOV.UK at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/revenue-expenditure-for-free-schools

    We plan to publish updated revenue expenditure for free schools that were opened in 2014 and 2015 within the next few weeks. This data will be updated annually each Autumn.

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