Tag: Greg Knight

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-06-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will commission research into improving pedestrian safety on pavements and to determine whether accidents occur more often on tarmacadam or on concrete slab surfaces; and if he will make a statement.

Andrew Jones

The Department for Transport has no current plans to commission research into the issue of pedestrian’s safety on footways or to ascertain whether accidents occur more often on tarmacadam or on concrete slab surfaces.

Guidance is already available to highway authorities in respect to providing good and safe surfaces for pedestrians. The Department for Transport Manual for Streets – https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/341513/pdfmanforstreets.pdf – also provides advice on footways and advises that surfaces used by pedestrians need to be smooth and free from trip hazards.

It is ultimately for each highway authority to decide on what materials they use for ensuring the best footway surface for the area for which they are responsible.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-02-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what further resources from the Local Growth Fund he intends to make available to allow additional road improvements; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Department for Transport is contributing over £6 billion to the Local Growth Fund in this parliament. This is already helping to fund over 300 road improvement schemes in Local Enterprise Partnerships’ programmes. Local Enterprise Partnerships will soon have the opportunity to make further bids to the Local Growth Fund for new projects, including a £475m element for very large major transport schemes. The Government will be providing details shortly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-04-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what his Department’s most recent advice is for British citizens seeking to holiday abroad on the risk of illness from the Zika virus; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Hugo Swire

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel advice advises British nationals who are planning to travel to areas with confirmed cases of locally transmitted Zika virus to follow the advice of the National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC). They should also discuss their travel plans with their healthcare provider, particularly if they are pregnant or planning to become pregnant. The current advice issued by NaTHNaC is that pregnant women should postpone non-essential travel to areas with current active Zika virus transmission until after pregnancy.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-07-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what reason his Department deploys speed cameras that photograph vehicles from the front in addition to speed cameras that photograph vehicles from the rear; and for what reasons his Department does not have a single policy on the deployment of such cameras.

Andrew Jones

It is for local authorities and police to decide how they wish to operate speed cameras. The Department issued guidance in 2007 entitled “Use of speed and red-light cameras for traffic enforcement: guidance on deployment, visibility and signing”. I wrote to all local authorities in England and Wales on 20 October 2015 to remind them of the guidance which is available on gov.uk.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will commission a study into the effect on bird and marine life of off-shore windfarms; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

The Planning Inspectorate is responsible for examining development consent applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects, including offshore renewable energy installations over 100MW in English and Welsh waters and their adjacent offshore waters, and then making a recommendation to the Secretary of State at Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) for the final decision.

As part of the planning process, the environmental impacts of offshore renewable energy installations are considered through the requirement to undertake project level Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Habitats Regulations Assessments (HRAs). In order to improve the evidence on the extent of the environmental impacts of offshore renewable energy installations, the Offshore Renewables Joint Industry Programme (ORJIP) was initiated by DECC, Marine Scotland and The Crown Estate. ORJIP includes a longer-term project to improve empirical evidence on the impacts of offshore renewables on marine species, such as birds and marine mammals. Further information is available at http://www.carbontrust.com/client-services/technology/innovation/offshore-renewables-joint-industry-programme-orjip/.

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress has been made in implementing the British Food Plan across all Government departments; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

The Government is committed to providing food produced to British standards or their equivalent in all its canteens, restaurants and cafeterias by the end of this Parliament. Defra is working closely with other Departments and businesses to implement the Plan for Public Procurement of Food, including a balanced scorecard. The Ministry of Justice recently launched a tender for supplying food to prisons, worth £500 million, which requires bids to use the balanced scorecard. Their current supplier has agreed that the 30 million portions of UHT milk served in prisons each year will be sourced from UK producers. We are working with MoD to develop the best way to embed the balanced scorecard into their forthcoming contracts. We are working with all central Departments to ensure their food and catering contracts comply with the balanced scorecard approach.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-10-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what measures her Department is taking to ensure that all mobile phone operators have sufficient spectrum to meet future demands for mobile data; and what steps her Department is taking to prevent a dominant company controlling the market on spectrum availability.

Matt Hancock

All mobile network operators face rapidly growing demand for data, and need spectrum to meet that demand. Since 2010 the Government has made 384 MHz of spectrum used by the public sector available for private sector use, including 190 MHz of spectrum suitable for mobile data. This mobile spectrum is being assigned by Ofcom through an auction; a consultation on the auction rules is expected soon.

Ofcom’s duties include the promotion of competition and efficient use of spectrum, and it has indicated that it remains committed to the principle of a four-operator UK market – and therefore to four operators with sufficient spectrum to be credible. The Government therefore believes that Ofcom will set rules that ensure serious bidders approaching the forthcoming auction with realistic valuations of the scarce spectrum on offer can obtain the spectrum they need.

In the next 3-5 years the government and Ofcom will provide additional spectrum for mobile data including the 700 MHz band.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-02-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department has taken to ascertain the reason for a large number of whales becoming stranded on the east coast of the UK in 2016; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

Mass stranding events of whales are rare and ascertaining what causes them can be difficult. This is why Defra, in conjunction with the Devolved Administrations of Scotland and Wales, funds the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP). Although it is still too early to draw any conclusions on what may have caused the recent mass strandings of sperm whales in the North Sea, the CSIP will be working with stranding networks in Germany and the Netherlands over the coming months to try to identify the potential cause.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-04-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make an assessment of recent trends in the prevalence of myxomatosis in the UK; and if she will make a statement.

Rory Stewart

Myxomatosis is not a notifiable disease. As such the Government has not made an assessment of its incidence recently.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Greg Knight on 2016-10-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, for what reasons his Department deploys speed cameras that photograph vehicles from the (a) front and (b) rear on (i) trunk roads and (ii) motorways; and for what reasons his Department does not have a consistent policy on the deployment and use of such speed cameras.

Andrew Jones

It is for local authorities and police to decide how they wish to operate speed cameras. The Department issued guidance in 2007 entitled “Use of speed and red-light cameras for traffic enforcement: guidance on deployment, visibility and signing”. I wrote to all local authorities in England and Wales on 20 October 2015 to remind them of the guidance which is available on gov.uk.

Some cameras have the capability to photograph vehicles from the front and rear, whereas others do not. Where front and back photographing is possible, it will be for highway authorities and the Police to decide whether such cameras are most suitable.