Tag: Jessica Morden

The parliamentary question asked by Jessica Morden, the Labour MP for Newport East, in the House of Commons on 2 February 2023.

Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)

What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to promote the use of UK-made steel in public procurement.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)

The Government are ensuring a competitive future for the UK steel industry, and the reported value of UK-produced steel procured by the Government was up last year by £160 million, from £108 million to £268 million.

Jessica Morden

In last week’s Westminster Hall debate, the steel Minister, the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), said

“there is huge scope for more procurement to take place in the UK.”—[Official Report, 25 January 2023; Vol. 726, c. 331WH.]

Will the Cabinet Office commit to publishing up-to-date data on the Government’s record in using UK steel, because it has not been good enough so far, and to adopting ambitious targets across Departments on the use of domestic steel in public projects?

Alex Burghart

I am pleased to tell the hon. Lady right now that 67% of the steel required for High Speed 2 is UK-produced, 94% of the steel used to maintain our rail track is produced in the UK and 90% of the steel used to build schools is produced in the UK. I understand there will be an urgent question after Question Time, which will give her the opportunity to ask a Minister from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about this.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether the proposed sale of the Green Investment Bank will include all assets of the bank.

Anna Soubry

The Government has made clear that we intend to sell the Green Investment Bank (GIB) as a going concern. The assets are an inherent part of that company.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-07-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to her Oral Answer of 4 July 2016 to Question 905617, on Mindfulness in Schools, when she plans to publish the results of the national survey.

Edward Timpson

The survey will provide the first nationally representative assessment of activities carried out by schools and colleges to support their pupils’ and students’ mental health and development of character traits.

The fieldwork for the survey has now begun and the Department expects to publish the results early in 2017.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-01-21.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will place in the Library any external advice given to his Department on green reporting to be undertaken by the privatised Green Investment Bank.

Anna Soubry

The Department has not received any external advice on green reporting to be undertaken by the privatised Green Investment Bank.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-02.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much his Department has (a) spent on its contract with Concentrix and (b) received in revenue as a result of reviews of (i) tax credit and (ii) child tax credit claims carried out by Concentrix since that contract was signed.

Mr David Gauke

The estimate of commission paid for the HM Revenue and Customs contract with SYNNEX-Concentrix relating to error and fraud is 15.8m since the start of the contract.

The total savings to date in annually managed expenditure is £284.1m. We have no way to break down this figure any further and can only provide a combined CTC and WTC figure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether his Department plans to include an undertaking to retain the staff of the Green Investment Bank as a condition when privatising that body.

Anna Soubry

It is the Department’s intention to sell the Green Investment Bank (GIB) as a going concern along with its business and staff. The GIB’s commercial value lies in its unique green specialism, including its green specialist staff. Any investor spending large sums investing in this bank will be investing precisely in this green specialism and staff.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average length of time taken was to respond to email enquiries by the Security Industry Authority in each month since January 2016.

Brandon Lewis

The average time taken to respond to electronic (e-mail or online) enquiries is unavailable in the format requested prior to July 2016.

From July 2016, the Security Industry Authority began using a new IT system, which has enabled it to produce a range of metrics. The average time taken to respond to electronic enquiries in July and August was 7 days against their service standard of 10 days.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that the privatisation of the Green Investment Bank represents value for money to the public purse.

Anna Soubry

The Government is following best practice recommended by the National Audit Office (NAO) to ensure a sale of the Green Investment Bank achieves value for money. This includes following the NAO’s recommendations on Government asset sales that were set out in its report on the sale of the Government’s shares in Eurostar.

We are consulting with the NAO about the approach we are taking, and will continue to assess whether we are achieving value for money for the taxpayer through all stages of this process.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-09-12.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether the Security Industry Authority has met its performance target of 80 per cent of applications being processed within 25 days in each month since January 2016.

Brandon Lewis

The Security Industry Authority (SIA) have an annual performance target to process 80% of applications (including renewals) within 25 working days. The SIA met this annual target in the 2015/16 financial year. Performance for 2016/17 to date is shown in the table below.

	Apr	May	June	July	Aug
Percentage processed in 25 working days	86%	81%	80%	46%	72%

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jessica Morden on 2016-01-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what his Department’s policy is on providing direct web links to information requested in written parliamentary questions in the Answers to those questions.

Joseph Johnson

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills does not have a specific policy on the provision of web links. Parliamentary Questions are answered according to the preferred approach of each individual Minister.