Tag: Jim Cunningham

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-03-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate his Department has made of the number of staff it has hired to support the Air Cadet Organisation in each of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Julian Brazier

The Air Cadet Organisation (ACO) is manned primarily by Cadet Force Adult Volunteer staff. The small permanently staffed Headquarters Air Cadets (HQ AC), alongside Headquarters 2 Flying Training School (HQ 2FTS) and the regional and wing formations, together have a staff of approximately 250 personnel.

Glider maintenance and recovery is undertaken by contractors and it is their responsibility for the manning of the contracted work.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-04-13.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2016 to Question 31494, what information his Department holds on the potential percentage change in GDP which would result from estimated levels of immigration in the next 10 years.

Mr David Gauke

The Treasury has not made any formal assessment of the effect of immigration on GDP in the next 10 years.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-04-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what estimate he has made of the total operating budget for the BBC in each of the next five years; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Edward Vaizey

It is important that the BBC has a sustainable budget, allowing it to continue to provide world-class content and services. The Government will set out plans for the future of the BBC, including its funding, in a White Paper in May.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-04-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much EU (a) 7th Framework Programme and (b) Horizon 2020 funding has been provided to (i) universities, (ii) other research institutions and (iii) small businesses in the UK in each of the last five years.

Joseph Johnson

The figures requested are set out below. These reflect the full value of grant agreements signed in each calendar year, not the money received in that year.

Higher and Secondary Education Organisations (HES) agreed funding (€):

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
FP7	832,679,583	923,451,655	1,017,766,046	390,441,742	22,102,754
Horizon 2020				178,789,606	910,814,167

Non-profit Research organisations (REC) agreed funding (€):

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
FP7	109,612,016	78,523,761	107,290,576	38,249,216	1,469,761
Horizon 2020				48,957,471	140,977,361

All Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) agreed funding (€):

	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
FP7	127,491,096	180,348,365	229,312,029	39,929,247	241,625
Horizon 2020				49,215,444	219,693,279

Please note that the SME figures may include some HES or REC organisations.

The variation in the figures across the years in part reflects the fact that calls are competitively bid for and vary considerably in the amount of funding available; and in part the fact that the FP7 budget was back-loaded, with increasing amounts of money available to award as grants in the final two years of the programme (2012-2013). In contrast, relatively few grants were awarded in the first year of Horizon 2020 (2014), which thereafter is due to run with annual budgets larger than those available to FP7.

Overall, the UK was the second biggest recipient of EU research funding under FP7, and remains so under Horizon 2020.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-04-27.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment her Department has made of the effects on wider biodiversity of commonly used pesticides; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

Strict regulation is in place to reduce the risk of environmental damage by pesticides. A pesticide may only be placed on the market if and when the product has been authorised by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Following a thorough risk assessment, HSE imposes conditions on the way pesticides are used, to ensure there is no harm to human health and no unacceptable effect on the environment. Pesticides that pose unacceptable risks are not authorised.

Assessments by Defra and others identify three types of impacts on biodiversity:

• General impacts of past agricultural intensification. The 2011 UK National Ecosystem Assessment identified significant biodiversity loss over the last 50 years, with pollution and land use change on farmland as major drivers. Land use change includes the loss of flower-rich habitat, changes to cropping types and timings, drainage, hedge management, and pesticide use. It is not simple to disentangle these impacts;

• Direct impacts on non-target organisms, including insects and aquatic species. For example, Defra-commissioned research on the status of UK pollinators identified some correlative evidence of reduced species richness at the landscape-scale associated with more intensive use of pesticides, but concluded that further research on direct empirical evidence of field-scale impacts was required. Further research is ongoing; and,

• There is evidence on indirect impacts of pesticides on species such as birds or bats that feed on invertebrates or plants. This is an area of active research in the UK, Europe and North America, with population impacts recorded for some species such as grey partridge.

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.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-05-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of carers aged 16 and under looking after a relative in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement.

Edward Timpson

According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 166,000 young carers in 2011.

The Government has changed the law so that all young carers have been entitled to an assessment of their needs for support since April 2015, regardless of who they care for, what type of care they provide, or how much time they spend caring. Around 60%, of young carers are thought to be eligible for free school meals, and those who have been registered for free school meals at any point in the last six years will attract pupil premium funding to the schools that they attend.

We do not specifically estimate the amount of financial support provided to young carers.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-06-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, pursuant to the Answer of 2 June 2016 to Question 38323, whether an annual record is kept by his Department of locations visited by Ministers and officials of his Department; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Mark Francois

No separate annual record of locations visited by Ministers and officials is kept by this department. However, details of Ministers meetings with external organisations are published online as part of our transparency agenda. Details can be found at:

http://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=department-for-communities-and-local-government&publication type=transparency-data

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-06-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what his Department’s recent estimate is of the number of civilian casualties in the conflict in Yemen; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Yemen estimates that over 6,000 people have been killed and over 30,000 people injured since the conflict escalated in March 2015. A political solution remains the best way to bring this conflict and the suffering of the Yemeni people to an end. We continue to urge all those involved in the UN-facilitated peace talks to find a way to bring peace and stability to Yemen which its people deserve.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-06-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 9 June 2016 to Question 38502, what estimate she has made of her Department’s (a) core total evidence spend and (b) core research and development spend in each of the next five years; and if she will make a statement.

George Eustice

The estimated evidence spend for core Defra for 2016/17 is £50m, of which £31m is planned to be spent in research and development (R&D). The estimates for each of the remaining years of the Spending Review 2015 (SR15) period will not be finalised until the annual business planning round is concluded before the new financial year begins.