Tag: Kate Hoey

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2015-12-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what representations he has received from (a) the hon. Member for Wallasey, (b) the Labour Party and (c) the Trades Union Congress on protection of workers’ rights in the EU; and if he will make a statement.

Nick Boles

My Rt hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has a regular series of meetings with the Trade Union Congress in which a range of subjects are discussed. The Trade Union Congress has responded to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills’ consultation on the implementation of the Posted Workers Enforcement Directive. In addition, some Trade Union Bill correspondence has referred to compliance with the EU Social Charter. No recent representations from either the honourable Member for Wallasey or the Labour Party have been received through the Department concerning the protection of workers’ rights in the EU.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the effect on passenger safety of reducing staffing at control rooms on London Underground.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The department is confident that the changes introduced by Transport for London will not have a detrimental impact on passenger safety on the London Underground.

Not every London Underground (LU) station has a Station Control Room, as they are not a safety or security requirement at all stations. In advance of making the recent changes, LU reviewed the requirement for a Control Room at each station to determine their necessity based on individual station and staff needs.

At some locations it was decided that there was no longer a requirement for a Control Room as there were better ways to provide Control Room functionality in the station. Moving station staff into customer facing areas increases their ability to identify suspicious behaviour and to report it.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2016-04-14.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the average length of time was for a Disclosure and Barring Service check to be completed in each of the last three years; and if she will make a statement.

Karen Bradley

The Disclosure and Barring Service is a non-departmental public body which provides access to appropriate criminal record information for employers through its disclosure service for England and Wales. It also makes independent barring decisions about people who have harmed, or where there is considered to be a risk of harm to, a child or vulnerable person within the workplace. Given the sensitive nature of this work and the reliance on police forces to provide locally held intelligence, it would not be appropriate to introduce competition.

Whilst no assessment has been made of the affect of timeliness on the number of job opportunities which may have been lost, the impact which delays may have on applicants is recognised. The DBS is reliant on police forces completing their checks in a timely manner and is working closely with those forces whose performance does not meet turnaround time targets. In very exceptional cases, where it is apparent that a delay is likely to cause undue hardship to an applicant, the DBS will do all it can to expedite the process by raising an escalation with the relevant police force.

The average end to end time taken to complete a DBS check, including the time taken by police forces, is listed in following table.

Financial Year	Average calendar days for a disclosure to be processed
13/14	11.5
14/15	14.4
15/16	14.5

The proportion of checks which took longer than (a) eight weeks (b) 12 weeks and (c) six months is listed in the following table.

Financial Year	Disclosures which took longer than 8 weeks	Disclosures which took longer than 12 weeks	Disclosures which took longer than 6 Months
% of Disclosures	% of Disclosures	% of Disclosures
13/14	2.6%	0.8%	0.0%
14/15	4.9%	2.1%	0.1%
15/16	5.2%	3.5%	0.3%

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2015-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish the October 2015 census data for primary school reception class places for each school in the London Borough of Lambeth.

Edward Timpson

The department does not publish information from the October school census, and instead publishes information from the January census which is the only one of the termly censuses that covers all school types and collects information on class sizes. We collect data on pupils but not on places in schools. Data from the January 2016 school census will be published in June 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the punctuality of South West Trains’ passenger rail services in each month since that company formally entered into a deep alliance with Network Rail in April 2012.

Claire Perry

The Public Performance Measure is a measurement of train punctuality against the planned services for the day. The Department regularly monitors each operators performance. This includes regular meetings with their senior management where performance figures are scrutinised and challenged.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what criteria are used to establish whether delays over five minutes to a scheduled commuter train service in (a) London and (b) the South East were caused by (i) Network Rail, (ii) the train operating company or (iii) other factors; and what changes have been made to those criteria since January 2008.

Claire Perry

The criteria for establishing delay causes are to be found in the Delay Attribution Guide, issued by the Delay Attribution Board – a joint industry body remitted to provide guidance to the industry on delay attribution issues.

The current guide was issued in April 2014. Copies of the all the guides since 2007 can be seen at:

http://www.delayattributionboard.co.uk/delayattributionguides.htm

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many of the existing franchise agreements between his Department and train operating companies contain punctuality targets for timetabled passenger services; what the target is in each case; and what the penalties are for missing such a target.

Claire Perry

6 existing franchise agreements contain punctuality targets for timetabled passenger services.

The targets are in the franchise agreements, which are published online by the Department for Transport at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-register-of-rail-passenger-franchise-agreements. The associated contractual payments are commercially confidential.

“

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2014-07-16.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many train operating companies (TOCs) missed their annual punctuality targets in each year of Control Period 4, 2009-14; and whether the Office of Rail Regulation can impose fines on TOCs for missing punctuality targets for timetabled train services.

Claire Perry

The regulatory targets for punctuality set by the Office of Rail Regulation for Control Period 4 applied to Network Rail, but not to the individual TOCs. ORR holds Network Rail accountable for its delivery to TOCs by enforcing targets agreed between Network Rail and TOCs.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on consumer choice represented by the European Commission’s plans to bring forward the setting of maximum premitted levels for vitamins and minerals in food supplements through the food supplements directive.

Jane Ellison

No discussions have yet taken place with Commissioner Andriukaitis. The new European Commission has not announced any renewed plans to implement Article 5 of the Food Supplements Directive and the Government has not recently made an assessment of potential effects of maximum permitted levels of vitamins and minerals, either on consumer choice, or on British businesses. Our advice to United Kingdom manufacturers on safe daily dose levels for vitamins and minerals in food supplements is based on the report of the UK’s Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals. The industry has supported the use of these levels and the report is also used by some other member states as advice for safe upper levels.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Hoey on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect on British businesses in the health and nutrition sector of the European Commission’s plans to implement maximum permitted levels for vitamins and minerals in food supplements through the food supplements directive.

Jane Ellison

No discussions have yet taken place with Commissioner Andriukaitis. The new European Commission has not announced any renewed plans to implement Article 5 of the Food Supplements Directive and the Government has not recently made an assessment of potential effects of maximum permitted levels of vitamins and minerals, either on consumer choice, or on British businesses. Our advice to United Kingdom manufacturers on safe daily dose levels for vitamins and minerals in food supplements is based on the report of the UK’s Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals. The industry has supported the use of these levels and the report is also used by some other member states as advice for safe upper levels.