Tag: Lord Kennedy of Southwark

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they have taken, in co-operation with the franchise holder, to improve the frequency of train services in South-East London.

Baroness Kramer

On 11^th June 2014, the Government awarded the Thameslink Southern Great Northern (TSGN) franchise to Govia. The franchise will run for seven years from September 2014. During this period Govia will improve the frequency of train services in the south east of London by introducing 24 trains per hour through the Thameslink core route.

The Government will be refranchising the South Eastern network in 2018 and will conduct a formal public consultation before finalising the specification.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what appointments to public bodies the Department of Transport has made in the last 12 months.

Baroness Kramer

The Secretary of State for Transport made 17 new appointments to public bodies in the 12 months from 1 June 2013 to 31 May 2014, as shown in the table below.

Name of Body	New Appointments	Date of appointment (s)
Civil Aviation Authority	2 Non executive directors	1/9/2013
British Transport Police Authority	5 Board members	1/9/2013
High Speed 2 Ltd	1 Chair	1/1/2014
Disabled Persons’ Transport Advisory Committee	7 Committee members	1/4/2014
Northern Lighthouse Board	1 Non executive director	1/6/2013
London and Continental Railways	1 Non executive director	1/5/2014

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what appointments to public bodies the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has made in the last 12 months.

Viscount Younger of Leckie

For the 12 month period ending 31 March 2014 the Department made 126 appointments, including new, reappointments and extensions to OCPA regulated public bodies. The appointments were made as follows:

Partner Organisation	Chair	Member
Advisory, Conciliation & Arbitration Service (ACAS)	1	5
Arts Humanities and Research Council	1	3
Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council	1	3
Capital for Enterprise	0	1
Competition Commission	1	35
Competition Service	0	1
Construction Industry Training Board	0	1 (employee representative)
Consumer Futures	0	13
Council for Science & Technology	1	13
Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council	0	6
Economic & Social Research Council	1	4
Higher Education Funding Council for England	1	5
Low Pay Commission	0	3
Medical Research Council	0	2
National Environment Research Council	1	3
Office of Fair Trading	2 (of which 1 was a short-term extension).	2
Science & Technology Facilities Council	1	3
Student Loans Company	2 (of which 1 was an interim appointment).	4
Technology Strategy Board	0	2
UK Commission Atomic Energy Authority	1	3

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the logbook loans industry.

Lord Deighton

The Government has fundamentally reformed regulation of the consumer credit market, including logbook lenders, by transferring responsibility from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on 1 April 2014.

The Government is very concerned about evidence of consumer detriment in the logbook loan sector, as highlighted in the FCA’s recent research paper.

The FCA has identified logbook lenders as a higher risk industry, and as such they will be in the first phase of firms to require full authorisation. Logbook loan providers are also required to meet the FCA’s binding rules, and the FCA has said that it “won’t hesitate to take action” if they do not put their customers first.

In addition, the Government has asked the Law Commission to look at how to bring the highly complex legislation underpinning logbook loans up to date.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the progress of the Credit Union Expansion Project.

Lord Freud

The DWP Credit Union Expansion Project contract began in May 2013. Around 80 credit unions are currently participating in the project. ABCUL has started delivering the Automated Loan and decision tool to participating credit unions and feedback is that the tool is ensuring loan decisions are faster, consistent and more efficient to deliver. Procurement of an IT banking platform is also being progressed but much remains to be done particularly on achieving sufficient growth for Credit Unions, and DWP continue to support and monitor the project closely

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what changes local authorities are required to make to their information technology services in order to remain connected to the gov.uk secure network.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

The Public Services Network (PSN) is a new and trusted single network for government. Ninety-eight per cent of local authorities have already transitioned to PSN, with the remainder due to transfer before the end of summer.

The Cabinet Office is supporting local authorities as they transition to PSN by providing guidance, project managers and information assurance specialists.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what advice has been issued to local authorities to make the required changes to their information technology services to remain connected to the gov.uk secure network.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

The Public Services Network (PSN) is a new and trusted single network for government. Ninety-eight per cent of local authorities have already transitioned to PSN, with the remainder due to transfer before the end of summer.

The Cabinet Office is supporting local authorities as they transition to PSN by providing guidance, project managers and information assurance specialists.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-16.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made by each local authority in the United Kingdom in making changes to their information technology services to remain part of the gov.uk secure network.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

The Public Services Network (PSN) is a new and trusted single network for government. Ninety-eight per cent of local authorities have already transitioned to PSN, with the remainder due to transfer before the end of summer.

The Cabinet Office is supporting local authorities as they transition to PSN by providing guidance, project managers and information assurance specialists.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many hospital beds per head of the population there were in (1) England, (2) London and (3) Lewisham, in each year from 2008–09 to 2013–14.

Earl Howe

Hospital beds data per head of population are not collected centrally.

Hospital beds data are collected for each National Health Service trust and NHS foundation trust.

Population estimates and projections are available for local NHS commissioning bodies; primary care trusts (PCTs) up to 2011 and clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) from 2012. These data can be aggregated up to larger areas such as strategic health authorities (SHAs) up to 2011 and local area teams from 2012.

A table has been placed in the Library which shows the estimated hospital beds per 1,000 population in England and London each year from 2008-09 to 2013-14.

It is not possible to show the hospital beds per head of population in a local commissioning body such as Lewisham, because this would be based on the assumptions that the beds in a trust are available only for the population of the local commissioning body and that this population only uses these beds. These assumptions will not reflect reality as trusts serve populations from outside their commissioning areas and patients will access services in hospitals outside their local commissioning area.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Kennedy of Southwark on 2014-06-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many people registered for unemployment benefit in each year from 2008–09 to 2013–14 in (1) the United Kingdom, (2) London as a whole, and (3) each London borough.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.