Tag: Lord Taylor of Warwick

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2015-11-04.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to encourage more firms to use name-blind job applications in order to counter unconscious bias.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Government is committed to tackling discrimination in the graduate jobs market. On 26 October the Prime Minister announced that agreement to implement name-blind applications had been reached with a range of major public and private sector graduate employers. The agreement covers some of the largest graduate employers, including the NHS, Teach First , HSBC, Deloitte, Virgin Money, KPMG, BBC, Learn direct and local Government and the Civil Service. Collectively, the organisations that have signed up to this agreement employ 1.8 million people in the UK.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2015-11-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are holding discussions about reducing EU regulation of UK business.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

Reducing the burden of EU regulation is a critical element of stimulating jobs, competitiveness and growth in Europe. We welcome the European Commission’s recent progress in this area, but want them to go further. Together with other like-minded Member States, we are pressing the Commission to bring forward proposals for an EU target to cut the total burden on business, in line with the Prime Minister’s EU reform letter to European Council President Tusk.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-01-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the impact on aid to least developed countries of spending on refugees arriving in European countries.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

Spending on refugees in the UK is expected to increase over the course of the Parliament to reflect the government’s commitment to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years. However, this is in the context of wider growth in the UK’s aid budget.

This is in line with the UK aid strategy: UK aid: tackling global challenges in the national interest, which is available on the gov.uk website.

The precise geographical focus of the Department for International Development’s aid spending will be determined through the multilateral and bilateral aid reviews, to be published in Spring 2016.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-02-02.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to better inform all landlords of the new rules that oblige them to check new tenants’ immigration status.

Lord Bates

The Home Office has undertaken a proactive engagement and communications campaign to raise awareness about the roll out of the scheme. This has involved private rented sector engagement, media engagement and the distribution of communications materials across a range of Government and partner channels. We are continuing direct engagement with the private rented sector through a consultative panel, chaired by the Immigration Minister and Lord Best, which includes housing experts and homelessness charities. The Home Office has also undertaken a programme of engagement including training events for all local authorities and presentations at sector conferences.

The panel has helped to shape the communications strategy for the scheme and has collaborated on communications tactics and methods. The Home Office has collaborated with the panel to produce various communications materials which have been shared with the sector and published on GOV.UK. Since October 2015, there has been an increase in web traffic to Right to Rent guidance on GOV.UK with over 80,000 unique views of key pages.

The Home Office will continue proactive engagement and communications activity in the months ahead to ensure landlords and tenants are aware of the materials and guidance available.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-04-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the finding in the study of attitudes to work by the Smith Institute that more than two-thirds of British workers are spending longer at their workplace for little or no gain in productivity.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

The Smith Institute survey of trade union members asked whether respondents thought they were working “harder” and whether they were more productive than two years ago. Given the ambiguity over the term “working harder” and the unrepresentative sample used, caution should be drawn on the relationship between hours worked and productivity.

However, ONS data indicate that between 2010 and 2015 the total number of hours worked per week in the UK economy has increased by 8.4%¹. The vast majority of the increase, around 80%, came from higher employment. While the remainder did come from increased average hours this in part reflects a reduction in the share of part-time work.

It has been this significant increase in the number of people employed that has driven growth in the UK economy in recent years. The challenge now is to ensure the UK continues to grow through rising productivity. The government’s ‘Fixing the Foundations’ productivity plan, sets out an ambitious vision and the pro-productivity agenda designed to meet this challenge. Productivity, measured as output per hour worked, increased by 1.0% in 2015 as a whole – the largest annual increase since 2011.

References

1. ONS UK Labour Market (March 2016): Actual weekly hours worked (seasonally adjusted)

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/datasets/actualweeklyhoursworkedseasonallyadjustedhour01sa

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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-06-29.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the implications for small businesses of the UK leaving the EU.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

There will be no immediate changes to the UK’s relationship with the EU, in the way goods can move or services can be sold. The Government is committed to ensuring that the UK remains open for business and continues to grow and thrive.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is engaging with small businesses about the issues, risks and opportunities arising as a result of the decision to leave the EU. The Government is working to ensure that the UK remains one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-09-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the EU referendum result, what action they are taking to protect workers’ rights.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

There is already a range of protections for workers in UK law. It is important to get the right balance between the needs of employers and employees and that remains our position.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2016-03-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they propose to cut £4.4 billion from benefits for disabled people over the course of the Parliament.

Lord Freud

We spend around £50bn every year on benefits alone to support people with disabilities or health conditions, with spending on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) having increased by more than £3 billion since 2010.

The government has no further plans to make welfare savings, beyond those already announced. The government is committed to talking to disabled people, their representatives, healthcare professionals and employers to ensure the welfare system works better with the health and social care systems and provides help and support to those who need it most.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2015-11-04.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what measures are in place to promote apprenticeships in the construction sector.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

In 2013/14 there were 15,890 apprenticeships starts in the Construction, Planning and the Built Environment Sector Subject Area.

We are taking action to support apprenticeships in all sectors to meet our commitment to 3 million starts. We are working with large and small businesses to encourage employers, colleges and schools to work together to increase the number of apprenticeships.

Over 1300 employers – including in the construction sector – are currently involved in designing new apprenticeship standards. These include apprenticeships in construction occupations at a range of levels such as Construction Technician (L6), Quantity Surveyor (L6), Construction Site Management (L6), Advanced Carpentry & Joinery (L4) and Steel Fixer (L2)

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Taylor of Warwick on 2015-11-23.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce the deficit in the light of statistics from the ONS recording the highest level of borrowing in six years.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The government has made significant progress to date in reducing borrowing – the deficit has more than halved as a share of GDP since 2009-10 and the national debt as a share of GDP is forecast to be falling this year. But the job is not yet done – the deficit remains high among advanced economies.

At Summer Budget the government announced £17 billion of consolidation measures; £5 billion from tax avoidance, evasion and imbalances in the tax system and £12 billion from welfare reform. The Autumn Statement and Spending Review laid out a further £18 billion; £12 billion savings to overall RDEL spending; £3 billion from the Apprenticeship levy and £3 billion from delivering reforms such as Making Tax Digital and further measures to tackle tax avoidance.

In their November forecast, the independent OBR predict the deficit to fall in each year of this Parliament, reaching a £10.1 billion surplus by 2019-20.