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Tag: Marcus Jones

  • Marcus Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Marcus Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Marcus Jones on 2014-06-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children in schools in Nuneaton will receive free school meals from 2014-15.

    Mr David Laws

    The information requested is not available. Receipt of a free school meal is dependent upon eligible parents or pupils making an application, and it is not possible to predict how many will do so.

    We do, however, recognise that 631 pupils in reception, year 1 and 2 were known to be eligible for and claiming free school meals in Nuneaton constituency in January 2014. This was 18.7% of all pupils in those year groups. With the introduction of universal infant free school meals in September 2014, all children in reception, year 1 and year 2 will be eligible for a free school lunch.

  • Marcus Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Marcus Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Marcus Jones on 2014-06-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much was spent on improvements to the railways in England and Wales in Control Period 4; and what estimate he has made of how much will be spent in Control Period 5.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    Over Control Period 4, the total amount spent on enhancements on the railways in England and Wales, as set out in Network Rail’s delivery plan update, was £7.557 billion (2012/13 prices).

    Over Control Period 5, it is estimated that £11.446 billion.

  • Marcus Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    Marcus Jones – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Marcus Jones on 2014-06-05.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what funding his Department allocated to projects relating to cycling between (a) 2005 and 2010 and (b) 2010 to 2014.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    During the five financial years 2005/6 to 2009/10, the Department for Transport (DfT) provided funding for cycling through Cycling England, an arm’s length organisation set up in 2005; in that period, Cycling England received £105m from the DfT.

    During the five financial years 2010/11 to 2014/15, the DfT allocated a final £63m to Cycling England, and has allocated direct funding of £224m for cycling projects, comprising: the £94m Cycling Cities and National Parks fund, £28.5m for Links to Schools / Linking Communities, the £35m cycle safety fund, £14.5m for Cycle Rail, £4.8m to the Highways Agency and £46.8m for Bikeability. In addition, the DfT’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund is providing £540m for local authorities to prioritise sustainable transport projects, of which 28% or £151m is being allocated to cycling projects. So total investment by this government in cycling in the five financial years 2010/11 to 2014/15 is £438m.

    DfT funding for the LSTF and its Cycling Ambition, Cycle-Rail, and Linking Communities funds is often used to lever matching local contributions. When these other sources are included, spend on cycling in England is equal to £5 per person a year, whilst spend in the eight cycling ambition cities is around £10 per person a year. From 2015/16, the LSTF forms part of the Local Growth Fund, a long-term funding commitment of £2bn a year.

  • Marcus Jones – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    Marcus Jones – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II

    The tribute made by Marcus Jones, the Conservative MP for Nuneaton, in the House of Commons on 9 September 2022.

    I speak for all my constituents in Nuneaton when I speak of our deep sadness at Queen Elizabeth’s passing and our gratitude for her long and distinguished reign. On behalf of my constituents, I convey our deepest condolences to King Charles III and our late Queen’s family.

    Like a number of Members who have spoken today, I have had the absolute honour and privilege of being the Vice-Chamberlain of the Household and the Comptroller of the Household. When I was made Vice-Chamberlain, I was dispatched to the palace with my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who spoke earlier. We did the exchange of wands of office with Her Majesty. I was as nervous as a kitten, but it went extremely well and I was very pleased with myself.

    Moments later, I was handed a Humble Address that I was to ask Her Majesty to sign, which I would then bring back and deliver in the House, as per the norm. I went back into the room and handed Her Majesty the Humble Address. She looked at me and said, “I don’t have a pen.” I searched around frantically inside my jacket—it seemed like an age, but it was only a few seconds—and I said, “Ma’am, I’m afraid I don’t have a pen either.” Quick as a flash, she said, “Don’t worry. Follow me.” All of a sudden I was on this surreal journey, trailing in the wake of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II along this long corridor—stopping on the way to give a bit of a fuss to one of the corgis.

    We came to the Queen’s study, and I could see the volume of papers and the number of red boxes. This was two weeks before the first lockdown, and I could see the number of things that the Queen was doing at that time on our behalf. She signed the Humble Address with her own pen and then asked me about my wife and family. It was fantastic, and I came out of that room feeling on top of the world. It would not matter whether the Queen was talking to a President, a Prime Minister, a schoolchild on a school visit, or a patient in a hospital or a hospice, all of them would have gone away with exactly the same feeling. That was one of Her Majesty’s abiding qualities among many others. Thank you, Ma’am, for your dedication and service to our nation. God save the King.

  • Marcus Jones – 2019 Speech During No Confidence Motion

    Below is the text of the speech made by Marcus Jones, the Conservative MP for Nuneaton, in the House of Commons on 16 January 2019.

    I rise to support the Government and to speak against this motion. In doing that, I will talk about the record of this Government and the issue that has triggered today’s vote: yesterday’s Brexit vote.

    To put our record in context, everything the Conservatives have done in government since 2010 has had to be framed in the context of the recession, the massive deficit and mess left behind by the Labour party. Despite the mess left behind—the 6% drop in GDP, the 800,000 more people unemployed—under this Conservative party, 3.4 million jobs have been created, we have record employment and record unemployment, we have provided 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds and 30 hours of free childcare for working parents, and the national living wage. We have cut income tax so that people can now earn double nearly what they could under the Labour party before paying income tax. We ​have not increased fuel duty for eight years and many more of our children are coming out of primary school with a far higher standard of reading and writing than previously. We have more doctors and nurses in our hospitals. We have fewer infections and people dying because of those in our hospitals, and we are putting £20 billion into the NHS and have a 10-year plan for the NHS, under which we are putting significantly more money into mental health provision. In my constituency, the Labour party tried to close A&E and maternity, so Labour does not have the record it states or thinks it has.

    Have we got everything right? No, we have not got everything right in government. There is still a lot more to do. We need to make sure we build on the money and extra resources that we are now putting into the police force. We need to make sure we honour the commitment to halve and end rough sleeping. We need to make sure we keep refining universal credit in order to get it right, because having a system that gets people into work is the right thing to do. The alternative is more debt, more borrowing and a leadership team that does not believe in this country and thinks more about other countries than its own.

    We are here because of the Brexit debate and Opposition Members have talked about nothing but red lines today. Whether we like what the Prime Minister put on the table yesterday or not, the red lines that she put down were based solely on the referendum in which the British public voted and on manifestos that about 85% of the public voted for. Despite problems across the House and people driving their own agendas, she has tried her best to get a deal that the House can agree with. Clearly it does not do so, but I say to Members opposite that this House voted to have a referendum and the public voted for Brexit. We must deliver on that.

    People do not want a general election. They want us to get on with the job and come out of the European Union, and they want us to come together as a House to do that in a sensible way. They do not want a general election, as they do not believe that the Leader of the Opposition is a Prime Minister in waiting. They do not believe that he could be a Prime Minister. I am against this motion and I will be proud to go through the Lobby and vote to back this Government tonight.