Tag: Parliamentary Question

  • Gordon Marsden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Gordon Marsden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gordon Marsden on 2016-03-22.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 8 February 2016 to Question 25741, what criteria the Government plans to use to allocate the funds secured from the European Social Fund for the period 2014-2020.

    Anna Soubry

    EU regulations require the United Kingdom to spend at least 45.9 per cent of its national allocation for structural funds for the period 2014-2020 on the European Social Fund (ESF). The United Kingdom’s Partnership Agreement with the European Commission, which can be found on GOV.UK at ‘European Structural and Investment Funds: UK Partnership Agreement’, sets out how the requirement was met.

    Within England, notional allocations for the European Regional Development Fund and ESF were made on the basis of Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) areas. The total allocations to each LEP area for the 2014-2020 period can be found on the GOV.UK website at ‘EU Structural Funds: UK allocations 2014 to 2020’. Each LEP area was asked how much it wanted to devote to the ESF, drawing on guidance issued by Government to ensure compliance with the regulatory requirements at national level. The guidance can also be found on the GOV.UK website. Iinformation on the Strategies for 2014-2020 prepared by each LEP area can be found on the website ‘The Network of LEPs-LEP Network’, searching by European funding. These set out how much each proposed should be spent on ESF in their area.

    Management of EU structural funds is devolved. The Devolved Administrations decide the criteria for allocation of ESF within their remits, taking account of the need to meet EU regulatory requirements.

  • Baroness McIntosh of Pickering – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Baroness McIntosh of Pickering – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness McIntosh of Pickering on 2016-04-22.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of EU Directive 2014/56/EU and Regulation 537/2014 on statutory auditing, what assessment they have made of the potential impact of joint audit on levels of competition across the UK auditing sector.

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The Government does intend to implement provisions relating to increased tendering as part of the implementation of the EU Audit Regulation and Directive. This is in line with the recommendations of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

    The provision on joint audit in the EU Regulation would act as an exemption from having to retender with the frequency envisaged by the CMA. The government consulted on the implementation of the audit directive including this option, and concluded the option should not be taken up.

    Joint audit is not a practice followed in the UK, though it is expressly permitted by the Companies and legislation on some other entities. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has consulted on whether to take up this derogation. In response to our discussion document in December 2014 on auditor regulation, only 4 of 25 respondents supported its implementation.

    It is unclear that increased joint audit would encourage competition. The option in the EU Regulation could result in prolonged audit engagements (up to 24 years) and fewer changes in auditor. This would be contrary to the objective of the CMA and the Regulation, which is to increase retendering and rotation of auditors not less.

    The CMA considered the impact of joint audits on competition and concluded that promoting joint audits would have little effect on barriers to entry, expansion and selection. The CMA’s conclusions were based on views provided by a range of stakeholders. The CMA was not able to quantify the potential cost of imposing joint audits, but did state that they believed that across the market the costs would be potentially significant. They state that a lot of weight was placed on the views of investors, who were almost universally opposed to joint audits on the grounds of additional costs and risks to audit quality.

  • Matthew Offord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Matthew Offord – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Matthew Offord on 2016-06-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has conducted of whether military personnel and contractors are able safely to load and unload equipment from Ministry of Defence vessels onto the pier head at Ascension Island.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    The loading and unloading of freight from Ministry of Defence chartered vessels is conducted by the Ascension Island Government. A Health and Safety and Environmental Risk Assessment of loading/unloading equipment at the Ascension Islands pier head was undertaken by the Joint Forces Command Health and Safety lead in September 2015.

  • Tom Elliott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    Tom Elliott – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Elliott on 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much funding from the public purse for each refugee camp has been given in each of the last five years; and on what that funding has been spent in each of those years.

    Rory Stewart

    DFID supports refugee camps in many different countries as part of our wider programming to assist those displaced by conflict, persecution and fear. It is not possible to say how much is spent on each individual camp.

  • Lord Foulkes of Cumnock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Lord Foulkes of Cumnock – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Foulkes of Cumnock on 2016-10-10.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to appoint a new Minister of State for the Department for International Development in the House of Lords as a replacement for the current Minister; and if so, when they intend to make that appointment.

    Baroness Evans of Bowes Park

    The Rt Hon Lord Bates has been appointed as Minister of State at the Department for International Development (DfID).

  • Sadiq Khan – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Sadiq Khan – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Sadiq Khan on 2015-10-30.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, on how many occasions patients were granted weekend leave in each mental health hospital in London in each month since 1 January 2015.

    Alistair Burt

    The information is not available in the format requested. The information in the attached table shows episodes of leave starting on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday for each London mental health trust, between 1 January 2015 to July 2015.

    The attached table is provided by the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

  • Maria Eagle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    Maria Eagle – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2015-11-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when he plans for the first of the Successor submarines to enter service; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr Philip Dunne

    As stated in paragraph 4.76 in the Strategic Defence and Security Review 15 (Cm9161), we expect the first Successor submarine to enter service in the early 2030s.

  • Harry Harpham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Harry Harpham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Harry Harpham on 2016-01-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what the cost to the public purse was of developing proposals for a new carbon capture and storage project in Yorkshire.

    Andrea Leadsom

    The Government continues to view CCS as having a potential role in the long-term decarbonisation of the UK’s power and industrial sectors and we are engaging closely with the White Rose developer and wider CCS industry. The Department has paid around £31 million between 2011/12 and November 2015 on developing proposals for the White Rose carbon capture and storage project in Yorkshire. This included the investment in Front End Engineering and Design to determine the cost and feasibility of the project, independent professional technical, legal, financial and commercial advice and civil service staff.

  • Lord Beecham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    Lord Beecham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-01-28.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government why they have labelled the national minimum wage of £7.20 an hour as the national living wage” when it falls below the UK Living Wage and London Living Wage set by the Living Wage Foundation.”

    Baroness Neville-Rolfe

    The National Living Wage will come into force on 1 April 2016. We estimate that a full-time National Minimum Wage worker will earn over £4,400 more by 2020 from the National Living Wage in cash terms.

    This Government is committed to improving living standards, particularly for the low paid. Guided by a proportion of median earnings which leading experts recommend, the National Living Wage recognizes the balance needed of an affordable rate for businesses with achieving a significant increase in minimum pay.

    The Low Pay Commission will continue to make recommendations on the appropriate rate for the National Living Wage going forward, to make sure that wages rise to reward workers while considering the impact on the economy.

  • Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Jim Cunningham – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-02-23.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the total number of students enrolled in the English Baccalaureate in each year since its inception; and if she will make a statement.

    Nick Gibb

    Information on the percentage of pupils entered for the components of the English Baccalaureate between 2009/10 and 2014/15 is published in the Statistical First Release “Revised GCSE and equivalent results in England: 2014 to 2015”. [1]

    [1] 2014/15 revised table can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/494052/SFR01_2016_National_Tables.xlsx. (Table 1b)

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