The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Tanlaw on 2016-09-05.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to change the meaning of the acronym GMT from Greenwich Mean Time to Greenwich Meridian Time.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
We consider that any attempt to change the meaning of the acronym GMT is likely to result in confusion.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Burrowes on 2016-10-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claims were stockpiled (a) before and (b) after the Upper Tribunal ruling of 17 March 2016 on the unlawful and discriminatory use of the past presence test.
Penny Mordaunt
No claims were stockpiled before the Upper Tribunal ruling of 17 March 2016, 40 Disability Living Allowance claims were stockpiled after the ruling.
Section 27 of the Social Security Act 1998 provides that, where the Upper Tribunal decides on a social security appeal that the Secretary of State has made an error of law in his original decision and other claims subsequently fall to be decided by the Secretary of State, the judgment generally is not to be applied in relation to any period that predates the Upper Tribunal’s decision (s.27(3)). This statutory rule does not apply to the person who brought the original appeal, to people who have already lodged an appeal against a decision or who are still in time to do so, or to people whose case the Secretary of State has stockpiled (or whose appeal he has stayed) pending the judgment under section 25 of the Act.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Michael Dugher on 2015-11-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what estimate she has made of the change in the number of jobs in the solar sector that will be lost as a result of the Government changes to the feed-in tariff in (a) Barnsley East, (b) Barnsley, (c) South Yorkshire and (d) Yorkshire and the Humber.
Andrea Leadsom
The Government proposed changes to the feed-in tariff scheme (FITs) as part of the FIT review, on which we consulted widely between 27th August and 23rd October.
Part of the purpose of that consultation was to gather views on the broader economic impact of the proposals. The actual impact on the sector will, of course, depend on the options taken forward after all responses to the consultation have been considered. We are currently analysing feedback submitted during the consultation and intend to publish a Government response in due course.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paul Flynn on 2015-12-10.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what form of transport she used to travel to the COP21 conference in Paris in December 2015; and for what reasons she used that form of transport.
Justine Greening
I flew to the COP 21 once which was the most cost effective and efficient means of travel. DFID offsets all its air and train travel.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Helen Goodman on 2016-01-14.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure schools in deprived areas have adequate money in their budgets to take children on school trips connected to the curriculum.
Mr Sam Gyimah
At the last Spending Review, the Chancellor announced that the Government would meet its manifesto commitment to protect the core schools budget throughout this Parliament. We have also protected the pupil premium at its current rates, worth £2.5 billion annually. Additionally, all local authorities must include a deprivation factor in their local funding formulae, through which they distribute funding to schools in their locality. It is for individual schools to decide how best to use their funding to raise the attainment of pupils, including those from deprived backgrounds, which can include visits in support of the curriculum.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Stoddart of Swindon on 2016-02-09.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Statement by Lord Bates on 2 February (HLWS495), whether they intend to resist any proposal to allow the EU border guard to intervene directly in member states; and what assessment they have made of whether such an extension of EU powers would be made by way of treaty change and a UK referendum.
Lord Bates
The proposal for a European Border and Coast Guard builds on provisions of the Schengen agreement in which the UK does not participate; the UK will not therefore be bound by the new regulation.
The UK is supportive of steps to increase the security of the external Schengen border – we have a strong interest in effective management of the Schengen external border, not just in combating illegal migration, and cross-border crime but also as part of the EU-wide counter-terrorism effort.
In the Commission’s view there is sufficient basis in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to take forward the clause which allows for intervention, without change to the Treaty.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Luciana Berger on 2016-03-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 3 March 2016 to Question 28901, on nurses: training, if he will make it his policy to collect that information.
Ben Gummer
There are no plans at present to collect this information but this will be kept under review in light of work being undertaken this year by Health Education England.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Tebbit on 2016-03-23.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the possible role of the contraceptive chemical E22, which is resistant to water purification techniques, in the increase in number of freshwater and coastal water fish bearing both male and female sexual organs.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
In the UK, environmental regulators, scientific experts and the water industry have been researching the link between the synthetic steroid, 17α-ethinyloestradiol (EE2, used in human oral contraception) and fish populations to understand the role of endocrine disrupting chemicals on the reproductive physiology of fish. Most work has focused on EE2 which has been measured in some of our rivers and downstream of sewage treatment works (STWs); this matches findings in other countries.
Based on scientific evidence from the UK and in Europe, there is reasonable certainty that very low concentrations of EE2 can cause feminisation (intersex condition) in male fish. The incidence of intersex seems to relate to the size of the STWs and the dilution ability of receiving waters. In the UK, fish inhabit comparatively small-sized rivers where limited dilution of EE2 occurs. Conventional STWs can remove EE2 from sewage, but not to the very low levels of less than one nanogramme per litre (ng/L) where no endocrine disrupting effects are predicted. In some cases the impact on fish populations remains unclear, and some affected populations appear to be self-sustaining.
In 2014, EE2 was included on the European Commission’s ‘watch list’ under the Water Framework Directive to gather information on its occurrence in surface waters across the European Union. Data will be reported by the UK and other Member States, and reviewed by the Commission throughout 2017 to assess whether this pharmaceutical is to be prioritised for monitoring and control and is to be included in future versions of the Directive.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-05-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many UK-registered offshore supply vessels (OSVs) have been laid up in Aberdeen port since January 2015; and what the average period of inactivity was for UK-registered OSVs (a) at that port and (b) in total during that period.
Mr Robert Goodwill
According to commercial world fleet data sourced from IHS Global Limited, there were two UK registered offshore vessels with a ‘laid-up’ status on 31 December 2015.
We do not have any further data available for use on laid-up vessels since this time. The data is not in a format from which inactivity periods are readily obtainable.
According to online vessel search engines, the last known ship positions for the two UK registered offshore vessels that were laid-up at the end of 2015 were Port Elizabeth (South Africa) on 24 August 2015 and Elefsis (near the Athens port of Piraeus, Greece) on 19 September 2015.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-06-20.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent discussions she has had with the Ethiopian government on the situation in the Oromia region.
Mr Nick Hurd
I visited Ethiopia on 17th June and met with a number of senior Ethiopian Government officials. Our discussions covered a range of issues, including the situation in the Oromia region. I set out the UK Government’s serious concerns about the response to protests in Oromia.