The below Parliamentary question was asked by Mark Durkan on 2016-05-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department plans to take to ensure the Education Cannot Wait fund for education in emergencies focuses on the most marginalised children including girls and children with disabilities.
Mr Nick Hurd
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I provided on 23rd May to Question number 37287.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-07-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to improve the performance of multi-academy trusts in which disadvantaged pupils perform below the national average for attainment and improvement.
Edward Timpson
Academies working together in Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) are able to share resources and expertise to support disadvantaged pupils. The department’s analysis shows, as does that of the Sutton Trust, that there are MATs that can perform significantly above average despite high percentages of their pupils being disadvantaged.
We remain committed to achieving educational excellence everywhere and where there is underperformance, the academy system enables us to take swift action to tackle it. In addition, we are targeting £2.5 billion a year of pupil premium funding to support the most disadvantaged pupils.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Beecham on 2016-10-03.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to amending the Annual Data Requirement to replace the 16+1 ethnicity code based on the 2001 census with the 2011 census ethnicity category 18+1, to include Gypsies and Irish Travellers.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The ethnicity categories used for data collections are assessed as part of the Home Office’s process of agreeing the Annual Data Requirement (ADR). This is the list of mandatory data collections required from the police.
This process includes consultation with a range of stakeholders on the requirements for each data collection, together with consideration of the burdens involved in the collection (e.g. IT costs of implementation for police forces), and the likely quality of the data.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kate Green on 2015-11-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many probation officers have been employed by the National Probation Service since its establishment in each month in that period, and for each such month in each region of England.
Andrew Selous
Information on the number of probation officers employed in each NPS Division is published quarterly in the National Offender Management Service Workforce Statistics Bulletin. The information on probation officer numbers can be located in table 11 of the publication, which can be found at the link below:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-offender-management-service-workforce-statistics
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alex Cunningham on 2015-12-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment she has made of the effect of the Government’s decision to withdraw £1 billion in funding from carbon capture and storage projects on the future of energy-intensive industries in the UK.
Andrea Leadsom
The provision of ring-fenced capital support for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) was judged against other Government funding priorities as part of the Spending Review. Government has not taken the Spending Review decision lightly. The Government continues to view CCS as having a potential role in the long-term decarbonisation of the UK’s power and industrial sectors. Neither CCS Competition project proposed to capture CO2 from energy intensive industries.
The detailed design and implementation of CCS policy changes have yet to be determined. The Industrial 2050 Decarbonisation and Energy Efficiency Roadmaps reports published in March 2015 identified a potential role for industrial CCS technologies in decarbonising the steel, oil refining, chemicals and cement sectors. DECC and BIS continue to engage with the energy intensive industries and academics to develop decarbonisation Action Plans by the end of 2016 as the second phase of this process.
The Government remains committed to working with energy intensive industries including those in the Northern Powerhouse area. DECC provided £1million funding to Tees Valley Unlimited as part of the 2013 City Deal agreement to undertake an Industrial CCS feasibility study based on the chemicals and steel industry in the Teesside cluster and we continue to support that work. The devolution deal for Tees Valley, published in October this year, also included a commitment to explore how it can continue to develop its industrial CCS proposals.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by John Healey on 2016-01-21.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent estimate he has made of the number of housing association tenants who will become eligible for the right to buy by January 2017.
Brandon Lewis
As stated by my rt. hon. Friend, the Prime Minister in his speech of the 7 October, the voluntary agreement between the sector and Government will make Right to Buy equivalent discounts available to 1.3 million housing association tenants.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Anderson on 2016-02-19.
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his Written Statement of 17 December 2015, HCWS 431, to which deployed coalitions the UK is party.
Michael Fallon
The personnel embedded in coalition Headquarters are supporting Operation Shader and wider Middle East security operations.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Craig Whittaker on 2016-03-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to encourage local authorities to (a) create a business-friendly environment and (b) expand their business rates base.
Mr Marcus Jones
The business rates retention scheme was introduced in 2013-14 to give councils greater autonomy over their finances and to incentivise them to grow their business rates base. According to local authority forecasts, 54% of authorities benefitted from growth above assumed levels in 2013-14, which has risen to 91% in 2016-17. By the end of the Parliament, local authorities will retain 100% of their business rates, further strengthening the incentive for growth. Councils will also have the power to cut the business rates multiplier to improve the business environment for enterprise and attract further businesses to their area.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Mackintosh on 2016-04-13.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that employers accord degree apprenticeships the same esteem as traditional university degrees.
Nick Boles
The Government wants young people to have the opportunity to access high quality degree level training, whether through a full-time undergraduate route or a world-class degree apprenticeship.
Both traditional degrees and new degree apprenticeships meet the high quality criteria expected of a higher education qualification. Degree Apprenticeships are designed by groups of employers working with higher education institutions, and provide a valuable route for people to obtain a degree-level qualification alongside training for a career, with the prospect of a job from day one
Degree apprenticeships will feature in the new communications campaign being launched in May, promoting the benefits of apprenticeships to employers and young people.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-05-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how much funding has been received from the European Social Fund via the National Offender Management Service Co-Financing Organisation to help employer roadshows at HM Prison (a) Sudbury, (b) Drake Hall and (c) Wayland.
Andrew Selous
Money received from the European Social Fund (ESF) by the NOMS Co-financing Programme is published in the NOMS Annual Report and Accounts. No ESF funding has been used to finance employer roadshows at Sudbury, Drake Hall and Wayland prisons. Neither has any ESF money been awarded direct to HM Young Offender Institutions Werrington, Feltham or Cookham Wood.
It is a condition of any award of core ESF funding to the NOMS Co-financing programme that it has to be spent on front line services for offenders (excluding the administration budget. Because of this, a separate application was made under the Technical Assistance grant to fund, among other things, the setting up and running of the Employers’ Forum for Reducing Re-offending (EFRR). The aim of the Technical Assistance grant is to fund services that will support the objectives of the main programme – employability of offenders. The amount spent from the ESF Technical Assistance fund on the EFRR from 2010 to 2015 was £280,403.