The below Parliamentary question was asked by Dawn Butler on 2016-02-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, if he will publish as soon as possible a full analysis of responses to his Department’s recent consultation on the deregulation of Sunday trading.
Brandon Lewis
The Government published its response to the consultation on 9 February.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Maria Eagle on 2016-03-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what his Department’s planned expenditure on workforce training for staff in public libraries is for (a) 2016-17, (b) 2017-18, (c) 2018-19 and (d) 2019-20.
Mr Edward Vaizey
Public libraries are funded and run by local authorities. My Department has through Arts Council England’s Library Development Funding, which supports the development of public libraries in England including workforce training, provided £680,000 in 2012/13; £683,000 in 2013/14; £595,000 in 2014/15; and £744,000 in 2015/16. Workforce development is also one of the priorities of the Leadership for Libraries Taskforce, established in 2015 by my Department and the Local Government Association.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anne Main on 2016-04-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many infraction proceedings the EU has initiated against his Department in each of the last 10 years; what the reasons were for each such proceeding being undertaken; and what the outcome was of each such proceeding.
Mr Edward Vaizey
The information requested is publicly available on the website of the European Commission where the infringement cases for each member state can be found. This includes the infringement and the decision. These records go back to 2002 and can be found here: http://ec.europa.eu/atwork/applying-eu-law/infringements-proceedings/infringement_decisions/?lang_code=en
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Myners on 2016-06-06.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the financial regulators have completed their review of the risk algorithms to be used to permit cross-margining by central counterparties to facilitate the takeover of the London Stock Exchange by Deutsche Borse; whether the results of this review will be published, and whether any further steps will be taken to strengthen confidence in central clearing houses.
Lord O’Neill of Gatley
The timings of regulatory reviews of any proposal by a CCP to make significant changes to its margining arrangements would be a matter for the company and regulators acting in accordance with the relevant legislation. The Bank of England’s 2016 Annual Report on the supervision of financial market infrastructures, laid before Parliament on 4 March 2016, provides further information about ongoing regulatory initiatives in relation to CCPs.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Jolly on 2016-07-20.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the current anticipated outturn costs and in-service dates for (1) Project Mensa, and (2) Project Pegasus, at the Atomic Weapons Establishment.
Earl Howe
The anticipated outturn costs cannot be provided. The current approved costs and in-service dates for Project Mensa and Project Pegasus are shown below.
In-service dates are shown in bandings to avoid prejudice to national security and defence.
The Main Gate business cases for Projects Mensa and Pegasus include estimates for risk and uncertainty, which are contained within the approved costs.
|
Project |
In-service period |
Approved cost (£million) |
|
Project Mensa (warhead assembly/disassembly) |
2016-20 |
734 |
|
Project Pegasus (uranium components) |
2016-20 |
634 |
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Cunningham on 2016-10-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of people using mobile phones while driving; and if he will make a statement.
Andrew Jones
The government’s recent consultation on bringing in tougher sanctions received near unanimous support for tougher penalties. The Secretary of State for Transport has pledged to bring tougher sanctions in as soon as possible, we expect them to take effect in the first half of 2017.
Anyone using a hand-held device while driving will face higher on the spot fines and more points on their driving licence than they do today.
The government is also developing a hard-hitting THINK! campaign to tackle this issue, to make it socially unacceptable like drink driving or not wearing a seatbelt.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Emily Thornberry on 2015-11-23.
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what criteria his Department has set for referral to (a) Community Work Placements and (b) Daily Work Search Review once a claimant has joined the Help to Work scheme.
Priti Patel
Under Help to Work Jobcentre Plus Work Coaches have the flexibility to decide which of the three options that are part of the programme, Mandatory Intervention Regime, Community Work Placements or Daily Work Search Reviews, would best suit each individual jobseeker. They base their decisions on an exit report from their Work Programme provider and discussions with the jobseeker about the particular barriers still stopping them from getting work.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Edward Garnier on 2016-01-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether it is his policy that costs in fatal cases involving a claim for less than £25,000, including the costs of representation at inquest, will fall outside of the proposed fixed recoverable costs in clinical negligence schemes.
Ben Gummer
The Department is currently preparing to go out to public consultation on the introduction of fixed recoverable costs (FRC) for clinical negligence claims as originally proposed by Lord Woolf and Lord Justice Jackson in 1996 and 2009 respectively. The consultation will include consideration on the maximum value of claims that will be covered by the FRC regime and whether there should be any exemptions. We will review all responses before making a final decision on these issues.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tim Farron on 2016-01-25.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to the written statement by Baroness Anelay of St Johns on 15 December 2015, HLWS393, what elements constitute a similarly effective system for tax information exchange and company beneficial ownership information.
James Duddridge
We have asked the Overseas Territories to implement either a central register of company beneficial ownership, or a similarly effective system, which meets the following criteria:
a) UK law enforcement and tax authorities must be able to access company beneficial ownership information without restriction, subject to relevant safeguards;
b) These competent authorities should be able to quickly identify all companies that a particular beneficial owner has a stake in without needing to submit multiple and repeated requests; and
c) Companies or their beneficial owners must not be alerted to the fact that an investigation is underway.
We are continuing our dialogue with the Overseas Territories and have offered technical support as they develop their proposals.
The Overseas Territories have shown their commitment to tax information exchange by being early adopters of the new OECD global standard on tax transparency with the first exchange of data taking place in 2017. They have also had the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance on Tax Matters extended to them.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tulip Siddiq on 2016-02-22.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will make representations to the BBC on increasing the provision of voice-overs for BBC programmes.
Mr Edward Vaizey
The statutory target for audio description is 10% for most broadcasters. The BBC in 2010 committed a higher target and now provides audio description of 20% of its content on BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, CBBC and CBeebies.