The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paula Sherriff on 2016-02-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2016 to Question 24232, how much has been allocated for overall expenditure in the 2016-17 budget for the British Transport Police.
Claire Perry
The British Transport Police Authority has set an expected budget of £295.1 million for the British Transport Police in 2016/17.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lilian Greenwood on 2016-03-01.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department took to evaluate the effectiveness of the 2009 car scrappage scheme.
Anna Soubry
The National Audit Office published a report in 2010 which evaluated the measures taken by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills to support businesses through the recession. It describes what support schemes were put in place and how effectively they were conceived, implemented and managed, including the Vehicle Scrappage Scheme.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Flick Drummond on 2016-03-24.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to promote the participation of women in the Syrian peace negotiations.
Mr Tobias Ellwood
The UK is committed to peace talks between the Syrian parties, under UN auspices in Geneva and continues to work closely with the International Syria Support Group. The UK encouraged the UN Special Envoy for Syria and the Syrian opposition to include women in the negotiations. The UN established a Women’s Advisory Board and the opposition’s negotiating team includes women.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer on 2016-04-28.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take further action to encourage local authorities to accelerate the rate at which they require households to separate food waste from domestic rubbish.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has recently published an updated household food waste collections guide. The guide is aimed at local authorities planning to introduce a new food waste collection scheme. It also provides advice to local authorities who wish to increase participation in their existing schemes. WRAP is also looking at whether greater consistency in how waste is collected has the potential to improve recycling rates.
The “Food Waste Recycling Action Plan”, soon to be published by WRAP, aims to bring together industry and local authorities to increase the supply and quality of household and commercial food waste to the food waste recycling industry.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Freyberg on 2016-06-13.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 4 February (HL5344), how many of the 1,286 genomes processed by 4 February came from (1) the rare disease programmes, and (2) elsewhere in the cancer programme; and how many of those genomes from (1) the rare disease programmes and (2) the cancer programme have now been interpreted clinically, either by GEL or the General Medical Council.
Lord Prior of Brampton
Genomics England (GeL) has confirmed that all 1,286 of the genomes quoted in my Written Answer of 4 February related to the cancer programme. GeL has also confirmed that at that time 5,102 rare disease genomes had been sequenced.
GeL is in the process of developing rare disease and cancer reports and is discussing these with clinical sites. Significant work has gone into building a pipeline to process genomic and clinical data at scale. This requires collection of complete datasets and a complex design process to minimise manual interaction with the process to improve accuracy.
The work on the pipeline is not planned to have been completed and thoroughly tested until later this year, but early results are already flowing through it and GeL has returned 39 reports to pilot sites. This number will increase steadily over the coming year as experience is gained.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2016-09-02.
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he plans to respond to the concluding observations and recommendations of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the UK’s sixth periodic report in relation to fiscal policy, corporate tax, inheritance tax and domestic and global tax abuse; and if he will make a statement.
Jane Ellison
In paragraph 73 of the UN recommendations, the UN requested that the UK submits its next period report under the Covenant (inclusive of a response to all the recommendations from this year’s examination) by 30 June 2021; it would therefore not be appropriate to pre-empt this report by anticipating what we, or indeed a future UK Government in 2021, might say.
The government is committed to a competitive and fair tax system and to tackling tax evasion and avoidance by multinational companies. The UK has played a leading role in the development and implementation of the G20/OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project, which is aimed at ensuring that tax is paid on profits in the country in which they are generated. On tax evasion, the UK has also led on the development of the new global standard for the automatic exchange of information between countries on offshore accounts. All of the UK’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies have signed up to this new Common Reporting Standard and will begin exchanging information with the UK this month.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Gareth Thomas on 2016-10-18.
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the effect of demographic changes in the last ten years on the demand for local authority services, and if he will make a statement.
Mr Marcus Jones
The Spending Review took account of the demographic pressures facing local authorities and set out a sustainable basis for local authorities to discharge their functions over this parliament.
The Department is also conducting the Fair Funding Review which is a thorough assessment of the relative needs and resources of local authorities. The treatment of demographic changes is a key part of this. The Review will determine the funding baselines for individual local authorities under 100% business rates retention.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Anna Turley on 2015-11-05.
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what information his Department holds on how many bids were received by the Official Receiver to buy or operate any element of the former SSI site in Redcar prior to the Receiver’s decision on hard closure.
Anna Soubry
My Rt hon Friend the Secretary of State does not hold information regarding the number of bids received by the Official Receiver in respect to the former SSI site. The Official Receiver holds this information in his statutory role as an independent liquidator appointed by the Court. The Official Receiver received a number of expressions of interest in various assets of the company but none were translated into viable offers for the coke ovens or blast furnace ahead of his decisions to close them on 12 October 2015. The Official Receiver can be contacted at the address below: Ken Beasley, Official Receiver, Public Interest Unit, 2nd Floor, 3 Piccadilly Place, London Road, Manchester, M1 3BN.
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nicholas Soames on 2015-12-04.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many new schools were built in each local education authority area between 1997 and 2015.
Edward Timpson
The government provides local authorities and other bodies responsible for school buildings with capital funding for schools through condition funding and basic need funding for new school places. Local authorities can spend this money on new school buildings but the department does not collect the data centrally on the number of new school buildings. Information on the impact of this funding in each local authority and parliamentary constituency could therefore be provided only at disproportionate cost.
The government does directly deliver new schools, in new or refurbished buildings, through the Free Schools, University Technical Colleges and Studio Schools programmes. There are currently 383 schools that are open through these programmes.
A list of all open free schools can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/free-schools-open-schools-and-successful-applications.
A list of all open University Technical Colleges and Studio Schools can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/utcs-and-studio-schools-open-schools-and-applications-received.
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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jonathan Edwards on 2016-01-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to page 53 of the Statement of Funding Policy 2015, who the recipients of expenditure on broadcasting and media bodies were in 2015.
Mr Edward Vaizey
The recipients of expenditure on broadcasting and media bodies in 2015 were: Ofcom; BFI; S4C; and the National Film and Television School.