Tag: Robert Halfon

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Halfon on 2014-03-26.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much money has been spent on repairing potholes in (a) Harlow and (b) Essex since 2004.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Department for Transport provides capital funding to local highway authorities, including Essex County Council, from the local highways maintenance capital block grant. Harlow falls within Essex County Council’s area of responsibility and therefore we do not allocate any funds directly to the Borough Council for road maintenance.

Since 2004 the Department has allocated the following amounts to Essex for highway maintenance:

Year	£m
2004/05	12.626
2005/06	15.782
2006/07	16.682
2007/08	22.428
2008/09	20.706
2009/10	21.361
2010/11	20.959
2011/12	20.728
2012/13	19.838
2013/14	22.482*
2014/15	19.873*

* includes the top up announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement.

The Department also allocated additional funding to authorities to help repair roads damaged by various weather events and this included a further £2.116 million to Essex County Council in 2010/11 and £5.301 million in March 2011. More recently the Department for Transport has agreed to allocate over £2.7 million due to the severe wet weather the country has encountered.

A £200 million Pothole Fund was announced in the Budget on 19 March 2014. From this, £168 million is being made available to councils in England through a bidding exercise. Further details on the fund will be made available in the coming weeks.

Local authorities are also able to use revenue funding allocated by the Department for Communities and Local Government through the Revenue Support Grant for maintaining their local highways. Neither capital nor revenue highways maintenance funding is ring-fenced and it is for local highway authorities to decide upon their spending priorities across the whole range of services they provide.

The Department for Transport does not centrally hold information on what proportion of this funding is spent by Essex County Council on repairing potholes.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Halfon on 2014-04-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what estimate he has made of the number of people who run a small or medium-sized enterprise as a secondary form of income alongside another job.

Matthew Hancock

Information is not available to answer this question. However, data from the Office for National Statistics estimate that around 400,000 people describe themselves as self employed in their second jobs between October 2012 and September 2013.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Halfon on 2014-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the benefits to children’s safety of road crossing patrollers.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Government firmly believes in localism and providing local authorities with powers to introduce measures to deal with local needs and conditions. Local authorities will invariably have a strategy to improve road safety and will prioritise their road network based on the need to reduce casualties.

The provision of the school crossing patrol service is a matter for the local authority. Legislation gives them the power to make arrangements for the patrolling of places where children cross roads on their way to or from school, but does not impose a duty on them to do so. Funding decisions are also a matter for the local authority based on their local needs and priorities.

It is for the Council to assess the crossing situation and determine a course of action as it is in this situation. In some cases, if the authority agrees that children from a particular school need help in crossing a busy road but have not recruited anyone, they have to think about finding other ways of making the crossing safer – for example, by putting in a pedestrian crossing.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Halfon on 2014-03-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much has been spent on road crossing patrollers in (a) Essex and (b) Harlow constituency in the last 10 years.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Department does not hold records of the amount spent on school crossing patrol services in each local authority.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Robert Halfon on 2014-04-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many people have applied for part-time higher education courses each year since 2004.

Mr David Willetts

Statistics are not available on applicants to part-time higher education courses as there is no centralised application service for part-time study. However, statistics on entrants to part-time courses at UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are available from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and have been provided back to the academic year 2004/05 in the following table.

Information on enrolments at UK HEIs in the academic year 2013/14 will become available from HESA in January 2015.

Entrants⁽¹⁾ part-time courses by level of study

Academic years 2004/05 to 2012/13

UK Higher Education Institutions

	2004/05	2005/06	2006/07	2007/08	2008/09	2009/10	2010/11	2011/12	2012/13
Postgraduate part-time	108,920	113,955	116,215	116,320	128,945	132,745	127,925	109,535	102,190
Undergraduate part-time	317,785	336,415	341,030	331,950	344,475	335,050	301,490	278,575	199,905
Total part-time	426,710	450,370	457,245	448,275	473,420	467,795	429,415	388,115	302,095

Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency

Note:

(1) Entrants refer to those students entering their first year of study.

(2) Includes entrants from all domiciles (UK, EU and other overseas countries)