Tag: Tristram Hunt

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much infrastructure investment was allocated to projects in (a) Stoke-on-Trent local authority, (b) Cheshire East local authority, (c) the West Midlands region, (d) the South East region and (e) London.

Greg Hands

The information requested can be obtained from “National Infrastructure Pipeline”, published in July 2015 and is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-infrastructure-pipeline-july-2015

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-04-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department spent on (a) consultancy fees, (b) legal advice, (c) civil service staffing costs and (d) all other expenditure relating to the Education and Adoption Act 2016.

Nick Gibb

Officials from across the Department were involved in different ways and at different times on work for the Education and Adoption Act. It is therefore not possible to distinguish costs from the wider business of the Department. There was no external legal or consultancy expenditure.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-01-07.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many jobs in (a) his Department and (b) each of its non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent by 2020.

Harriett Baldwin

No jobs within HM Treasury, Office for Budget Responsibility , Government Internal Audit Agency, Debt Management Office and Government Actuaries Department have been abolished or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent since 2010 and there are currently no plans for any to be abolished or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent by 2020.

As announced in November 2015, HM Revenue and Customs plans to close Blackburn House in Stoke-on-Trent in 2019/20. The 256 posts currently in Stoke will transfer to new regional centres and the Department has committed to working with its staff to ensure that as many of those who do want to continue working for HMRC will be able to do so.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the distribution of teacher training places in the (a) North Staffordshire sub-region and (b) West Midlands region.

Nick Gibb

The Department for Education has changed the approach to initial teacher training (ITT) allocations for the 2016 to 2017 academic year. The National College for Teaching and Leadership are not allocating a specific number of places to individual organisations for postgraduate ITT courses due to start in the 2016 to 2017 academic year. Instead, eligible schools, school-centred initial teacher training providers (SCITTs) and higher education institutions (HEIs) will be able to recruit as many trainees as they feel they need (subject to a limited number of controls), until the overall system has recruited a sufficient number.

School Direct lead schools, SCITTs and universities across all regions have been given greater freedom for the 2016/17 academic year to manage their recruitment according to local need.

We are monitoring regional recruitment across all subjects, including the West Midlands region. However, as School Direct and SCITT partnerships cover large geographical areas, we are not monitoring recruitment at a sub-regional level.

To date, the only challenge in geographical distribution of ITT places has been found in the London region in recruitment to primary, which was recruiting slower than other regions. In this case we have allowed school led routes (i.e. School Direct (tuition fee) and SCITTs) in this region to continue to recruit to primary courses to ensure that enough trainees are recruited. For all other regions, recruitment is broadly the same as in 2015/16 with some areas showing an increase.

We are prepared to use reserve recruitment controls in other subjects, or for other regions, as required.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of national infrastructure investment has been allocated to projects in (a) Stoke-on-Trent local authority, (b) Cheshire East local authority, (c) the West Midlands region, (d) the South East region and (e) London in each year since 2010.

Greg Hands

The information requested can be obtained from “National Infrastructure Pipeline”, published in July 2015 and is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-infrastructure-pipeline-july-2015

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-04-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many jobs in (a) her Department and (b) each of her Department’s non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.

Nick Gibb

No jobs have been abolished or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-01-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many jobs in (a) his Department and (b) each of its non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent by 2020.

Brandon Lewis

No jobs in either my Department or each of its non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies have been abolished or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent since 2010 or will be abolished in or relocated from Stoke-on-Trent by 2020.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and which local authorities have notified her Department about plans to dispose of grant-funded assets through the (a) sale, (b) transfer and (c) change of use of children’s centres under the requirements of the Sure Start Early Years and Childcare Grant.

Mr Sam Gyimah

Where local authorities dispose of or change the use of buildings or other assets funded wholly or partly through Sure Start capital grants, they must repay the money through the claw-back process.

The Department for Education has a thorough set of monitoring arrangements in place regarding claw-back rules. Local authorities are required to notify the department of each and every proposed change of services and provide details about the level of early years services that are to continue. The department then considers if the local authority has continued to offer a sufficient level of early years services for children and their families from the building in question to meet the original aims of the grant.

If the department is satisfied that the funding for the asset will continue to be used for purposes consistent with the grant, the department may defer claw-back. Deferring claw-back means that we accept the change of usage at that time, however, the department retains its interest in the asset and if in the future the asset has its usage changed, is transferred or otherwise disposed of, and does not continue to meet the purposes of the grant the local authority must inform the department and we will claw-back the funding. The department’s interest in an asset funded by Sure Start capital grants is 25 years from designation of the building. If the grant was used to purchase capital items or re-furbish an existing asset, the length of time and value of any claw-back depends on the depreciation value of the items, according to local authority depreciation rules.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-02-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential contribution of community land trusts to increasing the supply of affordable housing in the UK.

Brandon Lewis

The Department does not assess the potential contribution that individual classes of organisation, including Community Land Trusts, can make to the delivery of affordable housing. However, we recognise the role they can play in delivering locally led and innovative housing development and we are confident they will make a valuable contribution to the 400,000 affordable housing starts we have committed to deliver by 2021.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tristram Hunt on 2016-04-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many jobs in (a) her Department and (b) each of her Department’s non-departmental public bodies, executive agencies, non-ministerial departments, advisory bodies and other accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 and (ii) will be abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority by 2020.

Andrea Leadsom

It is confirmed that no jobs in (a) the Department for Energy and Climate Change or (b) any of the Department’s accountable statutory bodies (i) have been abolished in or relocated from East Cheshire Local Authority since 2010 or (ii) will be abolished or relocated from the Authority by 2020.