Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what his policy is housing formulas and 5-year housing supply; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
The Government is actively reviewing the approach to housing formulas and 5-year housing supply. As the Secretary of State set out at the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee on 21 November, there is an ongoing debate on how housing need is assessed and we want to make sure we deliver the right approach, including making sure that a greater proportion of housing is delivered in urban areas and on brownfield sites.
On 5-year housing supply, the Government announced in May that it is our intention to abolish the requirement for authorities to have a rolling five-year land supply, where their plan is up to date. We want a system where, if a local authority has a plan in place and keeps it up to date, the local area can feel confident that they will not see unwanted development based on ‘speculative development’ and ‘planning by appeal.’
We will publish a consultation shortly on the future direction of national planning policy, including on the approach to housing formulas and 5-year housing supply.
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how much was spent on external speakers at events run by her Department in the last 12 months; and who these external speakers were.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office does not report the information sought to the level of granularity required so identifying spending on external speakers specifically from our financial system can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Identifying all external speakers is not readily available from our management systems as there is no central database for this.
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, with reference to the Answer of 7 March 2022 to Question 132398 on Attorney General: Social Clubs, what recognised staff groups there have been in her Department in the last three years.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
There have been no recognised staff groups in the Attorney General’s Office in the last three years. |
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what legal injunctions (a) his Department, (b) Transport for London and (c) Westminster City Council are in place against protests that would obstruct (i) access roads to major central London Hospitals and (ii) other roads as of 7 November 2022.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Department does not have any injunctions in place but is working closely with National Highways as the relevant highway authority. Injunctions are a matter for the respective highway authority and are granted by the High Court.
As of 7 November 2022, National Highways have two High Court Injunctions in force; one specifically relating to structures and gantries on the M25 until 10 December 2022, and one covering the M25, the M25 feeder roads and major roads in Kent and around the Port of Dover until May 2023. The case for further injunctions is being kept under review.
Responsibility for managing London's road network is shared between Transport for London, National Highways, and the 32 London boroughs, plus the City of London. The Department is not aware of any injunctions held by Westminster City Council regarding access to the highway. Information pertaining to injunction orders may be found on tfl.gov.uk.
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of (a) retaining and (b) expanding the (i) FORS and (ii) Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency earned recognition scheme.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) Earned Recognition is a voluntary, and free to join, compliance scheme. It helps lorry and bus operators demonstrate that they consistently meet the driver and vehicle standards required as a condition of their Operator’s licence. The Agency monitors performance data shared by operators making the scheme a market leader across businesses and local authorities.
The Earned Recognition scheme will continue to expand to support the growth of the most compliant operators across the industry. This strategy supports the DVSA to identify and deal with law breakers ensuring the cost of non-compliance is always greater than the cost of compliance.
The Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS) is a commercially available accreditation scheme administered through Sopra Steria Limited, and not managed or maintained by the Government.
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has with Cabinet colleagues to expedite the roll-out of better broadband to rural communities.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This Government is already doing a great deal to roll out better broadband in rural areas. Through Project Gigabit, we are spending £5 billion so people in hard-to-reach areas can get ultra-reliable gigabit broadband speeds. We signed our first contract on schedule and have over £690 million of contracts covering rural areas out for tender right now.
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Home Office:
What recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of violent crime in London.
Answered by Sarah Dines
As of June 2022, the latest data for hospital admissions for under 25s for assault with a sharp object – our primary metric for measuring serious violence – is down -17% in London compared to June 2021.
This financial year we have provided £12.7m of funding to the London Violence Reduction Unit – which brings together key partners to tackle violence - and £8m of ‘Grip’ funding to support the Metropolitan Police Service’s response to violence.
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how performance compared to Work Capability Assessment contractual targets in relation to (a) average speed of answering telephone calls, (b) percentage of telephone calls answered, (c) face-to-face consultation waiting times and (d) percentage of claimants sent home unseen over the period March 2018 to February 2022.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Provider performance is measured across a range of service level agreements setting out the department's expectations for service delivery. These include quality, performance delivery targets and customer experience.
The monthly performance measures against contractual targets between March 2018 and February 2022 can be found in the attached PDF document.
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how performance compared with Work Capability Assessment contractual targets in relation to (a) quality of assessment, (b) claimant satisfaction, (c) speed of clearance for initial referrals, (d) percentage of outstanding initial referrals over 60 days old and (e) speed of clearance for end-of-life cases over the period of March 2018 to February 2022.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Provider performance is measured across a range of service level agreements setting out the department's expectations for service delivery. These include quality, performance delivery targets and customer experience.
The monthly performance measures against contractual targets between March 2018 and February 2022 can be found in the attached PDF document.
Asked by: Gareth Bacon (Conservative - Orpington)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of Work Capability Assessments were carried out (a) face-to-face, (b) remotely and (c) on paper between March 2018 to February 2022.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The number and proportion of Work Capability Assessments (WCA) that have been carried out (a) face to face, (b) remotely, including telephone and video, and (c) paper based between March 2018 and February 2022, can be found in the tables below.
The contractual performance in relation to assessments by channel over the period March 2018 to February 2022 is:
| Mar 2018 - Feb 19 | Mar 2019 - Feb 20 | Mar 2020 - Feb 21 | Mar 2021 - Feb 22 |
Face-to-Face | 761,000 | 762,000 | 31,000 | 27,000 |
Remote | 0 | 0 | 337,000 | 487,000 |
Paper-Based | 257,000 | 292,000 | 128,000 | 83,000 |
With Channel proportion as:
| Mar 2018 - Feb 19 | Mar 2019 - Feb 20 | Mar 2020 - Feb 21 | Mar 2021 - Feb 22 |
Face-to-Face | 74.8% | 72.3% | 6.3% | 4.5% |
Remote | 0.0% | 0.0% | 67.9% | 81.6% |
Paper-Based | 25.2% | 27.7% | 25.8% | 13.9% |
Please Note: