Asked by: Rob Wilson (Conservative - Reading East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to ensure central government funding for local authority transport projects is properly spent by those authorities.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The Department has set out how it assures itself that the money gives to local transport authorities is spent properly in its Accounting Officer System Statement. This can be found at:
Asked by: Rob Wilson (Conservative - Reading East)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his policy is on ensuring that legal aid is targeted at people with a strong connection to the UK.
Answered by Chris Grayling
The Government believes that individuals should have a strong connection to the UK in order to benefit from the civil legal aid scheme and that the residence test we propose is a fair and appropriate way to demonstrate that connection.
Asked by: Rob Wilson (Conservative - Reading East)
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment he has made of the effect of migration on UK businesses which require highly-skilled employees.
Answered by Vince Cable
We recently published analysis proving that highly skilled migrants are not displacing UK workers. Indeed, in many sectors such as engineering and digital technologies, they're filling skills gaps and starting new companies.
Business groups tell me that an open labour market helps foreign investment in the UK and that migrants foster innovation and growth by bringing in new ideas, language skills and assisting trade links overseas. So overall, it's a positive picture.
Asked by: Rob Wilson (Conservative - Reading East)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what progress her Department has made on its programmes in Palestine.
Answered by Alan Duncan
The UK's bilateral programme in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is helping to build Palestinian institutions, promote economic growth and support the most vulnerable Palestinians. Absent meaningful action from Israel to ease movement and access restrictions, however, our progress will always be limited.