Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the average benefit to local economies of devolution deals.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The seven devolution deals that the Government has agreed will give local leaders direct control over the levers of growth in their economies, including new powers and substantial budgets ranging from transport, to adult skills, to long term investment funds. The size of these funds is substantial, for example the West Midlands will receive over £1 billion of additional investment. It will be for mayors and local leaders to set ambitions for growth and job creation as a result of these deals. By giving local areas control over key policies and resources, and making sure that local government more efficient, effective and as possible, devolution deals will give these places the tools that they need to drive forward growth for the benefit of the whole local economy.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many homeowners have accessed (a) Help to Buy and (b) Right to Buy.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
Up to September 2015, over 128,000 homes had been purchased with assistance of Help to Buy Equity and Mortgage Guarantee Loans.
Since 2010/11, over 53,000 thousand tenants have purchased their homes through Right to Buy (and preserved Right to Buy for housing association tenants). The voluntary scheme extending to housing associations will give 1.3 million more families the opportunity to do this.
The Department publishes statistics on Help to Buy and Right to Buy at:
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking to promote cycling.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
This Government is committed to increasing the number of people cycling and to making it the natural choice for short journeys or as part of longer ones.
The Infrastructure Act 2015 places a duty on Government to produce a Cycling and Walking Strategy; I have instructed my officials to begin work on this and we will soon lay the secondary legislation required to commence the relevant section of the Act.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the clarity of the guidance given to local authorities on determining the eligibility for blue badges of community transport operators.
Answered by Andrew Jones
In accordance with the Disabled Persons (Badges for Motor Vehicles) (England) Regulations 2000, our guidance to local authorities makes clear the eligibility criteria for issuing an organisational Blue Badge.
Guidance issued by the Department is clear that some organisations, such as community transport operators, are unlikely to be eligible for a Blue Badge. To be eligible they must both care for and transport disabled people, who themselves meet the eligibility criteria for a badge. It is for the issuing local authority to decide whether there is a clear need for an organisational badge rather than using the individual badges of the people that are being transported.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to help local authorities support the economy in the North of England.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
We want local authorities to focus their energies on driving growth in their areas, working in partnership with Local Enterprise Partnerships. That is why we are devolving more powers to councils to ensure the right decisions are made by local people who know their own communities best.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to reduce the budget for the education and training of 16 to 19-year olds to meet the £450 million savings to be found in her Department in this financial year.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The savings announced by the Chancellor will come from a variety of measures including expected departmental underspends in demand-led budgets, efficiencies and some small budgetary reductions.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what amount his Department spent on ministerial travel by (a) the Government Car and Despatch Agency and (b) other car hire in (i) 2007-08, (ii) 2008-09 and (iii) 2009-10; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Kris Hopkins
Under this Government, the DCLG Group is making a 41 per cent real terms saving against its running costs by 2014-15. This equates at least £532 million of taxpayers’ money in administrative savings.
As part of these savings, my Department has made substantial reductions to the cost of Ministerial cars. Instead of the six cars previously used, the Department now maintains only two cars between six Ministers.
There is a business case for some provision. The Government Car Service provides secure transport for Ministers carrying sensitive and confidential government documents. All travel arrangements are carried out in accordance with the Ministerial Code.
Notwithstanding, our reforms have cut the cost by two-thirds, as shown in the table below.
Financial Year | Government Car Service |
2007-08 | £401,600 |
2008-09 | £418,300 |
2009-10 | £488,276 |
2010-11 | £321,592 |
2011-12 | £202,819 |
2012-13 | £199,191 |
2013-14 | £191,813 |
Note: Based on DfT methodology for Government Car Service spending, as published and presented to Parliament. Figures exclude VAT which is recoverable.
Additional spending on other hired car services in 2009-10 totalled £28,266, including chauffeurs and limousines (comprehensive figures are not held prior to this). By contrast, spending by 2013-14 has been just cut to just £124.
To provide some comparative figures, the table below, illustrates the spending on Ministerial cars over the last three years of the Labour Government, by Department (excluding other hired car services):
Government Car & Despatch Agency spending | Total (2007-10) |
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (and DBERR & DIUS) | £1,863,036 |
Home Office | £1,474,894 |
Department for Work and Pensions | £1,351,426 |
Department for Communities and Local Government | £1,308,176 |
Department of Health | £1,278,190 |
Cabinet Office | £1,262,490 |
Department for Children, Schools and Families | £1,196,893 |
HM Treasury | £1,155,789 |
Foreign & Commonwealth Office | £1,091,934 |
Ministry of Justice | £938,930 |
Department for Transport | £845,479 |
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | £806,189 |
Department for Culture, Media and Sport | £790,297 |
Department for International Development | £755,556 |
Northern Ireland Office | £655,551 |
Other (e.g. Whips / Leaders’ Offices where itemised) | £544,900 |
Law Officers’ Department | £474,731 |
Department for Energy and Climate Change (two years) | £402,130 |
Wales Office | £372,904 |
Scotland Office | £277,913 |
Ministry of Defence (two years) | £191,443 |
Data sources: 22 July 2008, Official Report, Column 117WS; 16 July 2009, Official Report, Column 80WS; 28 October 2010, Official Report, Column 23WS.
My Department’s tangible savings are in stark contrast to the Leader of the Opposition’s taxpayer-funded Short Money travel allowance, which has risen year on year since May 2010 – a fact which betrays a disregard for the need for all parts of the public sector to their bit to help pay off Labour’s deficit.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his Answer of 27 November to Question 215754, what main concerns have been raised by stakeholders in renal services at the recent meeting with the head of the Specialised Services Task Force in NHS England; and what steps he is taking in response to such concerns.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Concerns raised by stakeholders in the meeting hosted by the head of the Specialised Services Task Force in NHS England included: the status of service specifications and clinical policies, mandatory hospital data collection requirements, clinical commissioning group (CCG) understanding of renal dialysis and a potential fragmentation of the renal transplant pathway.
NHS England has recently established a Task & Finish group through the NHS Commissioning Assembly. This group comprises representatives from CCGs and NHS England, and will oversee the development and delivery of proposals for commissioning of specialised services in 2015-16 and beyond.
Within this Task & Finish group, a sub-group will be responsible for planning and managing the transition process for services that are being transferred from national to CCG commissioning (including renal dialysis) from 1 April 2015.
On 27 November 2014, the Department issued a public consultation on the arrangements for the transfer of commissioning responsibility from NHS England to CCGs for renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services.
The consultation seeks views on what type of support CCGs will need from NHS England to be able to commission renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services effectively and whether, if all this support can be put in place, the timing of the transfer is right.
The results of the consultation will be used to inform the decisions on when and how to transfer the commissioning responsibility for renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services to CCGs, and the work of the NHS England Task & Finish group. The consultation will close on 9 January 2015.
NHS England is committed to issuing commissioning guidance for the safe transfer of renal dialysis services from national NHS England responsibility to local CCG responsibility.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 27 November 2014 to Question 215754, what consideration the new Task and Finish group will give to the commissioning of kidney services; and when he expects the advisory group to report on what support clinical commissiong groups will require to take on commissioning of dialysis.
Answered by Jane Ellison
NHS England has recently established a Task and Finish group through the NHS Commissioning Assembly. This group comprises representatives from clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and NHS England, and will oversee the development and delivery of proposals for commissioning of specialised services in 2015-16 and beyond.
Within this Task and Finish group, a sub-group will be responsible for planning and managing the transition process for services that are being transferred from national to CCG commissioning (including renal dialysis) from 1 April 2015.
On 27 November 2014, the Department has issued a public consultation on the arrangements for the transfer of commissioning responsibility from NHS England to CCGs for renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services.
The consultation seeks views on what type of support CCGs will need from NHS England to be able to commission renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services effectively and whether, if all this support can be put in place, the timing of the transfer is right.
The results of the consultation will be used to inform the decisions on when and how to transfer the commissioning responsibility for renal dialysis and morbid obesity surgery services to CCGs, and the work of the NHS England Task and Finish group. The consultation will close on 9 January 2015.
NHS England is committed to issuing commissioning guidance for the safe transfer of renal dialysis services from national NHS England responsibility to local CCG responsibility.
Asked by: Lord Evans of Rainow (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what quality and outcome measures NHS England plans to use to ensure maintenance of clinical quality and quality of service in the proposed transition from specialised to clinical commissioning groups commissioning for dialysis.
Answered by Jane Ellison
NHS England has advised that they are in dialogue with key stakeholders about both the opportunities and challenges of transferring responsibility for renal services. The head of the Specialised Services Task Force in NHS England recently met stakeholders from renal service representative groups and heard their concerns directly.
The Department intends to launch a public consultation by the end of 2014 on the recommendations put forward by the independent clinically-led advisory group (Prescribed Specialised Services Advisory Group) to transfer commissioning responsibility for renal services from NHS England to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs).
This public consultation will specifically be asking key stakeholders involved in the provision of renal dialysis what NHS England would need to do to ensure a safe transfer of commissioning responsibilities to CCGs. This consultation will also be asking stakeholders specifically whether the current proposed timescales for the transfer of services are feasible.
A new Task & Finish group is being established by NHS England through the NHS Commissioning Assembly. This group will look specifically at what support CCGs would require to be able to safely and effectively commission services devolved to them.
NHS England is committed to issuing commissioning guidance for the safe transfer of services from national NHS England responsibility to local CCG responsibility.