Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many (1) fathers, and (2) mothers, were required to provide additional consent from the other parent when applying for passports for their children in 2023, and was the total number of applicants in each group.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
There are circumstances when additional consent is needed for a passport application. This includes where there is a change of name for a child, or where one parent is attempting to declare a child’s valid passport as lost that the other parent had applied for. Further information can be found at GOV.UK: Authorisation and consent: needed to issue a passport - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk).
Data relating to the number of fathers and mothers that were required to provide additional consent from the other parent for passport applications in 2023 is not held in a reportable format.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of measures to encourage the adoption of Unique Property Reference Numbers in government databases.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO) in the Cabinet Office does not undertake a central assessment of measures to encourage adoption of Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRN) in government databases. Deployment and adherence to policies and standards is ultimately the responsibility of individual organisations.
CDDO currently has arrangements in place to increase adoption of data standards such as UPRNs. This includes the Data Standards Authority (DSA) and the Technology Code of Practice.
The DSA coordinates cross-government work to specify standards for government data systems and the DSA-endorsed UPRNs as an open standard in 2020. The Technology Code of Practice is used by the Cabinet Office Spend Controls assurance process; departments are required to appraise the use of open data standards such as UPRNs when they build or buy technology.
The Geospatial Commission, now part of the Department for Science Innovation and Technology and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, continues to promote the mandated adoption of UPRNs across the public sector.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what meetings and correspondence they have had with the messaging service Telegram since 1 January.
Answered by Viscount Camrose - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Officials met representatives of the messaging service Telegram on 26 July 2023 to discuss end-to-end encryption measures during the passage of the Online Safety Bill.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will publish the data schema for each of the datasets listed in the NHS COVID-19 Data Reference Library.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information is not available in the format requested and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many passport applicants were required to send their foreign passports to the Passport Office when applying for a UK passport; and what was the average time that foreign passports were held by the Passport Office before being returned to the applicant in (1) 2021, and (2) 2022.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
The volumes and types of evidence received in support of British passport applications, and the timeframe that such evidence is retained by His Majesty’s Passport Office, is not held in a reportable format.
Obtaining this data would be at a disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on their open data policy of the inclusion of the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2015 within the scope of clause 1 of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
An assessment will be undertaken, and it will form part of a wider piece of work to refresh the government’s Open Data policy.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact on their environmental data policy of the inclusion of the INSPIRE Regulations 2009 within the scope of clause 1 of the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Defra is currently undertaking a Post Implementation Review (PIR) of the INSPIRE Regulations 2009 (INSPIRE) to consider the future of INSPIRE and in particular in respect to the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill.
Defra commissioned The Open Data Institute (The ODI) to carry out an independent assessment of the impact of the INSPIRE regulations. As part of this assessment the ODI is consulting with key INSPIRE stakeholders in the UK including Defra, the Devolved Administrations, The Geospatial Commission, Ordnance Survey, The Data Standards Authority, the Chief Data and Digital Office and The Office for National Statistics.
The ODI is due to present its findings to Defra at the end of January 2023 which will inform the INSPIRE PIR.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what metrics they are using to monitor and evaluate progress towards achieving their goal for the adoption of Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) identifiers, following the Cabinet Office guidance Identifying property and street information, published on 4 December 2020.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Geospatial Commission worked with GeoPlace, the Local Government Association, the Improvement Service, and Ordnance Survey to provide access to Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs) and Unique Street Reference Numbers (USRNs) data under an Open Government Licence, as part of the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement held between the Geospatial Commission and Ordnance Survey.
Following this, the Open Standards Board, convened by the Central Digital and Data Office (CDDO), mandated the use of UPRN for gathering and storing address data in Government systems. This was published at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/identifying-property-and-street-information. The Data Standards Authority in the CDDO also published guidance on the use of UPRN at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/access-free-address-data-using-addressbase.
The Geospatial Commission is now working with its public sector partners to develop a standardised approach to benchmarking and measuring location data quality and improvement, applying a FAIR data methodology to ensure that location data, including UPRNs and USRNs, are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. Further information will be published in early 2022.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Callanan on 29 December 2020 (HL11381), when HM Land Registry will add Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) identifiers to its public datasets of property transactions and titles in corporate ownership.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
HM Land Registry remains committed to opening its data where possible and in line with the National Data Strategy. It continues to consider incorporation of Unique Property Reference Numbers in future publishable datasets to align with its already published Leasehold property data set and as part of its National Polygon Service.
Asked by: Lord Allan of Hallam (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will place in the Library of the House a list of locations of Royal Mail priority postboxes for posting COVID-19 test kits.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Department does not hold the information requested. The Royal Mail publishes information on the locations of its post boxes online or via its app.