Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to use general aviation airfields and volunteer pilots to enhance emergency supply chains during natural disasters such as floods.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
These matters are the responsibility of the Cabinet Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. They deal with complex supply chains and flooding respectively.
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the criteria are for granting of planning permission on strategic airfield sites to be reviewed.
Answered by Lord Barwell
All applications for planning permission, including any that are called in by the Secretary of State, must be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise.
The National Planning Policy Framework is a material consideration in planning decisions and the Framework’s policies for delivering sustainable development must be considered as a whole. Where relevant, this would include the policy for airports and airfields (that are not subject to a separate national policy statement), which expects local planning authorities to take account of their growth and role in serving business, leisure, training and emergency needs. Planning guidance supporting the Framework makes clear that local authorities should consider the interconnectivity between airfields of different sizes and that they should have regard to the Aviation Policy Framework.
Airfields are considered alongside all other relevant planning considerations by the decision-taker in determining a planning application.
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what criteria he plans to use to assess the case for planning permission for housing on Dunsfold Aerodrome.
Answered by Lord Barwell
On 8 March, my Rt Hon Friend, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, called in an application for planning permission for a mixed use settlement at Dunsfold Park (aerodrome), Cranleigh, Surrey. In doing so, he explained that the matters he wished to be particularly informed about in considering the application were the location and sustainability of the proposal and any other matters that the planning inspector conducting the inquiry considers to be relevant. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further on this case.
All applications for planning permission must be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise.
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if the Government will assess the potential merits of donating a fleet of 10 single piston-engine, high-wing aircraft to the UK Civil Air Patrol on the condition that they provide support to emergency services on a voluntary basis.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
HM Government is grateful to all those who voluntarily offer their support to the emergency services and communities in emergencies. It currently has no plans to provide hardware to UK Civil Air Patrol.
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much revenue the Exchequer has received since 2009-10 from the duty on the sale of the private aviation turbine fuel Autur.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Total tax receipts for Avgas and Avtur from 2009-10 are shown in the table below:
Year | Avgas (£m) | Avtur (£m) |
2009/10 | 9.1 | 0.1 |
2010/11 | 9.3 | 0.1 |
2011/12 | 9.4 | 0.1 |
2012/13 | 7.6 | 0.1 |
2013/14 | 7.7 | 0.1 |
2014/15 | 7.8 | 0.2 |
2015/16 | 7.7 | 0.2 |
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much revenue the Exchequer has received in each year from 2009-10 from the taxation of Avgas.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Total tax receipts for Avgas and Avtur from 2009-10 are shown in the table below:
Year | Avgas (£m) | Avtur (£m) |
2009/10 | 9.1 | 0.1 |
2010/11 | 9.3 | 0.1 |
2011/12 | 9.4 | 0.1 |
2012/13 | 7.6 | 0.1 |
2013/14 | 7.7 | 0.1 |
2014/15 | 7.8 | 0.2 |
2015/16 | 7.7 | 0.2 |
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment his Department has made of the changes to the modelling of the recording of hospital admissions attributed to alcohol in the last 10 years; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce such admissions.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
Alcohol-related hospital admissions are used as a way of understanding the impact of alcohol on the health of a population. Public Health England (PHE) uses two main measures for reporting alcohol-related hospital admissions:
- narrow measure: where an alcohol-related disease, injury or condition was the primary reason for a hospital admission or an alcohol-related external cause was recorded in a secondary diagnosis field; and
- more recently a broader measure has been developed which measures pressures from alcohol on health systems. For this indicator, the alcohol-attributable fractions are applied in order to estimate the number of admissions rather than the number of people.
PHE publishes this data and provides tailored data packs for each local authority to support their local decision making to reduce alcohol-related harm and help to reduce alcohol-related hospital admissions.
Nationally, there are a range of actions underway to tackle alcohol harm, and which aim to prevent alcohol-related hospital admissions. These include:
- a new national programme to incentivise screening and provide appropriate interventions to all in patients in National Health Service hospitals is being rolled out over the next two years;
- many Sustainability and Transformation Plan footprint areas have used PHE’s menu of preventative interventions to guide their decisions on local action to reduce alcohol harm and hospital admissions; and
- more widely, PHE’s One You campaign includes tools to help those people who want to reduce their consumption of alcohol, and the NHS Health Check continues to promote interventions to reduce harm and offer alcohol treatment for people who need help to recover from dependence.
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps the UK is taking to defend NATO's eastern flank.
Answered by Michael Fallon
The UK is one of four nations leading NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence, providing the Framework Battalion in Estonia and a reconnaissance squadron in Poland, joining the US-led force there. These defensive but combat-capable forces deliver reassurance to our Allies and deterrence against Russian belligerence. Next year we are deploying Typhoon aircraft to Romania to deliver Southern Air Policing, and will lead NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force.
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many investigations the International Corruption Unit (ICU) at the National Crime Agency (NCA) inherited from other agencies when it was first established; and how many new investigations the ICU at the NCA has started since it was established.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The International Corruption Unit (ICU) at the National Crime Agency (NCA) inherited 23 investigations. Since it was first established it has commenced 24 new investigations. (Figures have been provided by the NCA).
Asked by: Lord Davies of Gower (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, in how many instances his Department's procurement section sought further information from a company with regard to potential corruption, bribery or fraud in the last two years.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) routinely carries out checks on potential contractors prior to contract award, including on criminal activity, such as convictions for tax evasion, bribery or fraud, and a review of a company's audited accounts. These enquiries are conducted in accordance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011.
This process is reiterated in all competitive and single source tender documentation issued to tenderers prior to any contract award.
Any suspicion of corruption is reported to the appropriate authority. Where justified, the MOD can exclude potential suppliers who pose an unacceptable risk to public money.