Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to switch public spending from buses with rubber tyres to lightweight trams in urban areas to reduce the toxic effects from particulates generated by rubber wheels.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Department has no current plans to reallocate funding for buses to light rail, including tramways. Light rail is largely devolved and it is for local authorities to determine if light rail interventions are appropriate and proportionate, and to identify funding.
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether converting bus routes to trams in urban areas with low-cost vehicles fuelled by biomethane has a role in achieving the UK's commitment to the Global Methane Pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
Mass transit, including light rail and bus rapid transit, is largely devolved in England outside London. It is for local authorities to determine whether mass transit interventions are appropriate and proportionate, including with respect to technology, fuel choice and local decarbonisation ambitions.
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many privately rented dwellings hold a current Energy Performance Certificate; and what proportion of those are certified in each of the bands A to H.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
All privately rented dwellings are required to have a valid Energy Performance Certificate when they are placed on the market. The English Housing Survey Private Rented Sector report provides an estimate of the proportion of privately rented dwellings in each rating band.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities publishes data tables on all Energy Performance of Buildings Certificates lodged on the Energy Performance of Buildings Registers since 2008.
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many vintage vehicles are currently licenced free of road tax; and what is the cost to the taxpayer of that concession.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
There are currently 1,102,021 vehicles in the historic vehicle taxation class. Of these 595,823 are currently licensed and attract a nil rate of vehicle excise duty.
His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs publish official statistics on structural tax reliefs ever year. The latest estimate for the historic tax class was published on 12 January is £130m for 2022-23.
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many Home Office officials have been convicted of abuse of public office in each of the last 10 years; and how many of those have been given custodial sentences.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Note: We have interpreted this question as referring to ‘Misconduct in Public Office’ (‘abuse of public office’ is not a criminal offence).
In the last ten years there have been seven Home Office officials who have been convicted of Misconduct in Public Office. All received a custodial sentence and all were convicted before 2015. Since then, the Crown Prosecution Service have moved towards using more specific charges such as theft, assisting unlawful immigration and bribery.
A breakdown for each year is provided below:
Year | Convicted of abuse of position | Custodial sentence received |
2012 | 3 | 3 |
2013 | 1 | 1 |
2014 | 1 | 1 |
2015 | 2 | 2 |
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many fatal accidents involving cyclists riding after lighting-up time without lights have occurred in each of the last five years.
Answered by Baroness Vere of Norbiton - Parliamentary Secretary (HM Treasury)
The table below shows the number of fatal road collisions in Great Britain reported by the police using the STATS19 system where a police officer attended the scene and allocated the contributory factor ‘Not displaying lights at night or in poor visibility’ to a pedal cyclist involved in the collision.
Year | Fatal collisions |
2017 | 2 |
2018 | 3 |
2019 | 4 |
2020 | 4 |
2021 | 4 |
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government which bodies are currently proscribed as terrorist organisations.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The list of proscribed organisations is publicly available at the following link: Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether recordings from road traffic cameras can be used by the police in investigating all types of crime.
Answered by Lord Sharpe of Epsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
Under the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, evidence from a road traffic enforcement device is obtained for certain motoring offences and used in court proceedings without the need for other corroborative evidence. Therefore, the use of road traffic cameras does not extend to all crime types.
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask His Majesty's Government how they assess and determine the financial surplus required to induce farmers to participate in schemes under the Sustainable Farming Incentive.
Answered by Lord Benyon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The SFI standards payment rates have been set to balance good value for money for the taxpayer and delivery of ambitious environmental outcomes.
Defra sets payment rates based on the net income the farmer would forgo on their land and the net costs of delivering the action for the average (median) farm eligible for the action, which is the methodology used in our environmental schemes such as Countryside Stewardship. These rates are independently verified by evidence from specialist consultancies.
Asked by: Lord Marlesford (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many hotels in England are under contract to provide accommodation for immigrants whose right to enter and remain in the UK are being assessed; and what is the total number of people who are currently accommodated in this way.
Answered by Lord Murray of Blidworth
On the 30 September 2022 there were 252 hotels used to accommodate 34,900 asylum seekers in receipt of asylum support in England.