Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the Police National Computer (PNC) was last unavailable to police forces in England and Wales due to a power outage at the PNC Data Centre at Hendon; and how long it took to restore the PNC to normal service.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Prior to the power outage experienced this week, the previous occasion when we believe PNC would have been unavailable to police forces in England and Wales due to a power outage would have been on 21st June 2012. It took approximately 339 minutes to restore service.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government who is the Director of the National Law Enforcement Data Programme.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Steve Thomson is the Programme Director for the National Law Enforcement Data Programme
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the annual cost (1) in total, and (2) per pupil, of providing lunches to pupils in (a) primary, and (b) secondary, schools.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government spends over £550 million a year on in England, through the National Funding Formula, to ensure that 1.4 million disadvantaged children benefit from free school meals. A further 1.4 million infant pupils are also supported through universal infant free school meals.
The National School Breakfast Programme, running from March 2018 to March 2021, is supporting up to 2,450 schools in disadvantaged areas, at an overall cost to the government of approximately £35 million. Unit costs are commercially sensitive and therefore cannot be made available. Many schools operate their own breakfast club arrangements.
There is legislation in place that ensures schools provide meals to all pupils who want them, which should be provided free to those eligible for benefits-related free school meals or universal infant free school meals.
The Schools Food Standards provide the legislative framework to ensure schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day.
The standards define the foods and drinks that must be provided, which foods are restricted, and those, which must not be provided. They apply to all food and drink provided to pupils on and off school premises and during an extended school day (up to 6pm), including school trips, breakfast clubs, tuck shops, mid-morning break, vending and after school clubs. The department’s advice is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england.
A summary of the standards and a practical guide are available from the school food plan website at:
http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/resources.
I believe that the School Food Standards have been transformational in the way schools operate their meal services. We will be updating these standards to bring them into line with revised nutritional recommendations in due course, this work is currently paused due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the annual cost (1) in total, and (2) per pupil, of breakfast clubs in (a) primary, and (b) secondary, schools.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government spends over £550 million a year on in England, through the National Funding Formula, to ensure that 1.4 million disadvantaged children benefit from free school meals. A further 1.4 million infant pupils are also supported through universal infant free school meals.
The National School Breakfast Programme, running from March 2018 to March 2021, is supporting up to 2,450 schools in disadvantaged areas, at an overall cost to the government of approximately £35 million. Unit costs are commercially sensitive and therefore cannot be made available. Many schools operate their own breakfast club arrangements.
There is legislation in place that ensures schools provide meals to all pupils who want them, which should be provided free to those eligible for benefits-related free school meals or universal infant free school meals.
The Schools Food Standards provide the legislative framework to ensure schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day.
The standards define the foods and drinks that must be provided, which foods are restricted, and those, which must not be provided. They apply to all food and drink provided to pupils on and off school premises and during an extended school day (up to 6pm), including school trips, breakfast clubs, tuck shops, mid-morning break, vending and after school clubs. The department’s advice is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england.
A summary of the standards and a practical guide are available from the school food plan website at:
http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/resources.
I believe that the School Food Standards have been transformational in the way schools operate their meal services. We will be updating these standards to bring them into line with revised nutritional recommendations in due course, this work is currently paused due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what arrangements are in place to ensure that meals provided to pupils in (1) primary, and (2) secondary, schools meet national standards for nutritional value.
Answered by Baroness Berridge
The government spends over £550 million a year on in England, through the National Funding Formula, to ensure that 1.4 million disadvantaged children benefit from free school meals. A further 1.4 million infant pupils are also supported through universal infant free school meals.
The National School Breakfast Programme, running from March 2018 to March 2021, is supporting up to 2,450 schools in disadvantaged areas, at an overall cost to the government of approximately £35 million. Unit costs are commercially sensitive and therefore cannot be made available. Many schools operate their own breakfast club arrangements.
There is legislation in place that ensures schools provide meals to all pupils who want them, which should be provided free to those eligible for benefits-related free school meals or universal infant free school meals.
The Schools Food Standards provide the legislative framework to ensure schools provide children with healthy food and drink options, and to make sure that children get the energy and nutrition they need across the school day.
The standards define the foods and drinks that must be provided, which foods are restricted, and those, which must not be provided. They apply to all food and drink provided to pupils on and off school premises and during an extended school day (up to 6pm), including school trips, breakfast clubs, tuck shops, mid-morning break, vending and after school clubs. The department’s advice is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/standards-for-school-food-in-england.
A summary of the standards and a practical guide are available from the school food plan website at:
http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/resources.
I believe that the School Food Standards have been transformational in the way schools operate their meal services. We will be updating these standards to bring them into line with revised nutritional recommendations in due course, this work is currently paused due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the Counter Terrorism Advisory Network last met to discuss concerns about the terminology used to describe faith-claimed terrorism; and how many organisations (1) were invited to attend that meeting, and (2) attended.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Counter Terrorism Advisory Network is a national stakeholder forum formed by Counter Terrorism Policing. Membership comprises of survivors of terrorism, academics and researchers, a variety of faith leaders, and community members.
The network met to discuss terminology on Thursday 18th June 2020. 154 individuals were invited of whom 61 attended.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) which, languages are spoken by officers of the National Crime Agency.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
Numerous languages are spoken by officers within the National Crime Agency but we are unable to disclose further details in order to protect operational activity.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they have spent to date on (1) the design, (2) the build, and (3) the roll-out, of the Cloud Video Platform for criminal hearings; and of this sum, how much was spent on independent management and technical consultants.
Answered by Baroness Scott of Bybrook - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities)
Cloud Video Platform (CVP) was not developed by the Ministry of Justice, it is a service that has been procured for use by the department, initially for non-criminal cases. Any design and build costs associated with the development of this service would be to the supplier.
CVP was piloted outside of criminal jurisdiction and has only been rolled out for use in this setting due to requirements due to Covid-19. The service is currently being used across the court and prison estate.
Any costs associated with the rolling out and maintaining the CVP due to Covid-19 currently reflects its use in all settings rather than just criminal hearings. It would take a significant amount of time (and incur a disproportionate cost) to break down all costs specifically on a case by case basis to identify a specific figure for just criminal hearings.
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Williams of Trafford on 12 March (HL2020), what is their latest estimate of (1) the completion dates for each of three phases of the design and build phase of the Emergency Services Network, and (2) the cost to completion of each phase.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The design and build phase of ESN is broken down into three phases:
Design and build of the “Prime” product which brings together the push-to-talk application on a range of devices (including handheld, vehicles and aircraft) utilising the prioritised EE network. This is due to complete in October 2021 (later than previously communicated) and is forecast to cost £463m. The majority of functionality required to switch-off Airwave is included in “Prime”. The remainder of the supplier implementation programme is made up on one final release to include the remainder functionality needed to commence Transition from ESN to Airwave.
The addition of masts to EE’s core network to provide the required network coverage for ESN. As per the response provided to HL2020 on 12th March 2020, it is planned that this activity and subsequent network optimisation will be completed during 2021. Costs for this work will be paid via a monthly service charge which will reduce at the start of 2022 from c.£10m per month to c.£6m per month.
Delivery of additional coverage e.g. in remote areas of the country and the London Underground. As per the response provided to HL2020 on 12th March 2020, this will complete in parallel with national deployment of the ESN and is forecast to cost £334m.
Independent management and consultancy spend from the inception of the programme in 2015 is £145.5M split between Delivery Support Services and Technical Consultancy
Asked by: Lord Wasserman (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they have spent to date on independent management and technical consultants contracted to advise and assist with the design and build of the Emergency Services Network.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The design and build phase of ESN is broken down into three phases:
Design and build of the “Prime” product which brings together the push-to-talk application on a range of devices (including handheld, vehicles and aircraft) utilising the prioritised EE network. This is due to complete in October 2021 (later than previously communicated) and is forecast to cost £463m. The majority of functionality required to switch-off Airwave is included in “Prime”. The remainder of the supplier implementation programme is made up on one final release to include the remainder functionality needed to commence Transition from ESN to Airwave.
The addition of masts to EE’s core network to provide the required network coverage for ESN. As per the response provided to HL2020 on 12th March 2020, it is planned that this activity and subsequent network optimisation will be completed during 2021. Costs for this work will be paid via a monthly service charge which will reduce at the start of 2022 from c.£10m per month to c.£6m per month.
Delivery of additional coverage e.g. in remote areas of the country and the London Underground. As per the response provided to HL2020 on 12th March 2020, this will complete in parallel with national deployment of the ESN and is forecast to cost £334m.
Independent management and consultancy spend from the inception of the programme in 2015 is £145.5M split between Delivery Support Services and Technical Consultancy