Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans his Department has to provide incentives to suppliers to use small and medium-sized enterprises directly involved in the supply chain for the nuclear industry.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
For future New Nuclear projects, developers will be required to produce Supply Chain Plans. This means developers will need to show evidence that their projects will support growth in the UK supply chain, support the development of competition, and boost innovation and skills. This will provide greater opportunity for SME’s to access contracts for new build projects.
In regards to Nuclear Decommissioning, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority already uses a range of initiatives to improve the transparency of contract opportunities including:
• simplifying and standardising procurement requirements;
• holding regional and national supplier events to help providers link up; and
• running an SME mentoring scheme.
Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to secure funding for the development of a nuclear plant at Moorside in Cumbria.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
Toshiba is seeking to sell NuGen, the developer of the proposed Moorside nuclear plant, in a private commercial transaction. We engage regularly with developers on a range of topics, including financing, though the details of these discussions are commercially confidential.
Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how many small businesses in the North West can access broadband.
Answered by Matt Hancock
According to Ofcom’s Connected Nations Report, 89% of UK homes and small and medium-sized businesses are now able to receive superfast download speeds of 30 Megabits or higher, and all homes and businesses can now access broadband speeds of 2 Megabits per second. This is fast enough for everyone to gain access to every government service available online.
ThinkBroadband’s latest figures indicate that superfast coverage of 30 Megabits or higher is currently available to 94.7% of premises across the North West.
We are determined to ensure even better digital connectivity in the UK, and we announced a package of measures worth £1.1 billion at Autumn Statement 2016. This includes The Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme, which will support local bodies in stimulating the market for fibre connectivity in their areas. The six local test projects were announced on 3rd September.
The Super Connected Cities Programme, which closed in 2016, offered vouchers to SMEs to help with connectivity. Interest in connection voucher scheme was very high in the North West which resulted in over over 5590 connections being made in the region.
Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to provide adequate funding for flood defences in Keswick.
Answered by Thérèse Coffey
The Government has invested £5.7million to deliver a flood risk management scheme for Keswick, which was completed in 2011 and better protects at least 180 residential and commercial properties with a standard of protection of 1.33% chance of flooding occurring in any given year.
Following Storm Desmond in December 2015, the Environment Agency commissioned a £3 million appraisal to construct the necessary business cases to better manage flood risk in a number of communities throughout Cumbria, including Keswick.
The Environment Agency has developed an extensive list of options on how it could manage flood risk at a catchment scale. For the local communities to be more involved in decision-making, the Environment Agency has shared these options with all communities within the Derwent catchment. Shortlisted options are expected in autumn 2017 and will further support future funding applications for flood risk management in Keswick.
A bid for funding for Keswick has been submitted as part of the process to refresh the Government’s six year capital investment programme. The outcome of this bid will be confirmed to the North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFFC) in October 2017.
The Cumbria Flood Action Plan also sets out what the Environment Agency and partners are doing to reduce flood risks across Cumbria, based around river catchments, and incorporates actions from a range of partners in Keswick. As part of the plan, Cumbria County Council is to undertake works on a surface water scheme on Penrith Road by March 2020 and United Utilities are investigating how they can make changes to the way they operate the Thirlmere reservoir. The Environment Agency is facilitating discussions between United Utilities and Keswick Flood Action Group.
Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what progress the Government has made on increasing the number of apprenticeships in the North West.
Answered by Anne Milton
There have been 71,290 apprenticeship starts recorded to date (August 2016 to April 2017) in the North West in the 2016 to 2017 academic year.
Earlier years’ data for starts by region can be found in the apprenticeships FE data library:
Data for apprenticeship participation by region is also available in the apprenticeships FE data library:
More detailed geographical data on apprenticeship starts and achievements are available in the apprenticeships FE data library tools:
Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to ensure adequacy funding for the final stage of construction of the West Cumberland Hospital.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The West, North and East Cumbria Sustainability and Transformation Project has made an application for funding for the West Cumberland scheme from the additional £325 million capital funding announced in the spring budget earlier this year. An announcement on the successful applications will be made shortly.
Asked by: Trudy Harrison (Conservative - Copeland)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what support his Department gives to NHS trusts and hospitals to improve the recruitment and retention of (a) maternity unit, (b) paediatric unit and (c) other hospital staff.
Answered by Philip Dunne
National Health Service trusts are responsible for the recruitment and retention of their workforce to ensure safe staffing levels. There are no specific, separate programmes for maternity and paediatric units. The Department commissions Health Education England (HEE) to work with the NHS to ensure there is sufficient future supply of staff to meet the workforce requirements of the NHS in England. Details are in its Workforce Plan for England 2016-171.
The NHS is employing more clinical staff than ever before with, for example, 307,491 nurses, midwives and health visitors (up by more than 7,000 since 2010) and HEE has over 52,000 nurses in training with forecasts for more than 40,000 additional nurses by 2020. It will be for NHS trusts to work with HEE, nurses and other clinical staff to decide how their careers develop. This could include specialising in maternity, paediatrics or other hospital services.
The number of nurses providing “early life” care which includes maternity and paediatric services is 24,446 full time equivalents (March 2017), a rise of 3,250 (15.3%) since 2010.
The Department commissions NHS Improvement to lead the national programme to develop and deliver NHS safe staffing improvement resources for specific care settings which would include maternity, paediatric and other hospital services. NHS Improvement is working with trusts to support the development of trust improvement plans for retaining their clinical workforce through, for example, ensuring trusts demonstrate leadership and culture support, and nurture staff in an environment of continuous learning for the benefit of patients.
The Department is also leading work with NHS England, HEE and others to do more to retain clinical staff through, for example, working with the NHS to improve opportunities for flexible working. The Department is also working with the Care Quality Commission to see how staff welfare issues can be included in hospital inspections so progress can be tracked.
Note: