Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to tackle pot holes.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Potholes are a menace to all road users and the Government is taking the steps to help local highway authorities improve the condition of the roads for which they are responsible, including tackling potholes.
Accordingly, the Government is providing £296 million between 2016 and 2021 to local highway authorities in England, outside London, to help repair potholes and stop them forming. This funding has recently been topped up with an additional £46 million, announced in the 2017 Budget on 22 November 2017. This funding is also in addition to just under £6 billion which the Government is providing to local highway authorities for local highway maintenance in England, outside London between 2015 and 2021.
The Department for Transport also announced in January 2017 that it is undertaking a highly innovative trial on the way potholes are identified and managed, working in partnership with Thurrock, York and Wiltshire councils and two private sector SMEs, Soenecs and Gaist. This trial allows high-definition cameras to be mounted to refuse collection vehicles and by deploying innovative intelligent software will identify road surface problems before they become potholes. The trial recently won an award for the best use of new technology in the highways sector.
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, by what date she expects that the Government will have fulfilled its commitment to transfer 480 children under the Dubs scheme.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
We are fully committed to transferring 480 unaccompanied children from Europe under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. A number of children have arrived from France under section 67 in recent weeks and transfers are ongoing.
We are working very closely with Member States, as well as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and NGO partners to identify and transfer children safely to the UK in line with each individual Member State’s national laws. More eligible children will be transferred from Europe in due course.
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the introduction of plain cigarette packaging on smoking rates.
Answered by Steve Brine
The Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations 2015 came into force on 20 May 2016. The Government consulted on the introduction of standardised packaging and published an impact assessment, which included benefits to public health. The Government will review these regulations by 2021 .
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to publish her response to the consultation on mandatory reporting and acting on child abuse and neglect.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
The consultation 'Reporting and acting on child abuse and neglect' sought views on the advisability, risk, nature and scope of a mandatory duty to report child abuse and neglect and an alternative duty focused on taking appropriate action, as well as the effects of embedding current government reforms. The government has committed to laying a report before Parliament on the outcome of the consultation. Submissions are being considered and a government response will be published in due course. Just as it was right to consider in depth the evidence around these questions, it is important that we apply equally careful consideration to formulating our response in such a complex policy area, with such vitally important implications for the safety and welfare of children.
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to tackle modern slavery in developing countries.
Answered by Priti Patel
DFID leads the cross government effort to tackle the scourge of modern slavery. Our Work in Freedom programme has already reached over 380,000 women and girls in South Asia and the Middle East.
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the cost of abolishing university tuition fees.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that abolishing tuition fees would increase the fiscal deficit for the 2017/18 student cohort by around £11bn, with the long-term cost of student funding increasing by around £6.5bn.
The major reforms to English higher education in 2012 have significantly increased average per-student funding. Graduates do not start repaying loans until their annual incomes reach £21,000, and loans are written off after 30 years.
By enabling English universities to charge current tuition fees, the Government no longer has to ration access to higher education via a cap on student numbers. This enables it to offer more places, including to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are now going to university at a record rate – they are 43% morelikely to go to university 43%more likely to go to university than they were in 2009.*
Graduates earn, on average, substantially more than people with A levels who did not go to university.
Various pieces of research show that Higher Education graduates earn, on average, at least £100,000 more over their lifetimes than those without a degree but with 2 or more A-Levels. The most recent BIS commissioned research shows that, on average, a male graduate could expect to earn £170,000 more and a female graduate £250,000 more over their lifetimes, than someone without a degree but with 2 or more A-levels, net of tax and other costs (2012 prices).
Abolishing tuition fees would be socially regressive: as well as unfairly burdening the general taxpayer, it would benefit mainly those students going on to well-paid jobs, who repay their loans in full.
*https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldsecleg/92/9207.htm
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what effect the reduction in corporation tax rates has had on receipts from that tax.
Answered by Mel Stride - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Since 2010, the headline corporation tax rate has been cut from 28 to 19 percent.
Despite that, onshore corporation tax receipts have increased by over 50 percent, from £36.2 billion in 2010-11 to £55.1 billion in 2016-17.
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the cost to the public purse of increasing teachers' pay in line with inflation over the course of the current Parliament.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Teachers’ pay is based on recommendations made by the School Teachers’ Review Body (SRTB).
The SRTB, which reports to the Secretary of State on an annual basis, considers evidence from a range of stakeholders before making their recommendations.
As stated in the Written Ministerial Statement on 10 July 2017 the Secretary of State has accepted the STRB’s recommendations for this year subject to the consultation, which commenced on 10 July 2017 and closes on 28 July 2017. When the consultation is complete the final School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document for 2017-18 will be published.
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the cost of introducing free school meals to all primary school children.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Expanding universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) to all primary school children is not something the government plans to do and we have not examined this fully. However, initial costings suggest there would be an additional cost of between £700m to £900m per year, increasing the overall cost of UIFSM to between £1.3 billion and £1.5 billion per year.
Asked by: Alex Burghart (Conservative - Brentwood and Ongar)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the cost of restoring the education maintenance allowance for 16 to 18-year-olds in each parental income decile.
Answered by Anne Milton
The Department for Education has not assessed the cost of restoring the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16 to 18 year olds in each parental income decile.