Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, which offshore windfarms in the Contracts for Difference scheme have been granted a postponement of the sale of their offshore transmission owner assets; and how long each such postponement is.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government has granted time-limited exemptions for offshore wind farms in the Contracts for Difference scheme to sell their transmission assets. The exemptions were decided on a case-by-case basis and were subject to public consultation. They are as follows:
- Walney Extension was granted a nine-month exemption to June 2020;
- Hornsea 1 was granted a six-month exemption to July 2021;
- Beatrice was granted a 12-month exemption to October 2021;
- East Anglia One was granted two exemptions of three and 10 months to April 2023;
- Triton Knoll was granted a 9-month exemption to July 2023; and
- Moray East was granted a 6-month exemption to March 2024.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether she plans to take steps to end the sale of live decapod crustaceans.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We are working closely with stakeholders to gather information and build a clear evidence base on decapod crustacean welfare, in order to understand what opportunities exist to improve welfare standards. There are currently no plans to bring forward additional legislation in this area.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to introduce the concept of compassionate healthcare across all NHS services in England.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Compassionate healthcare is expected of all services within the National Health Service in England. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) provides regulatory oversight by assessing service providers on whether services are safe, effective, responsive, well-led and caring. For caring, CQC assesses a service provider on whether staff involve and treat patients with compassion, kindness, dignity, and respect.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what estimate her Department has made of the proportion of the UK's energy output that will be produced by fossil fuels by 2050; and whether she has made an assessment of the implications for her policies of Exxon Mobil's paper entitled Global EnergyOutlook 2023.
Answered by Graham Stuart
When the UK has reached net zero in 2050, around a quarter of the UK's energy needs will come from oil and gas. This figure is calculated using data published by the Climate Change Committee in its Sixth Carbon Budget advice. By 2050 oil use will become increasingly concentrated in aviation and gas will be used with carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) to generate electricity and hydrogen. Global outlooks also point to the need for continued, but declining, oil and gas use, highlighting the importance of CCUS.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to help more young people onto the housing ladder in Yorkshire.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Government has a range of home ownership schemes that are available to first time buyers, including First Homes and shared ownership.
The Mortgage Guarantee Scheme helps to increase the supply of 95% loan-to-value mortgages for credit-worthy households.
We have also doubled the threshold at which SDLT becomes due to £250,000 and expanded First Time Buyers Relief, raising the threshold at which stamp duty becomes payable from £300,000 to £425,000.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what steps his Department is taking to support leaseholders with the costs of cladding removal.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Government has provided multiple avenues of funding to address dangerous cladding in all eligible residential buildings above 11m in England.
Where developers have signed the developer remediation contract, they will remove dangerous cladding themselves, or reimburse the Government where government funds have already been used to do so. For other buildings, the Cladding Safety Scheme will ensure that cladding is removed where necessary at no cost to leaseholders.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to use artificial intelligence to help (a) predict and (b) prevent violent attacks involving (i) machetes and (ii) zombie knives.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Office is working across government and with operational partners to develop our understanding of the threats and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence. The Home Office has already convened and will be convening further meetings to identify the best opportunities to use artificial intelligence to prevent and detect crime of various types. The use of artificial intelligence to predict and prevent serious violence is an operational matter for Chief Constables.
Knife crime is below its pre-pandemic level and the Home Office is investing over £110m to tackle serious violence in 2023/24. This includes:
We are also banning certain types of large knives (such as zombie style knives and machetes), giving the police more powers to seize dangerous weapons, creating a new offence of possession of a bladed weapon with an intent to harm, and increasing sentences for those who import, manufacture or sell dangerous weapons to under 18s.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had recent discussions with her French counterpart on the potential merits of preventing small boats from crossing the Channel by intercepting them mid-journey.
Answered by Robert Jenrick
The Home Secretary and I engage regularly with our French counterparts on the issue of small boat crossings.
Our joint work with France saw nearly 33,000 crossings prevented in 2022, 40% more than in 2021, and so far in 2023 a further 15,000 migrants have failed to reach our shores on small boats. Alongside this, since July 2020, the UK-France Joint Intelligence Cell (JIC) and French law enforcement partners have dismantled 82 organised crime groups linked to small boats. In 2022 alone, the JIC and French law enforcement partners secured the arrest of around 400 people smugglers.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether her Department plans to use artificial intelligence to help (a) predict and (b) prevent incidents of (i) rape and (ii) other sexual assaults.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Rape and sexual violence are devastating crimes that can have a long-lasting impact on victims. Protecting women and girls from violence and supporting victims and survivors of sexual violence is a key priority for this Government.
The Home Office is working across government and with operational partners to develop our understanding of the threats and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence. The Home Office is also actively exploring and investigating options to use AI to both prevent and detect crime, including rape and sexual assault.
To help improve the police response to these crimes, we invested £9.4 million (2021-23) in Operation Soteria to develop a new National Operating Model for the investigation of rape. Frontline policing and academics across 19 forces were bought together to test new tools and techniques which form this new approach, and all forces in England and Wales are now implementing it.
Asked by: Andrea Jenkyns (Conservative - Morley and Outwood)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what consideration his Department makes of animal welfare when determining its aid development policies.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The 2022 Strategy for International Development (IDS) set the direction for all of the UK's international development work. It outlines a patient approach and a focused set of priorities that will drive lasting, sustainable, growth, alleviate suffering and tackle the root causes of global crises. We will use all our levers, from our diplomacy to our investment and trade, to deliver our development objectives. The Action Plan for Animal Welfare demonstrates the Government's commitment to animal welfare and how we will deliver on this commitment, both at home and abroad.