Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with officials in the Department for Health and Social Care on the challenges faced by people who have recently fully recovered from covid-19 who are unable to obtain a negative PCR test as a result of having residual traces of covid-19 in their system despite being no longer infectious.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Guidance on Gov.uk in relation to pre-departure testing to travel to the UK states that, if people have recently recovered from COVID but are no longer infectious, they should use a lateral flow device (LFD) that meets the minimum performance standards. LFD tests have a lower sensitivity than PCR or LAMP tests, so are less likely to return a positive result from a historic infection. All passengers are currently required to take a PCR test on arrival in the UK, so that positive results can be genomically sequenced.
We continue to work across Government to review testing measures in place, with the next checkpoint review taking place shortly.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what plans he has to improve the electric vehicle charging network in the West Midlands.
Answered by Rachel Maclean
The Department is committed to ensuring consumers have reliable access to a comprehensive vehicle charging network so that they can easily and conveniently charge their vehicles wherever they live and travel. The Government has committed £1.3 billion to accelerate the roll out of charging infrastructure, targeting support on rapid charge points on motorways and major roads to dash any anxiety around long journeys, and installing more on-street charge points near homes and workplaces to make charging as easy as refuelling a petrol or diesel car.
The On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme (ORCS) is available to all UK local authorities and provides public chargepoints for residents without access to private parking. The ORCS has so far delivered 430 chargepoints in the West Midlands with funding in place for a further 73. This year, a further £20 million is available under the scheme to ensure more local authorities and residents can benefit. Government also committed at Spending Review 2020 a further £90 million to fund local EV charging infrastructure, to support the roll out of larger, on-street charging schemes in England.
In addition, the Workplace Charging Scheme, open to small and medium size enterprises and the charity sector has provided another 1,772 sockets with Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme and its predecessors seeing the delivery of another 17,141 domestic chargepoints, across the region.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the economic impact of the Midlands Rail Hub project.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Network Rail submitted the Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC) for Midlands Rail Hub in August 2019, it was assessed in line with the HMT Green Book and approved by Ministers.
The next stage is the development of the Outline Business Case which is being progressed by Network Rail with input from Midlands Connect, the Department expects to receive initial reports in 2022.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has plans to roll out flexible ticketing in the East and West Midlands to encourage passengers to use public transport.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
We have introduced new flexible season rail tickets across England this year, including the East and West Midlands. Tickets were launched on the 21 June and became available for use on the 28 June.
We are also working with local authorities and the bus and technology sectors on establishing a model for multi-operator bus ticketing and on further developing existing smart card ticketing offers.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the COP Presidency paper entitled Priorities for Public Climate Finance in the Year Ahead, published January 2021, whether his Department is planning to changing climate funding mechanisms to encourage adaptation and resilience programmes that remove barriers to family planning and girls’ education.
Answered by James Duddridge
Coping with climate change is a challenge that faces us all. The poor in developing countries are likely to be hit first and hardest. Our International Climate Finance (ICF) reaches those most in need and we are committed to doubling our ICF to £11.6bn over the next five years. In our adaptation programming we prioritise locally-led action with a strong grounding in the local context and needs, targeting marginalised groups.
We do not need to change climate funding mechanisms to ensure that, through quality education, more girls are empowered and equipped as agents of change. Voluntary family planning programmes empower women and girls to choose whether and when to have children - this in turn supports the health, prosperity and resilience of their communities and countries.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with the Eritrean Government on using their ports for humanitarian supplies to be transported to Tigray in Ethiopia.
Answered by James Duddridge
The UK Government is deeply concerned about the grave humanitarian situation in Ethiopia and shares the concerns outlined in the report on 24 June by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Ensuring assistance gets to those who need it most remains our priority in Tigray. We continue to explore all options with partners to expand humanitarian access by both air and land. We have not discussed access for humanitarian supplies with the Government of Eritrea given the destabilising role their forces continue to play in the conflict . We are focussed on securing the complete, immediate and verifiable withdrawal of all Eritrean troops from Tigray in order to help humanitarian relief efforts.
On 14 June I [Minister Duddridge] announced that the UK will allocate a further £16.7 million to the crisis in Tigray. This will support civil-military coordination to help aid get to those in need and address famine risk through the provision of healthcare, sanitation, and nutritional support. This allocation is on top of the existing £27 million in 2020-21 already directed to the response, and an additional £4 million allocated to support nutrition and vaccinations in Tigray. This brings UK total funding to support response to the crisis to £47.7 million. We continue to urge all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions he has had with his Sudanese counterpart on the viability of transporting aid through Sudan to the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
Answered by James Duddridge
The UK Government is deeply concerned about the grave humanitarian situation in Ethiopia and shares the concerns outlined in the report on 24 June by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Ensuring assistance gets to those who need it most remains our priority in Tigray. We continue to explore all options with partners to expand humanitarian access by both air and land. During his visit to Sudan the Foreign Secretary commended Sudan's leaders for their efforts to press for a peaceful resolution to the situation in Tigray and for their support for refugees entering Sudan from Ethiopia. There is currently no viable land route from Sudan into Tigray due to ongoing fighting in Western Tigray although we continue to monitor the logistical and political viability of this route and are engaging the Government of Sudan to support any route that becomes available.
On 14 June I [Minister Duddridge] announced that the UK will allocate a further £16.7 million to the crisis in Tigray. This will support civil-military coordination to help aid get to those in need and address famine risk through the provision of healthcare, sanitation, and nutritional support. This allocation is on top of the existing £27 million in 2020-21 already directed to the response, and an additional £4 million allocated to support nutrition and vaccinations in Tigray. This brings UK total funding to support response to the crisis to £47.7 million. We continue to urge all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on the potential merits of deploying RAF coordinated airdrops of food and other essentials into the Tigray Region in Ethiopia.
Answered by James Duddridge
The UK Government is deeply concerned about the grave humanitarian situation in Ethiopia and shares the concerns outlined in the report on 24 June by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Ensuring assistance gets to those who need it most remains our priority in Tigray. We continue to explore all options with partners to expand humanitarian access by both air and land including the possibility of air bridges into Tigray. At this point the FCDO assess that airdrops would not be a viable response to the current situation.
On 14 June I [Minister Duddridge] announced that the UK will allocate a further £16.7 million to the crisis in Tigray. This will support civil-military coordination to help aid get to those in need and address famine risk through the provision of healthcare, sanitation, and nutritional support. This allocation is on top of the existing £27 million in 2020-21 already directed to the response, and an additional £4 million allocated to support nutrition and vaccinations in Tigray. This brings UK total funding to support response to the crisis to £47.7 million. We continue to urge all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of Tigrayans who (a) are classified as facing a famine and (b) have already died as a result of famine conditions.
Answered by James Duddridge
The UK Government is deeply concerned about the grave humanitarian situation in Ethiopia and shares the concerns outlined in the report on 24 June by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report in June reported high levels of food insecurity in Tigray. It concluded more than 3 million people are in 'crisis', nearly 2.1 million in 'emergency' and 353,000 in 'catastrophe' states, per the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) levels.
On 14 June, I [Minister Duddridge] announced that the UK will reallocate a further £16.7 million to the crisis in Tigray. This will support civil-military coordination to help aid get to those in need and address famine risk through the provision of healthcare, sanitation, and nutritional support. This allocation is on top of the existing £27 million in 2020-21 already directed to the response, and an additional £4 million allocated to support nutrition and vaccinations in Tigray. This brings UK total funding to support response to the crisis to £47.7 million. We continue to urge all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and respect international humanitarian law.
Asked by: Andrew Mitchell (Conservative - Sutton Coldfield)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the letter to the President of COP26 of 30 June 2021 from 66 organisations in the human and environmental health sector, if the Government will take steps to adapt UK Government supported climate funding mechanisms to encourage climate adaptation and resilience building programmes that remove barriers to family planning and girls’ education.
Answered by Wendy Morton
Voluntary family planning and girls' education have wide-ranging benefits for individuals and societies, including supporting their adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change. The UK is fulfilling our pledge to provide £5.8 billion in international climate finance (ICF) to developing countries, and we are committed to doubling our ICF to £11.6 billion over the next five years. Our recently published COP Presidency paper 'Priorities for Public Climate Finance' sets out gender-responsive climate finance as a UK priority, which we are championing as COP26 Presidency and through the G7.