Craig Mackinlay

It would go beyond the statutory remit of the House of Commons Commission to make budgetary provision for the project in Ramsgate. However, the Commission is well aware of the contribution that Augustus Welby Pugin made to the design of the Palace of Westminster and is delighted that it was possible last year to donate some original encaustic tiles from the Palace for public display in St. Augustine’s Church.

The UK has not had discussions with the EU on the free movement of chilled meats or other goods originating in the USA, between Sint Maarten and Saint Martin, in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I
have asked the Authority to reply.

The British public deserves to have confidence in our democracy. A diverse range of 10 local authorities have confirmed that they will be taking part in Voter ID and postal vote pilots for the 2019 local elections. The pilots will provide further insight into ensuring the security of the voting process.

The British public deserves to have confidence in our democracy. A diverse range of local authorities have confirmed that they will be taking part in Voter ID and postal vote pilots for the 2019 local elections. The pilots will provide further insight into ensuring the security of the voting process.

By the end of this year, we expect that over 200,000 young people will have benefited from NCS. Independent evaluations are showing that NCS is helping it deliver more confident, capable and engaged young people. That is why government has pledged to guarantee a place for every young person who wants one.

The Department publishes its levelised costs of electricity for a generic plant in the Generation Costs Report, most recently in 2023 (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/energy-generation-cost-projections). These provide forecasts for 2025 to 2040. Gas CCGT is 114 £/MWh for 2025 and offshore wind is 44 £/MWh for 2025 (2021 price base). Levelised costs use a forecast of gas prices over the lifetime of a plant based on the latest published gas price forecasts at the time of publication (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fossil-fuel-price-assumptions-2019).

The Government consulted on proposals to end the installation of heating systems using high carbon fossil fuels in homes, businesses and public buildings off the gas grid during the 2020s. The Government will publish its response to the consultations in due course.

The proposals referred to phasing out installation of coal, heating oil and non-mains gas heating systems, but not to biomass. The Government has no current plans to end the sale of new biomass boilers.

The Government has not yet announced a publication date for the UK ETS Government Response.

The Government made a wide range of proposals in the consultation and will ensure the Government Response reflects on the evidence and implications from the consultation and offers sensible final proposals and next steps.

Currently the Government does not model degradation of wind turbine output nor changes in operating costs with time, but instead uses lifetime average values to calculate mean levelised cost of electricity.^[1]

^[1]https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/energy-generation-cost-projections

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green on 6 July 2022 to Question 28901.

In 2019, the Government confirmed that the pause on the exploration of shale gas reserves in England would remain in place unless and until further evidence was provided that shale gas extraction could be carried out safely. Any exploration or development of shale gas would need to meet rigorous safety and environmental protections both above ground and sub-surface.

The Government has commissioned the British Geological Survey to advise on the latest scientific evidence around shale gas extraction. Unless the latest scientific evidence demonstrates that shale gas extraction is safe, sustainable and of minimal disturbance to those living and working nearby, the pause in England will remain in place.

The diversity of Great Britain’s sources of gas supply obviates a reliance on natural gas storage. This distinguishes Great Britain from some European countries which have a relative larger storage capacity than Great Britain.

The Government is continuing to explore the future of the gas storage landscape, including in relation to hydrogen. The UK Hydrogen Strategy considers the role of hydrogen storage in greater detail and whether further regulation or support mechanisms are needed to maximise its potential.

The recent request to the British Geological Survey has been made to assess if any progress has been made in the scientific understanding which underpins government policy on hydraulic fracturing.

The Government has always been clear that the exploration of shale gas reserves in England could only proceed if the science shows that it is safe, sustainable and of minimal disturbance to those living and working nearby. The request to the British Geological Survey does not indicate a change to government policy.

All providers of 16-19 education, including school sixth forms, sixth form colleges and general FE colleges, are funded according to a single national formula. We announced, as part of the Spending Review, that we will protect the national base rate of £4,000 per student for the duration of the parliament. From 2016/17 the large programme uplift will apply, which will give a funding uplift of 10 per cent for study programmes of four A levels and 20 per cent for five A levels, when at least a grade B in all subjects is gained. Equivalent uplifts will apply to the full level 3 International Baccalaureate and large TechBacc programmes.

We set out full details of the funding rates for 16-19 institutions in 2016/17 in January and aim to provide further information on savings that will be required from 2017/18 as soon as possible. We have already announced that we will remove transitional formula protection funding over six years from 2016/17, ensuring sufficient lead-in time for institutions to manage this reduction.

Government accredited Official Veterinarians ensure that every animal for which export certification is requested is fit to travel and has been rested, fed and watered.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) undertakes supervised loadings in all bar exceptional circumstances at departure premises where animals are being exported for further fattening or slaughter. In addition, welfare checks are conducted on all vehicles on arrival at Ramsgate. These checks range from ensuring all watering and ventilation systems are fully functional, to an inspection of the animals on board the vehicle.

APHA inspectors are present at every sailing from Ramsgate involving the export of live animals destined for slaughter. Where breaches in the legislation are identified APHA can, and does, take regulatory action to ensure compliance, protect the welfare of the animals and to achieve ongoing compliance.

The report produced by Kent Action Against Live Exports (KAALE) is currently being reviewed by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) on behalf of Defra. Where any non-compliance set out in the report is confirmed, APHA will take appropriate regulatory or enforcement action.

The Government is committed to the welfare of all animals and to making further improvements to animal welfare in transport. We fully intend to take advantage of our departure from the European Union to improve animal welfare and to ensure the highest standards. We have a commitment to end excessively long journeys for slaughter and fattening and we intend to consult on how we deliver on that manifesto commitment before the end of this year.

The Government’s proposal for a common rulebook on goods only relates to those technical and product safety rules necessary to provide for a frictionless border. The proposal does not extend to wider single market legislation nor animal welfare and would not fetter our abilities to restrict or ban live animal exports.

The White Paper published on 12 July 2018 explains: “By being outside the CAP, and having a common rulebook that only applies to rules that must be checked at the border, the UK would be able to have control over new future subsidy arrangements, control over market surveillance of domestic policy arrangements, an ability to change tariffs and quotas in the future, and the freedom to apply higher animal welfare standards that would not have a bearing on the functioning of the free trade area for goods – such as welfare in transport and the treatment of live animal exports.”

The original ban on fishing methods using electric current in EU legislation was followed by a specific derogation to permit electric pulse beam trawl fishing under certain conditions. Those arrangements are currently under consideration.

We will continue to consider all the scientific evidence to inform our negotiations on the EU approach and to develop the UK’s future fisheries regime. The government does have concerns about some of the impacts of pulse trawling.

Whatever the outcome on pulse fishing agreed in EU legislation, once we leave the EU we will decide the terms of access to UK waters. That will give us the ability to ban certain approaches where the latest scientific evidence indicates that is necessary.

The UK Government remains fully committed to ending the wasteful practice of discarding after the UK leaves the EU and will continue to work with the industry to address this issue.

As the Prime Minister said in Florence, the United Kingdom will cease to be a member of the European Union on 29th March 2019. This delivers on the wishes of the British public and does not change because of the implementation period.

National Highways the Government’s Arm’s Length body that manages the Strategic Road Network has estimated the driver’s hours lost due to protestors as 126,894 hours.

The data for carbon dioxide emissions is currently not available due to complexity in gathering such data.

Illegal protests on our roads put the lives of drivers and road workers at risk, as well as pointlessly interfering with the lives of ordinary people. We will continue to pursue every option available to deter them.

The Department for Transport does not hold investment data in the format requested and this could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. However, over the last five years, the Government has made significant investment which benefit East Kent. This includes the introduction of several new high speed services (including at Martin Mill station); ongoing work to deliver line speed improvements between Ashford International and Ramsgate and a traction power supply upgrade to facilitate the operation of longer trains. The train operator has committed to making improvements worth more than £70m across the franchise area by 2018.

The Government published an assessment of the effectiveness of the HGV levy in a written statement on 15 June 2015. The levy was introduced, on time, in April 2014. It raised £192.5m in its first year, with £46.5m of that coming from foreign hauliers. Compliance in Great Britain is high at around 95%, and over 3,000 fixed penalties were issued in the first year.

During the trial the police used a combination of information provided by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and on-road interviews to establish whether a vehicle had overstayed the six-month exemption and/or if the vehicle keeper was a resident in the UK.

Of the 703 vehicles impounded during the trial, 162 were included in the HMRC’s data set.

The table below shows the amounts awarded by the courts following successful prosecutions:

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) also received £20,751 from out of court settlement payments.

The trial was carried out from within existing resources.

A full analysis of the trial is underway and will inform the way forward. Police forces which are authorised by the DVLA to seize unlicensed vehicles continue to target non-compliant foreign registered vehicles.

In order to help encourage parents to take financial responsibility for their children and maximise the amount of maintenance that flows from the non-resident parent to the child, child maintenance payments made under the statutory scheme or through a family based arrangement are not treated as income for means tested benefits.

The requested information is within the table below. This shows the numbers of pensioners who had been overseas and receiving a non-uprated pension who have returned to the UK during the year and were no longer having their pension non-uprated:

Source:
DWP 100% WPLS

Notes:
1. Figures are rounded to the nearest 1,000.
2. The period referenced in the table is from 1st March to the following last day in February.

Influenza infection levels and related deaths are not routinely collected in the format requested, therefore this specific estimate has not been made. The number of influenza infections and deaths due to influenza-related complications varies with each flu season.

NHS England has no plans to make it mandatory for National Health Service dental practices to notify all stakeholders of a planned closure one year in advance.

The General Dental Services Regulations and Personal Dental Services Agreement Regulations state that, either commissioners or NHS providers may terminate the contract by providing a minimum three months’ notice.

The Talk to FRANK service is currently operated by Public Health England (PHE), and the information supplied in response to Question 113472 was drawn from PHE financial records.

During the period April 2010 to March 2013, the Talk to FRANK service was operated jointly by the Home Office and the Department of Health.

In the 2017 report ‘An evaluation of the Government’s Drug Strategy 2010’, the Government spend on media and information activity under the Drug Strategy 2010, 2010/11 to 2014/15 (including on FRANK) is provided on page 73:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/628100/Drug_Strategy_Evaluation.PDF

During the financial year April 2016 to March 2017 Talk to FRANK received 94,760 calls. It should be noted that the Talk to FRANK service offers a range of contact methods and its customer support team also answered 39,163 emails, texts and webchat messages. The FRANK website also received five million web visits in 2016/17.

During the current financial year (April 2017 to March 2018) we are planning to spend £978,000 on the Talk to FRANK service.

Since the Talk to FRANK service was established in 2003 (but excluding the period April 2010 to March 2013) £9,117,242 has been spent on the service (including the current year’s £978,000 budget).

During the financial year April 2016 to March 2017 Talk to FRANK received 94,760 calls. It should be noted that the Talk to FRANK service offers a range of contact methods and its customer support team also answered 39,163 emails, texts and webchat messages. The FRANK website also received five million web visits in 2016/17.

During the current financial year (April 2017 to March 2018) we are planning to spend £978,000 on the Talk to FRANK service.

Since the Talk to FRANK service was established in 2003 (but excluding the period April 2010 to March 2013) £9,117,242 has been spent on the service (including the current year’s £978,000 budget).