Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what assessment he has made of the effect of the UK leaving the EU on the inshore fishing regime.
Answered by James Brokenshire
EU exit gives the UK an opportunity to review fishing regimes across all segments of the UK fleet and to assess how we can best support sustainable fisheries.
The Government looks forward to working with the Northern Ireland Executive throughout the negotiations process to ensure that this sector’s views are taken into account.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, how many and what proportion of workers living in the Republic of Ireland have their principal place of work in the border counties of Northern Ireland.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The 2011 Northern Ireland census revealed that a total of 14,800 people regularly travelled across the border for work or study, of whom 8,300 were travelling from Ireland to Northern Ireland.
There is no specific evidence relating to how many of these people worked in border counties. The 2011 census did reveal that end-destinations were concentrated in the Belfast and Derry/Londonderry Local Government Districts, with further clusters in Newry, Armagh, Craigavon, Dungannon, Enniskillen, Omagh, Limavady, Strabane and Coleraine.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Northern Ireland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, whether the boundary of County Londonderry with Ireland is on the western shore of Lough Foyle; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The Government’s position remains that the whole of Lough Foyle is within the UK.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, what progress has been made on the development of a long-term decommissioning strategy for the North Sea oil and gas industry to (a) ensure the development of that industry and (b) maintain the role of that industry in the Scottish economy.
Answered by David Mundell
The UK Government is well-aware of the importance of the oil and gas sector to the economy and in the last two budgets we announced radical packages of tax measures worth £2.3bn to ensure the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) remains an attractive destination for investment.
(a) The Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has been set up to regulate, influence and promote the UK oil and gas industry and maximise economic recovery of the UK’s oil and gas resources;
(b) The OGA has recently published its decommissioning strategy and delivery programme. This outlines how the OGA, government and industry will work together, and is available online at:
https://www.ogauthority.co.uk/news-publications/publications/2016/decommissioning-strategy/
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Scotland Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, whether progress was made in discussions on the apprenticeship levy at the meeting of the Joint Ministerial Council on 24 October 2016.
Answered by David Mundell
On 25 October, the UK Government published its funding plans which underpin how the levy will operate in England. These plans will provide more support for younger apprentices and disadvantaged people, as well as more flexibility for employers. More details on the policy are available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-apprenticeship-funding-to-transform-investment-in-skills.
As skills policy is devolved, it is for the Scottish Government to decide how it will use its share of the funding.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when she plans to respond to the letter from the hon. Member for Blaydon of 19 August 2016 on the application of the Apprenticeship Levy in Scotland.
Answered by Robert Halfon
The hon. Member should have received an email response on 14 October, with a hard copy to follow.
Skills policy is devolved, which means that the Scottish Government is responsible for managing apprenticeships in its own territory. This has been the case since the Scotland Act 1998 and UK employers understand that they need to engage with different funding bodies in different parts of the UK. The introduction of the apprenticeship levy in April 2017 will not change this position.
On 12 August, we published detailed proposals on how we will fund apprenticeships in England when the levy is introduced in April 2017. These are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/apprenticeship-changes. We are committed to publishing the final apprenticeship funding policy information for England before the end of October. It will be for the Scottish Government to set out its own plans for funding apprenticeships in Scotland.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the expansion of the Doctaly scheme on patients' access to GP services.
Answered by David Mowat
The Department has made no assessment of the potential effect of the expansion of the Doctaly scheme on patients’ access to general practice (GP) services.
The General Practice Forward View, published in April 2016, announced that an extra £2.4 billion a year will be invested in GP services by 2020/21. As part of overall investment in general practice, NHS England will provide over £500 million of recurrent funding by 2020/21, on top of current primary medical care allocations, to enable clinical commissioning groups to commission and fund extra capacity across England. This is to ensure that by 2020, everyone has access to GP services, including sufficient routine appointments at evenings and weekends to meet locally determined demand, alongside effective access to out of hours and urgent care services.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will investigate whether TUPE provisions have been applied to British Airways IT workers' jobs that have been outsourced in the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Margot James
When a business changes owner, TUPE regulations may apply. Outsourcing part of their business is a commercial decision taken by British Airways and it is not a matter for the Government to investigate such decisions.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether the Government is ensuring that programmes involving the regeneration of public land require a proportion of the new homes delivered to be accessible for disabled people.
Answered by Lord Barwell
The Government is committed to addressing the supply of new land for housing. The Public Land for Housing programme has set an ambition to dispose of surplus government-owned land in England with capacity for at least 160,000 homes by 2020. And at Budget 2016 the Chancellor announced a local government land ambition to release land with the capacity for a further 160,000 homes.
Individual local planning authorities will decide the type and number of homes developed on the land released - including those for disabled people - in order to meet local need.
We have put in place new, flexible Building Regulations which allow local authorities to apply appropriate access standards for new homes to meet the needs of their communities while ensuring that development can happen. Building regulations require minimum standards of accessibility for all new dwellings. Local authorities are able to set policies for a proportion of new development to be built to higher standards of accessibility in order to meet local needs in accordance with national planning policy and guidance.
The Government is committed to helping older and disabled people to live independently and safely in their own homes for as a long as possible. The Disabled Facilities Grant funds the provision of home adaptations (including stair lifts, level access showers and in some instances home extensions) to help older and disabled people to live as comfortably, safely and independently as possible in their own homes for longer. Since 2010 we have invested over a billion pounds into the grant providing around 250,000 adaptations to older and disabled people's homes in England.
Government is also boosting the supply of specialised housing through the Care and Support Specialised Housing Fund, with 79 schemes receiving more than £84.2 million to develop up to 2,000 affordable homes over the next few years.
Asked by: David Anderson (Labour - Blaydon)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment her Department has made of the implications for (a) prison officer and (b) prisoner safety of prison officers working in shifts at other prison establishments in addition to those prison establishments at which they are based.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
There is a requirement that home/parent establishments maintain records of all official duties carried out by members of staff, both those duties within their home/parent establishment and within or for any other establishment. Establishments are also required to maintain records when members of staff from other establishments carryout duties within or for their establishment.
Individual members of staff have a responsibility to support the above and are required inform their parent establishment of their wish/intention to work additional hours at another establishment, in advance of the hours being worked.
When members of staff are deployed to another establishment for a protracted period on Detached Duty they are given an appropriate induction to familiarise them with specifics of the prison and key issues relating to individual prisoners. If standard duties are carried out on an ad hoc basis for other establishments standard risk assessments and briefs will be carried out.
In all circumstances records should be maintained.