Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Prime Minister, if the Cabinet will visit Copeland constituency.
Answered by Baroness May of Maidenhead
There are no current plans to do so.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many farmers had not received money due from the Rural Payments Agency under the 2015 Basic Payment Scheme by the end of 16 November 2016 in (a) England, (b) Cumbria and (c) Copeland parliamentary constituency.
Answered by George Eustice
By 16 November, in addition to claims which the Rural Payments Agency (RPA) cannot pay due to legal reasons such as probate, all but 6 claimants had received a payment, and of those 6 none are in Cumbria or the Copeland constituency. This figure is an increase of 1 compared to the previously reported figure because the agency is completing routine final checks on nil value claims.
The RPA said it would investigate BPS 2015 claims where there is a discrepancy between the claim information and that held on the Rural Payments Service through a planned reconciliation process. This started after the BPS 2016 application window and looked at an initial stock of 13,607 claims for England. The agency continues to review new queries and has identified 1,200 claims relating to common land, of these 386 are in Cumbria and 73 are in the Copeland constituency.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :
To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what (a) discussions and (b) meetings he has had with Nigel Farage since 23 June 2016.
Answered by David Jones
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 16 November 2016 to the Question 52723.
Details of Ministerial meetings will be published in the Department’s Quarterly Transparency Returns, which will be made publicly available on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what (a) discussions and (b) meetings he has had with Nigel Farage since 23 June 2016.
Answered by Alan Duncan
I refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire of 16 November (written PQ 52754).
Details of all FCO Ministers' external meetings are published on the gov.uk website on a quarterly basis.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will take steps to encourage schools to teach Japanese as a foreign language.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Since September 2014, maintained primary schools in England must teach a modern or ancient foreign language to pupils at Key Stage 2 (ages 7 to 11). Maintained secondary schools must teach a modern foreign language to pupils at Key Stage 3
(ages 11 to 14). Schools can choose which languages to teach.
The Government is committed to increasing the proportion of the population gaining language qualifications at Key Stages 4 and 5, including Japanese. As a result of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), the number of students in state-funded mainstream schools studying a language at GCSE has increased from 40% in 2010 to 49% in 2016.
In August we confirmed that EBacc entry would become a headline measure in school performance tables from this year, alongside EBacc achievement. This will encourage schools to enter more pupils for the EBacc and for languages in future, which should increase the pool of potential people studying languages at A level and beyond.
The Government also supports the efforts of the Japan Foundation to help schools teach Japanese. The Japan Foundation encourages and offers support to schools by providing teacher training, resources and financial assistance of up to £3,000 for schools wanting to develop Japanese teaching.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what recent representations he has made to the European Commission on the progress of the Government's application to the EU solidarity fund for flood damage.
Answered by Andrew Percy
The Government finalised the UK’s application to the EU Solidarity Fund on 22 September 2016. The Government has been in regular contact with the European Commission at working level, and we await their decision on the application.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how much funding to date his Department has made available to each local authority area affected by flood damage from Storms Desmond, Eva and Frank; and how much of that funding was allocated from (a) the Communities and Business Recovery scheme, (b) the Bellwin scheme and (c) other funding sources.
Answered by Andrew Percy
My Department has paid out £57,237,780 to help local communities recover from Storms Desmond and Eva.
A breakdown of this sum will be provided to the Library of the House shortly.
We have also paid out £8.6 million predominantly match-funding to flood relief charities and community foundations.
Government has paid out over £240 million to help repair infrastructure damaged as a result of Storms Desmond and Eva.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of the National Grid's North West Coast Connections project on flight training in and around Cumbria; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
The proposed new overhead power lines included in National Grid's North West Coast Connections project has been evaluated against defence interests in the area including military low flying training activities.
Based upon the information provided by National Grid, the majority of the route for the new overhead power lines will follow that of existing major overhead line routes and it has been determined that the scheme will not impact upon the safe and effective completion of military low flying training in and around Cumbria, subject to details of all new overhead power lines being submitted to the Ministry of Defence for inclusion on relevant aeronautical charts.
Asked by: Jamie Reed (Labour - Copeland)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what his Department's input will be to the public consultation on the National Grid's North West Coast Connections project.
Answered by Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has responded to National Grid's consultation on this project and identified that the department has no objections to the proposal, subject to details of all new overhead power lines being submitted to the MOD for inclusion on relevant aeronautical charts.