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Written Question
Armed Forces: Housing
Wednesday 13th March 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what lessons his Department has learned for the future provision of service accommodation from the Single Living Accommodation Modernisation project.

Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

Lessons learnt from the Single Living Accommodation Modernisation project include that it provided value for money through standardisation of design, and economies of scale through a managed pipeline of projects.

The Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) is continuing to realise these benefits through our Single Living Accommodation Programmatic Approach.

Standard designs have been developed in consultation with the front-line commands and industry partners.

Design layouts have been amended to provide better functional spaces in bedrooms and common areas.

The design of building fabric and services has been improved to achieve through life Net Zero Carbon requirements.


Written Question
Fishing Catches: Import Controls
Friday 9th February 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many (a) documentary checks on, (b) physical checks on, (c) foreign supplier verification checks on and (d) rejections of consignments imported with a catch certificate validated by China were undertaken under the Sea Fishing (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing) Order 2009 in 2023.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

This information is not held centrally by the Government.


Written Question
Warships: Decommissioning
Monday 5th February 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the planned out of service dates are for HMS (a) Bulwark and (b) Albion; and whether it is his Department's policy to ensure both vessels remain operational up to that date.

Answered by James Cartlidge - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)

It remains the case that no final decisions have been made regarding the future of HMS ALBION and HMS BULWARK. On current plans, both platforms will retire from service by the end of 2034 as originally scheduled.


Written Question
Dentistry: Higher Education
Thursday 1st February 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information her Department holds on the number of students studying dentistry in universities in England and Wales in the 2023-24 academic year.

Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Office for Students (OfS) collects and publishes data on the intakes to dentistry degrees in England and Wales. Initial figures from the OfS suggest that, in the 2023/24 academic year, 805 students began dentistry degrees in England, and 70 students began dentistry degrees in Wales. The Department does not hold further information on the overall number of students studying dentistry at universities in England and Wales in the 2023/24 academic year.


Written Question
Marine Protected Areas
Monday 29th January 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent progress the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Action Alliance has made; and what representations the UK has made at the Alliance since the Our Ocean conference in Panama in March 2023.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

The UK Government is a founder member of the IUU Action Alliance, and as its current chair and secretariat the UK works closely with its partners globally to ensure the Alliance’s long-term success. The Alliance now contains 11 members with 9 supporters, with an ambitious work programme agreed by its members.


Written Question
Nuclear Physics: Higher Education
Tuesday 23rd January 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 15 January 2024 to Question 7744 on Engineering and Nuclear Physics: Higher Education, what estimate she has made of the number and proportion of the (a) undergraduate and (b) postgraduate students who were enrolled in Nuclear and Particle Physics in the 2021-22 academic year that were international students.

Answered by Robert Halfon - Minister of State (Education)

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), now part of JISC, collects and publishes data on student enrolments across all UK higher education providers. This includes data on full person equivalents (FPE) enrolled in different subject areas, categorised using the higher education coding of subjects (HECoS) system. Counts of enrolments in each HECoS group are published in Table 52 of HESA’s Student Data, available at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-52.

Enrolments in ‘Nuclear and Particle Physics’ are recorded under HECoS code 101077, and can be filtered to give counts by level of study and domicile.

For more information on HECoS see: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/support/documentation/hecos.



Written Question
Sandeels: North Sea
Friday 19th January 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help protect stocks of sand eels in English North Sea waters.

Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)

Defra is presently preparing its response to the public consultation on the future management of sandeels in English waters of the North Sea. I am grateful to everyone who responded. A summary of responses is here: Summary of responses - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). I will announce my decision shortly.


Written Question
Driving
Monday 15th January 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department has taken to implement the Plan for Drivers published on 2 October 2023.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

Work is underway for each of the 30 measures in “The Plan for Drivers”, with many expected to be completed by summer 2024.


Written Question
Engineering and Nuclear Physics: Higher Education
Monday 15th January 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department holds on (a) which universities offer courses in nuclear (i) physics and (ii) engineering and (b) how many (A) undergraduate and (B) graduate students are on such courses.

Answered by Robert Halfon - Minister of State (Education)

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), now part of Jisc, collects and publishes data on student enrolments and qualifications obtained at UK higher education providers. This includes data on full person equivalents (FPE) enrolled in different subject areas, categorised using the Higher Education Coding of Subjects (HECoS) system. Further information on the HECoS system is available at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/support/documentation/hecos.

This data has been used to approximate which providers offered courses including elements of the HECoS subjects ‘Nuclear Engineering’ (HECoS code 100172) and ‘Nuclear and Particle Physics’ (HECoS code 101077) in the 2021/22 academic year, and how many FPEs were enrolled in each of these subjects. This information has been provided as an attachment.

For an up-to-date view of available undergraduate courses, including nuclear studies, please visit: https://discoveruni.gov.uk/.


Written Question
Law Reporting: Artificial Intelligence
Monday 15th January 2024

Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of using AI to produce trial transcripts.

Answered by Mike Freer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Justice)

The government is constantly assessing how to improve the efficiency within the criminal justice system, including mechanisms to accelerate trial transcripts.

We recognise the potential merits to using automated technology for trial transcriptions, including a potential reduction in the time it takes to produce a transcription and comparative value for money.

Transcriptions must achieve very high levels of accuracy (99.5%) to ensure the justice system can operate fairly and effectively. However, even software with learning capability cannot yet reliably meet the accuracy requirements for the service without human intervention.