Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of companies that have received workplace inspections in respect of covid-19 from the Health and Safety Executive to date.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
HSE’s recording systems do not readily allow the number of companies inspected to be identified. To do so would require HSE officials to manually retrieve the data, which would incur disproportionate costs.
An estimate of the number of companies inspected can be derived from the number of COVID-19 spot checks carried out, although there will be instances where a company has been inspected more than once where they have multiple sites e.g. a construction company may have more than one of their construction sites inspected.
Since March 2020, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has carried out a programme of interventions to check how businesses are implementing measures to reduce transmission of COVID-19 at their sites.
As at 15 April 2021, HSE has completed 194,641 COVID-19 spot checks.
Whenever HSE visits a workplace, irrespective of the purpose of the visit it always reviews COVID-19 control measures and if needed will take appropriate action to address any control failings.
Notes:
(i) Figures represent interventions across all sectors, including both public and private sector duty holders.
(ii) Figures were obtained from HSE’s live operational database and are subject to change, e.g., as there can be a delay of up to ten working days before information is uploaded onto the system.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of (a) successful and (b) overall applications made to the Kickstart Scheme in Oxfordshire.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
As of 18th March there was over 15,000 applications to the Department of Work and Pensions’ Kickstart Scheme nationally.
We are not able to publish a breakdown of this information below regional level.
Although care is taken when processing and analysing Kickstart applications, referrals and starts, the data collected might be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system which has been developed quickly. The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics, but is provided in the interests of transparency.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 26 June 2020 to Question 60659 on Renewable energy, what plans her Department has to install solar panels and wind turbines on its buildings in the next five years.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
DWP is in the process of drafting and internally socialising its Carbon & Utilities Management Plan, covering 2020 to 2025 to meet the Greening Government Commitments targets and the UK Net Zero Carbon emissions trajectory. DWP’s approach is to reduce emissions utilising the Energy Management Hierarchy. With this in mind, and when the plan is agreed, we will commit to investigate opportunities to reduce site energy and building baseloads and where economics are favourable whilst using our Crown Commercial Services frameworks we will consider but not limit ourselves to the following renewable & low or zero carbon schemes:
1. District Heat Networks (DHNs)
We will commit to explore and work with UK city wide DHN developments to decarbonise the heat demand within our buildings.
2. Water/ground/air source heat pumps
We will commit to carry out Low or Zero Carbon studies where we instruct new builds and major refurbishments.
3. Photovoltaic and thermal installations
We will commit to exploring utilising our car parks and building rooftops for solar PV and solar thermal systems.
4. Wind generators
We will commit to reviewing our sites to assess the practicality of using wind turbine technology.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when a Minister from her Department last visited a food bank on an official visit.
Answered by Will Quince
Ministers engage closely with food bank providers and I meet regularly with the Trussell Trust. The Secretary of State and I held an independent foodbank provider roundtable meeting on 12 February.
Ministers in the Department also visit food banks on a regular basis. The most recent official visit was made by Baroness Stedman Scott on 30 January. The Department has been respecting Governmental guidelines around non-essential travel but is maintaining close contact with its stakeholders until normal visits and roundtables can be resumed. This includes those in the food bank sector.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the number of (a) civil servants, (b) special advisers and (c) contract staff in her Department who claim universal credit.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
I refer the Honourable Member to the answer I gave to question 28737 on 17 March 2020.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people have had their benefits capped since January 31st 2020; and how many of those caps were still in place on 1 June 2020.
Answered by Mims Davies - Shadow Minister (Women)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to undertake a universal basic income pilot in Kingston upon Hull; and whether she has made an estimate of the timescale for the implementation of such pilots.
Answered by Will Quince
The Department for Work and Pensions does not have any plans to undertake a pilot of universal basic income (UBI).