Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question
To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what steps the Church has taken to ensure that an (a) Agricultural Land Classification and (b) Soil Assessment is undertaken prior to any applications being submitted to Kirklees Council relating to land at Heybeck, Batley and Chidswell, Dewsbury.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The Agricultural Land Classification was reviewed as per the Agricultural Land Classification Map for Yorkshire and the Humber region (ref 10-111c). The site is identified as grade 3 agricultural land and referenced within the Planning Statement. The Environmental Impact Assessment submitted with the application looks at the impact of the development on soil.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to help increase the number of direct flights between the UK and Pakistan.
Answered by Robert Courts - Solicitor General (Attorney General's Office)
Air services between the United Kingdom and other countries are governed by a portfolio of bilateral air services agreements, which set the framework in which airlines from both countries operate. Our agreement with Pakistan does not place any restrictions on the frequency or nature of direct air services. Any airline from the UK or Pakistan, designated under this agreement, can operate between any points in the two countries.
However, it is for individual airlines to determine whether to take advantage of the rights and routes available to them within any air services agreement. Market conditions, such as the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, often affect the commercial considerations of airlines.
My Department’s officials and the Civil Aviation Authority stand ready to assist any UK or Pakistan airline which wants to operate between the two countries.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many young people continued to receive earnings from employment after their Kickstart Scheme job ended; and how many organisations employed young people on that scheme.
Answered by Chloe Smith
Throughout the duration of the Kickstart scheme, over 30,000 employers took on a young person, providing them with the opportunity to gain experience that would improve their chances of progressing to find long-term, sustainable work. Essential to this effort has been employers, including B&M retail, Superdrug, McColls, JD Sports and CDS Superstores, who were the top recruiters, taking over 8,000 Kickstart participants between them. As of the 4th July, around 30,000 young people had yet to complete their Kickstart jobs.
As of May 2022, around 7 in 10 people were in paid employment 10 months after starting their Kickstart job. This figure is subject to revision and it includes participants who left their Kickstart Scheme job in less than six months.
The Kickstart evaluation will continue to assess the longer-term outcomes for Kickstart participants after they have completed their six-month jobs, the fieldwork for the commissioned evaluation will continue until at least 2023. We will publish the findings once complete.
Notes section:
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. Work is ongoing to improve the quality of information available for the programme. The information provided on the number of employers is based on PAYE numbers, if an employer has more than on PAYE, they may be included in this figure more than once. In addition, the number quoted for young people in paid employment is based on those whose earnings are reported via RTI so does not include some groups such as the self-employed.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of her Department's Pension Credit Day of Action.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
Pension Credit applications and take up have improved dramatically following the Pension Credit awareness campaign in April, and the Pension Credit Day of Action on 15 June; this involved work with broadcasters, media, newspapers and other stakeholder partners who were encouraged to reach out to pensioners to promote Pension Credit through their channels.
Although not all claims can be directly attributed to the campaign, early indications are that the day of action has been highly effective. Our internal management information suggests there have been over 10,000 Pension Credit claims made during the week of the media day – an increase of 275% compared to the same week in 2021, which itself was an enhanced week due to the 2021 Pension Credit Action Day.
The impact of these claim volumes on numbers of successful awards and on Pension Credit take up will take longer to establish given the usual cycle involved in producing those statistics. However, the campaign is ongoing including a particular focus on getting the private sector to drive forward efforts to enhance claims, and specific effort to reach out to communities who have traditionally not claimed Pension Credit. That work is very much ongoing.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments have been carried out (a) face-to-face, (b) remotely and (c) on paper in each year since the tendering of provider-based PIP contracts were agreed; and what performance metrics in those contracts have been met by those providers in that contract period.
Answered by Chloe Smith
The number and proportion of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments that have been carried out (a) face to face, (b) remotely, including telephone and video, and c) paper based, can be found in the tables below.
Please note:
Provider performance is measured across a range of service level agreements setting out the department's expectations for service delivery. These include quality, performance delivery targets and customer experience.
For the years 2013 - 2022, the number of assessments per channel are:
Year | Remote | Paper-Based | Face-to-Face |
Jun-13 to Dec-13 | 0 | 12,890 | 24,950 |
2014 | 0 | 103,680 | 295,170 |
2015 | 0 | 148,220 | 534,230 |
2016 | 0 | 182,050 | 786,080 |
2017 | 0 | 160,620 | 871,000 |
2018 | 0 | 136,050 | 818,820 |
2019 | 0 | 154,050 | 776,080 |
2020 | 441,390 | 139,040 | 153,180 |
2021 | 611,530 | 125,130 | 22,380 |
Jan-22 to Apr-22 | 236,180 | 53,330 | 14,720 |
With channel proportion as:
Year | Remote | Paper-Based | Face-to-Face |
Jun-13 to Dec-13 | 0.0% | 34.1% | 65.9% |
2014 | 0.0% | 26.0% | 74.0% |
2015 | 0.0% | 21.7% | 78.3% |
2016 | 0.0% | 18.8% | 81.2% |
2017 | 0.0% | 15.6% | 84.4% |
2018 | 0.0% | 14.2% | 85.8% |
2019 | 0.0% | 16.6% | 83.4% |
2020 | 60.2% | 19.0% | 20.9% |
2021 | 80.6% | 16.5% | 2.9% |
Jan-22 to Apr-22 | 77.6% | 17.5% | 4.8% |
For more information, monthly performance measures against targets can be found in the attached PDF document.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people had secured a job as a result of the Way to Work campaign, as at 26 June 2022.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 29 June, we estimate that at least 505,400 unemployed Universal Credit claimants and Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) claimants have moved into work during the Way to Work Campaign between 31 January and the end of 26 June 2022.
This total figure is composed of our into work measure to the end of May (over 386,000) and our internal management information up to 26 June (58,900). We are now also able to include JSA claimants who have moved into work between 31 January and 9 June 2022 (35,100) into our total. Furthermore, we have also included those claimants with a sanction in place that moved into work during the period of the campaign up to 26 June (25,400). Figures are rounded to the nearest 100.
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 and timeliness.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, what assessment his Department has made of the impact of disclosure requirements on (a) police and (b) Crown Prosecution Service workloads.
Answered by Alex Chalk - Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
Disclosure remains one of the most important and complex issues in the criminal justice system, and it is a priority for this Government to encourage improvements in disclosure practice in order to ensure the disclosure regime operates effectively, fairly, and justly. The first annual review of the operation of the Attorney General’s Guidelines on Disclosure has just been completed and will be published imminently. That review involved close collaboration with policing, the CPS and others in the criminal justice system and has led to some important amendments to the guidelines which should aid front line policing, particularly in relation to the development of an annex on redaction.
The new approach of the Guidelines gives clear guidance on only providing relevant information to the CPS, for example by cutting footage from body worn video or only including relevant message chains not an entire phone image. In this way there is less to redact, thereby helping the burden felt by front line policing and the CPS.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he has plans to take steps to support UK businesses that are reliant on imported goods from Belarus and are at risk of insolvency as a result of the additional 35 per cent tariff on those goods.
Answered by Lucy Frazer - Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
As part of our response to the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the Lukashenko regime is being made to feel the economic consequences for its support for Putin. The UK is working with our international partners to prevent those who fail to respect the rules-based international order from reaping its benefits.
To that end, on 15 March, the government announced an additional 35 per cent tariff on certain goods of Russian and Belarusian origin. The decision to include Belarus in scope of this measure is to prevent circumvention of Russian-origin goods, and is in line with the evolving sanctions position.
When designing this policy, the government considered the sectoral impacts on the UK economy alongside our wider objectives. To help businesses adjust, the Department for International Trade has exempted goods that had left Belarus or Russia before the legislation entered into force on 25 March 2022. If UK businesses have any questions about trading with Ukraine, Russia or Belarus they can contact the government's Export Support Service.
We will continue to keep these measures under review.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Levelling Up White Paper published on 2 February 2022, if he will publish details of the provisions that will made available for pupils with special educational needs as a result of Kirklees having been included in an Educational Investment Area.
Answered by Will Quince
We are making over £100 million of funding available to support Education Investment Areas over the course of the Spending Review period. The Levelling Up White Paper, published on 2 February 2022, set out some of the support that will be available to schools in these areas.
In these new Education Investment Areas, the department will offer retention payments to help schools keep the best teachers in the highest priority subjects.
To drive up standards rapidly, schools in these areas that have been judged less than Good in successive Ofsted inspections could be moved into strong multi-academy trusts, to attract more support and the best teachers. This will be subject to a consultation in the spring.
Our Schools White Paper will set out further details on the funding available to Education Investment Areas, as well our plans to make a wider programme of support available to a priority subset of these areas.
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Review will set out our plan to improve provision for children with SEND across England. It will be published in the first 3 months of 2022.
Asked by: Mark Eastwood (Conservative - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of clauses 105 and 106 of the Environment Bill on outstanding planning applications with proposed development sites that include a variety of species and natural habitats.
Answered by Christopher Pincher
These clauses in the Environment Bill support the Government's increased ambitions for nature and to deliver on our world leading target of halting species decline by 2030. The clauses reflect the importance of furthering the conservation and enhancement of biodiversity and will enable the Secretary of State to introduce regulations which amend the Habitats Regulations as they apply in England. This will provide greater legal certainty and make environmental processes clearer, to help improve the condition of our most important habitats. The Secretary of State may only make regulations under these clauses if they are satisfied that the regulations do not reduce the level of environmental protection provided by the Habitats Regulations. These changes complement MHCLG's commitment to encourage biodiversity net gain through the planning system, as set out in our Planning for the Future White Paper.