Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will estimate the number of school places that will be available in Yorkshire and Humber in each of the next five years.
Answered by Edward Timpson
The department collects information from each local authority (LA) on the current number of school places and LA’s firm plans for the delivery of additional places over the next three years, through the annual school capacity survey (SCAP).
As at May 2015 there were 475,707 primary places and 375,888 secondary places at maintained mainstream schools across Yorkshire and Humber. At that point in time LAs across Yorkshire and Humber reported they had firm plans for delivery of an additional 17,919 places by 2017/18. The number of new places for which LAs have firm plans for delivery, through academic years 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18 is available in table A7 of the attached and is available on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-capacity-academic-year-2014-to-2015
The data represents a snapshot in time and LAs will have delivered and developed plans for many more new places since.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, when he took the decision to undertake an impact assessment for the purposes of the Public Sector Equality Duty of the changes to the budget for community pharmacy in 2016-17; and when work on that assessment commenced.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond that were published on 17 December 2015 were considered against my Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health’s duties, which include the Public Sector Equality Duty. An impact assessment has been developed during the consultation period and the Department is committed to publishing the impact assessment alongside any Drug Tariff determination.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Key Stage 1 children in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b) Barnsley local authority area and (c) Yorkshire and the Humber were in classes of more than 35 children in the academic year beginning September (i) 2010, (ii) 2011, (iii) 2013, (iv) 2014 and (v) 2015.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information about the number of pupils in infant classes with more than 30 pupils is available at school level in the underlying data of the ‘schools, pupils and their characteristics’ statistics.[1]
Information on class sizes for the academic year beginning September 2015 is not yet available and is due to be released in June 2016.
[1] Data from January 2011 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2011 in the file called ‘School_level_classes_2011’ within the underlying data download
Data from January 2012 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2012 in the file called ‘School_level_classes_2012’ within the underlying data download
Data from January 2013 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2013 in the file called ‘School_level_classes_2013’ within the underlying data download
Data from January 2014 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2014 in the file called ‘SFR15_2014_school_level_classes_UD’ within the underlying data download.
Data from January 2015 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015 in the file called ‘SFR16_2015_Schools_Classes_UD’ within the underlying data download.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many Key Stage 1 children in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b) Barnsley and (c) Yorkshire and the Humber were in classes of more than 30 children in the academic year beginning September (i) 2010, (ii) 2011, (iii) 2013, (iv) 2014 and (v) 2015.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Information about the number of pupils in infant classes with more than 30 pupils is available at school level in the underlying data of the ‘schools, pupils and their characteristics’ statistics.[1]
Information on class sizes for the academic year beginning September 2015 is not yet available and is due to be released in June 2016.
[1] Data from January 2011 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2011 in the file called ‘School_level_classes_2011’ within the underlying data download
Data from January 2012 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2012 in the file called ‘School_level_classes_2012’ within the underlying data download
Data from January 2013 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2013 in the file called ‘School_level_classes_2013’ within the underlying data download
Data from January 2014 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2014 in the file called ‘SFR15_2014_school_level_classes_UD’ within the underlying data download.
Data from January 2015 is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015 in the file called ‘SFR16_2015_Schools_Classes_UD’ within the underlying data download.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will seek information from the BBC on the number of unique visitors to the BBC Food website in each month since May 2010; and if he will place that information in the Library.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
Decisions in relation to the BBC's online content are a matter for the BBC which is editorially independent of the Government.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to reduce regional variations in local authority (a) core spending power and (b) core spending power per dwelling in England.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
The Local Government Finance Settlement distributes resources fairly by taking into account the main sources of income available to councils, including council tax and business rates. This means that funding is allocated in a way that ensures authorities delivering the same set of services receive broadly the same annual percentage change in these main sources of income.
Councils facing the highest demand for services generally continue to receive more funding and have higher spending power than less deprived authorities. In 2016-17 the 10% most deprived authorities received 23% more funding than the 10% least deprived.
We have also announced a Fair Funding Review to consider the funding needs of different types of areas. This will involve a thorough review of what the needs assessment formula should be in a world in which local government spending is funded by local resources, not central grant. The Review will be done in partnership with the Local Government Association and the wider local government sector, so that all councils have the opportunity to contribute their views.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what progress her Department has made on rolling-out smart meters as standard by the end of 2020; and what estimate she has made of the number of homes that will have a smart meter installed by the end of each year to 2020.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to every home and small business being offered smart meters by the end of 2020. The Programme is making good progress. Over 3 million meters have been installed in homes and business across Great Britain in the Foundation stage of the Programme, ahead of the nationwide roll-out.
Suppliers’ annual projections on the number of smart meters installed each year to 2020 can be found on page 28 of the Fourth Annual Report on the Roll-out of Smart Meters:
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the data security of smart meters.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has worked with industry and security experts, including GCHQ, to design a smart metering system that has robust end-to-end security. The Department’s Data Access and Privacy Framework puts consumers in control of who has access to their data except where energy suppliers and networks have access for regulated purposes, such as to enable accurate monthly billing. All organisations involved in communicating with smart meters are required to comply with a detailed set of security obligations, with each aspect of the system subject to regular, independent security assurance.
Smart meters will not store data such as a consumer’s name, address or bank details. A key design principle for the system is the maintenance of user privacy. Any transaction of data which could be deemed ‘personal’, including energy consumption data, is encrypted so only the intended recipient can see it.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether he has had discussions with the BBC on levels of accessibility to online archived BBC content.
Answered by Lord Vaizey of Didcot
As part of the discussions leading to the publication of the White Paper, A BBC for the future: a Broadcaster of Distinction, the government discussed accessibility of the BBC's archive with the BBC. As set out in that White Paper, the government encourages the BBC to do more to open up its archive and ensure that it can be used by the public and as wide a range of institutions and organisations as possible.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make an assessment of the effect of the budget reduction for community pharmacy in 2016-17 on high street vacancy rates.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Community pharmacy is a vital part of the National Health Service and can play an even greater role. In the Spending Review, the Government re-affirmed the need for the NHS to deliver £22 billion in efficiency savings by 2020/21 as set out in the NHS’s own plan, the Five Year Forward View. Community pharmacy is a core part of NHS primary care and has an important contribution to make as the NHS rises to these challenges. The Government believes efficiencies can be made without compromising the quality of services or public access to them. Our aim is to ensure that those community pharmacies upon which people depend continue to thrive and so we are consulting on the introduction of a Pharmacy Access Scheme, which will provide more NHS funds to certain pharmacies compared to others, considering factors such as location and the health needs of the local population.
The Government’s vision is for a more efficient, modern system that will free up pharmacists to spend more time delivering clinical and public health services to the benefit of patients and the public. Our proposals are about improving services for patients and the public and securing efficiencies and savings. A consequence may be the closure of some pharmacies but that is not our aim. We are not able to assess which pharmacies may close or what the effect on high street vacancy rates might be because we do not know the financial viability of individual businesses or the extent to which they derive income from services commissioned locally by the NHS or local authorities or have non-NHS related income.
We are consulting the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) and others, including patient and public representatives, on our proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond. We announced on 16 March 2016 that the consultation period was to be extended to allow more time to develop the proposed changes with the PSNC and others. It will now close on 24 May 2016.