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 the high street vacancy rate was in (a) England and (b) each region of England in each of the last six years.
Answered by Marcus Jones - Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
My Department does not collect or publish data relating to high street vacancy rates. There are several commercial sources of shop vacancy rates data available, including the Local Data Company and Springboard, (http://info.localdatacompany.com/vacancy-rate-report-h1-2015-summary-download) who publish overall trends in the public domain.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average hospital waiting time was for NHS patients in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b) Barnsley, (c) South Yorkshire and (d) Yorkshire and the Humber since 2010.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The table attached shows average median waiting times in weeks to start consultant-led elective treatment for National Health Service commissioning organisations and regions which most closely match those requested.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many businesses have signed agreements with the Business Growth Service in each local authority area in the UK.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The attached table shows the number of businesses that have signed agreements with the Business Growth Service in each local authority area in the UK since the service launched in December 2014.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many publicly-funded jobs relating directly to the Northern Powerhouse there are in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b) Barnsley, (c) Yorkshire and the Humber, (d) London and (e) other regions of England.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The latest regional public sector employment survey figures are available online at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pse/public-sector-employment/q3-2015/index.html, the figures for Barnsley and Barnsley East can be found in the Annual Population Survey (Oct 2014-Sep 2015): https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/default.asp.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many heavy rail vehicles built before 1999 have not been refurbished to comply with (a) RVAR 10 and (b) PRM TSI regulations; and what proportion of the national heavy rail fleet meets those requirements.
Answered by Claire Perry
The total heavy rail fleet comprises 12,610 vehicles. Of these vehicles, 7,903 are either built or refurbished to be compliant with the applicable accessibility standards. This is 62.7% of the fleet. The equivalent proportion as at March 2010 was 45 per cent.
Within those figures there are 6336 vehicles built pre-1999 in service. Of that figure, to date 1,628 vehicles have been refurbished to meet accessibility standards. We expect all the remaining vehicles to be made compliant, or replaced, by 2020. Some of the pre-1999 fleet will be replaced shortly under new rolling stock programmes such as IEP, and others, such as Pacers will no longer be in service by the 2020 accessibility compliance deadline.
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 information her Department holds on the number of people employed in the (a) wind and (b) solar energy sector in Yorkshire and the Humber in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills published a report in March 2015 on “The Size and Performance of the UK Low Carbon Economy”. This contains estimates of the number of people employed directly within different sectors of the low carbon economy, and in their supply chains:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/low-carbon-economy-size-and-performance.
The report estimates that for 2013 in Yorkshire and Humber there were 2,900 people employed in the solar photovoltaics sector, with equivalent estimates of 2,100 and 500 for the onshore and offshore wind sectors respectively. These figures include those directly employed by firms in the sector, and resulting jobs within the supply chain.
One thousand new jobs will be created in Hull at Siemens’ offshore wind manufacturing plant which is due to be operational from 2017 and will also create additional jobs in the supply chain.
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 the level of installed capacity was for (a) wind and (b) solar energy in Yorkshire and the Humber in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The level of installed capacity for wind and solar PV in Yorkshire and the Humber, for the ten years to 2014, is given in the attached table. Data for 2015 will be available on 29 September, 2016.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what meetings (a) Ministers and (b) officials of his Department have had with representatives of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee since May 2015.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Ministers and officials in the Department meet with representatives of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) on a regular basis to discuss issues such as drug reimbursement, remuneration and service developments and amendments to legislation. We have been in discussions with the PSNC since December 2015 regarding the Government’s proposals for community pharmacy in 2016/17 and beyond.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the ability of ambulance trusts to meet targets for (a) Red 1 and (b) Red 2 category emergency callouts.
Answered by Jane Ellison
The ambulance service is facing unprecedented demand. With December 2015 recording the highest number of Category A calls (Red 1 and Red 2) resulting in an ambulance arriving at the scene.
In the light of this demand, the Secretary of State authorised NHS England to explore whether changes to the way that the ambulance service responds to calls could help improve patient outcomes. The results of this work will be known in the summer.
In the longer term, NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review will aim to tackle the root causes of the increasing demand by considering whole system change to the delivery of urgent and emergency care, including new models of delivery of care for ambulance services.
Information on the performance of ambulance trusts in respect of the Red 1 and Red 2 national ambulance response times is published on a monthly basis by NHS England and is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
This shows that 2015/16 year to date performance for Red 1 has improved compared to the same period last year, and Red 2 performance is also progressing towards the national ambulance response time targets.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what estimate he has made of the change in the proportion of the working age population employed by the public sector in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b) Barnsley, (c) South Yorkshire and (d) Yorkshire and the Humber since 2010.
Answered by Rob Wilson
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.