Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect of Hurricanes Irma and Maria on the tourism industry in the British Virgin Islands.
Answered by Alan Duncan
Tourism is a delegated responsibility to the British Virgin Islands (BVI) Government. Within their 'Territorial Recovery and Development Plan', the BVI Government have made an assessment, of the steps required, working alongside the private sector to support the tourism sector's recovery.
The British Government remains committed to working with the Governments of the BVI and other affected Overseas Territories as they develop their longer-term recovery plans.
At the World Bank meetings last month the UK announced a private sector task force to mobilise business to play a prominent role in the reconstruction of the Overseas Territories. The task force will identify and implement practical steps to increase flows of private sector financial support for reconstruction in the region.
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for UK foreign policy of the political situation in Kurdistan since the referendum in that region on 25 September 2017.
Answered by Alistair Burt
We regret the Kurdish referendum on independence and continue to respect the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq. Any political process towards independence should be agreed with the Government of Iraq. We are urging all parties, including Iraq’s neighbours, to maintain calm and avoid statements and actions that could be perceived as inflammatory, particularly in light of events in Kirkuk. Iraq’s future lies in dialogue.
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of its January 2016 pledge to spend up to £500 million a year on tackling malaria.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
UK support contributed to a halving of global malaria death rates since 2000. DFID continues to be a global leader in malaria control. UK aid is saving lives around the world, including through our support to the Global Fund (our replenishment commitment will fund 40 million bednets), UNITAID (to increase access to new diagnostics and medicines), research to accelerate the development of drugs, diagnostics and insecticides, and helping countries scale up their own national malaria control programmes.
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, whether local planning authorities can limit community housing developments proposed in the dispersal policies of a local plan due to the lack of sufficient infrastructure, shops, services or employment to support such a development.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The National Planning Policy Framework expects local planning authorities to meet the objectively-assessed needs for market and affordable housing in their area, insofar as it is consistent with other policies in the Framework. As part of the plan-making process we expect authorities to consider what infrastructure is needed to support development, and work with neighbouring authorities and transport providers, to develop plans for how it can be provided. The cumulative impact of development, and the need for infrastructure to support development, are material considerations in decisions on individual proposals.
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress has been made on (a) processing farmers' 2015 Basic Payment Scheme applications and (b) tackling the challenges of getting information supplied by farmers in paper form back onto an online validation process; and what resources have been committed to carry out this work to date.
Answered by George Eustice
Good progress is being made on processing Basic Payment Scheme 2015 applications including capturing changes that were made on the paper forms along with any new requirements of the scheme onto the Rural Payments IT system. We currently have access to around 800 people to perform this processing work.
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what effect the switch to a paper-based application system for the Basic Payment Scheme has had on (a) claim validation and the verification of claims and (b) the delivery of timely payments from 1 December.
Answered by George Eustice
The move to the paper based application approach for the Basic Payment Scheme 2015 has not had an impact on the validation and verification of claims and the Rural Payments Agency remain on track to make the majority of payments in December.
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what information his Department holds on (a) the proportion of Discretionary Housing Payment funding spent by each local authority, (b) how many and which local authorities returned such funding allocated to them, (c) how much funding each such local authority returned and (d) what the average amount of such funding was which was returned in each of the last three years.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson
The information held by the Department on the proportion of Discretionary Housing Payment funding spent and returned by each local authority and the average amount of funding returned in the last three years is provided in the table which I will place in the House library.
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what proportion of sheep movement returns have been made (a) electronically and (b) on paper in each month since online returns were introduced.
Answered by George Eustice
The Animal Reporting and Movement Service (ARAMS) was launched on 1 April 2014. The Government’s target was to capture 70% of sheep/goat movements electronically within the first year of operation and to increase the proportion of electronic movements recorded (the date the movement was recorded on ARAMS) to 80% within 5 years.
The proportion of paper vs. electronic moves recorded each month so far on ARAMS is:
Percentage recorded on the Animal Reporting And Movement Service (ARAMS) | |||
Month | Year | Paper % | Electronic % |
April | 2014 | 69.97% | 30.03% |
May | 2014 | 79.10% | 20.90% |
June | 2014 | 69.44% | 30.56% |
July | 2014 | 47.48% | 52.52% |
August | 2014 | 40.38% | 59.62% |
September | 2014 | 40.45% | 59.55% |
October | 2014 | 45.57% | 54.43% |
November | 2014 | 36.52% | 63.48% |
December | 2014 | 31.93% | 68.07% |
January | 2015 | 29.52% | 70.48% |
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many people and organisations have registered online for the sheep electronic identification database.
Answered by George Eustice
As at 6 February 2015 (10.30 am) the following registrations to use the new Animal Reporting and Movement Service (ARAMS) for England have been made:
Assembly Centre Portal | 1 |
Animal and Plant Health Agency | 10 |
Abattoir Portal | 134 |
Abattoir Third Party | 11 |
ARAMS Bureau Admin | 17 |
ARAMS Bureau Operator | 73 |
Collection Centre Portal | 17 |
Collection Centre Third Party | 2 |
DEFRA | 13 |
Farmer Portal | 7456 |
Farmer Third Party | 455 |
Local Authority Super User | 282 |
Market Portal | 2 |
Market Third Party | 78 |
Rural Payments Agency | 55 |
Show Portal | 9 |
Asked by: Nadhim Zahawi (Conservative - Stratford-on-Avon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many sheep farmers in the UK have the ability to read sheep electronic identification tags.
Answered by George Eustice
There are a range of options available to sheep keepers to manage individual recording. Electronic tags can be read by eye (manually recording the visible individual animal number) or electronically using an electronic reader. Keepers may also choose for electronically identified sheep, which must be individually recorded, to be read on their behalf at central point recording centres (CPRCs).
It is not possible to say how many sheep farmers in England have the ability to read electronic sheep tags electronically as this is dependent on the number of keepers that have purchased EID readers. Defra does not hold this information.