First elected: 9th April 1992
Left House: 30th March 2015 (Defeated)
Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
e-Petitions are administered by Parliament and allow members of the public to express support for a particular issue.
If an e-petition reaches 10,000 signatures the Government will issue a written response.
If an e-petition reaches 100,000 signatures the petition becomes eligible for a Parliamentary debate (usually Monday 4.30pm in Westminster Hall).
These initiatives were driven by Nick Harvey, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
MPs who are act as Ministers or Shadow Ministers are generally restricted from performing Commons initiatives other than Urgent Questions.
Nick Harvey has not been granted any Urgent Questions
Nick Harvey has not been granted any Adjournment Debates
Nick Harvey has not introduced any legislation before Parliament
Nick Harvey has not co-sponsored any Bills in the current parliamentary sitting
The decision on the location of each new Catapult is made by the Catapult Chairman, working with Innovate UK, who run an independent process using experts in the field to assemble evidence and consult with stakeholders and communities to establish the role, shape and, ultimately, location of a Catapult. The choice of location will pay due consideration to a number of factors, including the accessibility and proximity to relevant businesses, academia and other existing facilities.
Innovate UK has now appointed Nick Winser as Chairman of the Energy Systems Catapult and he will make a decision on the Catapult’s location in due course.
The Heart of the South West and Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are the local bodies responsible for driving economic growth opportunities in Devon, Somerset and Cornwall. As partnerships between business and local authorities, the LEPs drew up Strategic Economic Plans in spring 2014.
The Heart of the South West LEP (representing Devon and Somerset) prioritised three aims in its Strategic Economic Plan: using the area’s distinctive assets to create higher value growth and better jobs; stimulating jobs and growth across the whole economy and all sectors, and creating the conditions for growth through better infrastructure and services.
The Government agreed a Growth Deal with the LEP in July 2014 to provide £130.3m of Local Growth Fund investment between 2015 and 2021, which has enabled the LEP to secure an additional £140m of investment from local partners and the private sector. These funds will provide new transport infrastructure, open up sites for housing and employment growth, and drive investment in skills to support existing and growing industries in the area. In January 2015, the Government agreed a £65.2m expansion to the Heart of the south West’s Growth Deal.
The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP Strategic Economic Plan set out its aims to exploit new and emerging markets where they had identified a competitive advantage; to improve business productivity and competitiveness; and to enhance economic growth through targeted infrastructure, housing and skills programmes.
In July 2014, the Government agreed a Growth Deal with Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP in which provides £48.9m of investment between 2015 and 2021. This has been matched by an additional £150m of investment from local and private sector sources to deliver new transport and housing infrastructure, better business engagement in schools, and targeted support for high growth sectors such as marine energy. In January 2015 the Government agreed an £11.3m expansion to Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly LEP’s Growth Deal.
The Government’s bioenergy strategy published in 2012 established that future bioenergy policy should seek to ensure genuine carbon savings. The report, Life Cycle Impacts of Biomass Electricity in 2020, showed that biomass, when sourced responsibly, can provide a cost-effective, low carbon and controllable source of renewable energy.
The Government has introduced some of the toughest sustainability criteria in the world and we have taken steps to strengthen them further, including by bringing forward proposals for mandatory sustainability requirements. We also continue to develop the evidence on the wider impacts of bioenergy.
The report on the Life Cycle Impacts of Biomass Electricity in 2020 showed that biomass, when sourced responsibly, can provide a cost-effective, low carbon and controllable source of renewable energy. The Government has introduced some of the toughest sustainability criteria in the world and we have taken steps to strengthen them further, including by bringing forward proposals for mandatory sustainability requirements. The Department has committed to improving on the evidence base provided by the report. In December a tender was issued for a research contract to investigate the likelihood of occurrence in the period to 2030 of the scenarios identified in the report as potentially having higher carbon impacts than fossil fuelled alternatives.
The Ofgem Review of 2010-11 recommended that the Social and Environmental Statutory Guidance to the Gas and Electricity Market Authority should be replaced with a new Strategy and Policy Statement. The guidance will be repealed once the statement is designated. The draft statement, which Government consulted on last year, makes it clear that helping vulnerable households is one of the Government’s strategic priorities to which Ofgem should have regard to when carrying out its regulatory functions.
The text of the published report is exclusively the responsibility of the investigating office.
In September 2014 the Department will invite both new and existing alternative providers to apply to have new courses designated so that their students may have access for student support in the 2015/16 academic year. There will also be an additional opportunity for providers to apply in February 2015. For the 2015/16 academic year we will allow student numbers at high quality alternative providers to be freed from student number controls in a similar manner as for HEFCE-funded provision, but we will continue to retain a control on numbers at higher risk provision.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has no role in assessing the adequacy of student attendance rates in further education (FE) colleges.
The Government’s school and college inspection body, Ofsted, in their judgement on a college’s outcome from learners may comment on low attendance and punctuality as an area for improvement and will look at how a college’s achievement gaps are narrowing between different groups of learners.
Where Ofsted rate a college inadequate, BIS will take intervention action.
This Government has been very clear about the importance of widening participation and improving fair access in higher education – all those with the ability should have access to higher education, irrespective of family income.
In April we published the new National strategy for access and student success. It will help to ensure that all those with the potential to benefit from higher education have equal opportunity to participate and succeed. Our reforms and new funding methodology have ensured that institutions are investing significantly in widening student access to higher education. Through their access agreements with the Office for Fair Access, institutions plan by 2018/19 to increase their spending on outreach, student success and student financial support measures to £735 million, up from £444 million in 2011/12.
Similarly it is important that young people and adults from disadvantaged groups are able to access good quality further education and skills training to help them to find employment, participate in their local community and to lead a more independent life.
We provide ‘Learning Support’ funding to colleges and providers to help people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. We support unemployed people into work by funding units and qualifications in vocational skills, and we fully fund all adults to achieve their first English and maths GCSE. We contribute £210 million a year to support non-formal Community Learning, attracting disadvantaged groups and mature learners who have had very few previous opportunities to engage in education.
The Department required all alternative providers to reapply to have their courses designated for student support for the 2014/15 academic year. All alternative providers, including those that had their designations suspended for the remainder of the 2013/14 academic year, were told that they should not advertise their courses as attracting student support until such time as these course had been redesignated.
The Department required all alternative providers to reapply to have their courses designated for student support for the 2014/15 academic year. All alternative providers, including those that had their designations suspended for the remainder of the 2013/14 academic year, are being reviewed against the new criteria, and have already received a final decision or have been invited to submit additional information.
Both VisitBritain and VisitEngland actively promote North Devon as part of their marketing campaigns. The forthcoming £3 million ‘Countryside is GREAT’ campaign is due to be launched in 2015 and will feature UK national parks, including Exmoor. North Devon has also benefited from a number of VisitEngland’s recent Growing Tourism Locally Programme thematic marketing campaigns, funded through the Regional Growth Fund, and including Outdoor Activities and the English Seaside Campaigns.
For financial year 2014-15, the Department for Education has already published the number of pupils eligible for the pupil premium and illustrative allocations for schools in December 2013, based on free school meal figures gathered up to and including the January 2013 school census. This information is published online at:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/pupil-premium-2013-to-2014-final-allocation-tables
The final allocations for 2015-16 based on the January 2015 school census figures will then be published towards the end of 2015 or early 2016.
Pupil premium funding is allocated to state-funded schools for each financial year rather than by school year, primarily on the basis of the number of pupils recorded in the January school census as having been registered for free school meals (FSM) at any point in the last 6 years. A smaller proportion of pupils attract the pupil premium on the basis of being looked after, or having left care through adoption or under a Special Guardianship, Residence or Child Arrangements Order.
The Department for Education has published illustrative pupil premium funding allocations for the financial year 2014-15, based on census data from 2013. Final allocations for 2014-15 will be published later in the year, based on pupil data gathered through the January 2014 school census and the spring 2014 children looked after data return (and also the October 2014 school census, for adopted and other previously looked after pupils who were not recorded as such in the January 2014 school census).
From the data on which the published illustrative allocations for 2014-15 are based, the Department estimates that 430,350 pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2 will attract pupil premium funding on the basis of having been registered for FSM at any point in the last 6 years.
Pupil premium final allocations for the financial year 2015-16 will be based on pupil data gathered through the forthcoming January 2015 school census and the spring 2015 children looked after data return. Final allocations for 2015-16 will be published towards the end of 2015. To ensure we have the best estimates, we are working with primary schools and local authorities so that registration rates for benefits-related FSM are maintained for pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2 classes.
The Marine Management Organisation, on behalf of the Government, is continuing to try to secure international quota swaps from other Member States, but the quotas are in short supply and there are currently no pending swaps to bring skate and ray quotas into the UK.
The Government has been advised by the insurance industry that those leaseholders in high risk areas who will not be eligible for Flood Re will still be able to access affordable insurance. Insurers will also continue to provide insurance to small businesses in areas of high flood risk on a competitive basis.
Based on current evidence, Flood Re would not be an appropriate scheme for leasehold properties and small businesses in areas at a high risk of flooding.
Government has separately commissioned research into the commercial insurance market as part of its evidence gathering.
There have been no discussions with British Airways about the resumption of direct scheduled services. Since British Airways decided to suspend their operations, they have given us no indication of an intention to resume flights to Sierra Leone. Should the situation change sufficiently for the UK Government to become content for direct scheduled services to Ebola-affected countries to resume, it would then be for individual airlines to judge whether it is viable to start services, subject to them requesting the appropriate operating permissions from the relevant authorities.
The Better Care Fund is a pooled budget of £3.8 billion to be spent on integrating Health and Social care. Local areas will decide how best to use their funding to transform the provision of services to their communities, both improving outcomes for people, and driving efficiencies.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) launched a new service across the UK on 29 May 2014 to support people who need extra help in getting their tax and benefits right. This replaced HMRC’s network of 281 Enquiry Centre’s which closed to the public on 30 June 2014.
The decision to make this change was based on extensive evaluation from independent customer research, a 10-week public consultation exercise and a successful pilot of the new service which took place in the North East of England involving the closure of 13 Enquiry Centres from June to Dec 2013.
The evaluation assessed the impact and effect on rural areas, transport links and costs to customers.
The new service is more accessible to these communities, since customers are able to arrange appointments with HMRC at locations convenient to them, this includes visits to their home if appropriate.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is reshaping to become a smaller, more highly skilled organisation to meet the efficiencies required by the Spending Reviews, 2010 and 2013.
Its strategic intention is to move to fewer, larger regional centres, supplemented by other offices to provide specialist resources or touch down facilities for mobile staff. HMRC is considering what the offices of the future will look like and where they will be located. It is currently involving all staff in a national conversation on progress and expects more detail to be available at the end of 2015.
In 2012 HMRC gave a commitment to retaining a presence in 16 key centres until at least 2020.
On 30 October the Government published its response to the new psychoactive substances review expert panel’s report. We have committed to look at the feasibility of a general prohibition on the distribution of non-controlled new
psychoactive substances, through testing and developing of legislative proposals, in the UK context. This work has begun and we will set out further detail on these proposals in due course.
Our letter of 30 October to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs committed us to keeping the Council updated as we develop this approach
Officials from the Ministry of Defence and the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) regularly discuss a range of nuclear matters with their US counterparts under the auspices of the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement. These matters include aspects of the capital investment programme at AWE, of which Pegasus forms a part.
Pegasus is the replacement Highly Enriched Uranium component manufacturing and storage facility, and forms part of the Government's programme of investment in the Atomic Weapons Establishment sites.
Preparatory work on Box A started in May 2013 and construction work began in August 2013.
Consistent with industry best practice for all projects, Pegasus is under regular review. If a project requires a revised approval then this may be sought once a robust evidence base has been established.
Project Pegasus received Main Gate approval in August 2011 with an approved cost of £634 million. Project Mensa received Main Gate approval in May 2011 with an approved cost of £734 million.Both projects' approved in-service dates are between 2016 and 2020.
Consistent with industry best practice, major projects are regularly reviewed and may seek revised approvals if a robust evidence base is established.
Project Pegasus received Main Gate approval in August 2011 with an approved cost of £634 million. Project Mensa received Main Gate approval in May 2011 with an approved cost of £734 million.Both projects' approved in-service dates are between 2016 and 2020.
Consistent with industry best practice, major projects are regularly reviewed and may seek revised approvals if a robust evidence base is established.
The total spent on the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carrier programme in each of the last four financial years, as published in the National Audit Office’s Major Project Report covering each of the relevant years, is as follows:
2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 |
£630 million | £670 million | £712 million | £773 million |
I am withholding the breakdown of the projected spend on the programme for each of the next four financial years as its disclosure would prejudice commercial interests. The overall cost of the ship programme, as announced by the then Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), on 6 November 2013, (Official Report, column 251-254), is £6.212 billion.
A very feature of the Armed Forces Covenant is the Covenant Reference Group (CRG), which is chaired by the Cabinet Office Minister for Government Policy and includes representatives from all of the main Government Departments. The CRG meets regularly to guide and direct work on the Armed Forces Covenant, including support for the veteran community. Other members of the CRG include the three Service Family Federations, COBSEO (the Confederation of Service Charities) and other charities.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is represented at cross-Departmental groups, such as the DCLG Working Group for Homeless Veterans. In addition, the MOD co-chairs with the Department of Health the MOD/UK Departments of Health Partnership Board, which is responsible for ensuring that the MOD and UK Health Departments work together to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces Covenant (an obligation which the NHS in England is mandated to deliver), and to improve the health and healthcare of the Armed Forces, their families and veterans.
We take the health of our military personnel very seriously, and provide mental health treatment and support to all members of the UK Armed Forces, regardless of gender. We have both male and female mental healthcare staff, and are thus able to accommodate cases where an assessment or therapy referral makes a specific recommendation about the gender of the mental healthcare professional providing treatment.
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) commissions and funds a wide range of research into the mental health of Armed Forces personnel. This work continues to produce high quality evidence upon which we can make considered decisions about the way we manage and treat our personnel.
In particular, we continue to fund the large-scale, ongoing independent study (initially commissioned by the MOD in 2003) from the King's Centre for Mental Health Research (KCMHR), which has become an important source of data on the impact of deployment on the overall health and wellbeing of military personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Specific work commissioned under this contract since 2010 includes research into mental health disorders in Reservists; evaluation of a Post-Operational Stress Management programme tailored to Reservists; mental health stigma in the Armed Forces; and a US-funded study into a possible screening tool for mental health issues. Another significant piece of work commissioned and funded by the MOD has been a study of alcohol use disorders, conducted by Cranfield University.
It is not possible to provide the number of serving personnel or veterans with mental health needs at any single point in time. However, statistics show that in financial year 2013-14, 5,040 UK Armed Forces personnel had a new episode of care for a mental disorder at one of the MOD's Departments of Community Mental Health, the majority of whom will have already been successfully treated and returned to work. The medical treatment of ex-service personnel is the responsibility of the UK Departments of Health, and the MOD continues to work closely with them to improve the mental healthcare available.
The average length of time taken by Veterans UK and its predecessors to deal with War Disablement Pensions (WDP) and Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) claims are detailed in the table below:
Average Processing Time (Working Days) | |||||
2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-151 | |
AFCS | 93 | 125 | 164 | 109 | 89 |
WDP | 39 | 51 | 82 | 110 | 104 |
Note:
1As at 31 December 2014
The essential role that welfare services play in the training, development and retention of recruits under 18 is emphasised in the Army Foundation College Supervisory Care Directive. Every effort is made to ensure that access to welfare and pastoral care is available to recruits at all times. The Supervisory Care Directive is currently being reviewed. Once the review is complete the document will be placed in the Library of the House.
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the then Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr Robathan) on 7 February 2011, (Official Report, columns 26-7W) to the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton).
A trainee soldier under the age of 18 wishing to exercise their statutory right to discharge from Army Foundation College Harrogate does so in accordance with standard procedures.
Once a recruit has expressed such an intent to their Platoon Commander, they complete, with appropriate guidance, an Application for Premature Voluntary Release Form, supported by a letter. They are interviewed by their Platoon and Company Commanders, with confirmation that their parent or guardian has been informed of the pending discharge and is content to take over responsibility for the individual. The recruit is given a one-day Career Guidance Workshop, where a team of qualified guidance counsellors help early leavers decide on their next steps.
The recruit receives an Early Service Leaver Resettlement Brief and has a final interview with the Commanding Officer before the administrative process is finalised and completed.
I am attaching a copy of the Flow Diagram which shows the steps taken during this process, together with Army Form B 132A, Application For Premature Voluntary Release.
All Army recruits under the age of 18 are repeatedly informed both verbally and in writing of their statutory right of discharge, during enlistment and training.
The RAF's enlistment paperwork was updated immediately after the Amendment in 2011 and continues correctly to reflect the rights for discharge of airmen under 18 years of age.
Guidance on undertaking Transport Assessments and Statements has been set out in the Planning Practice Guidance for everyone using the planning system, including local planning authorities and the Planning Inspectorate.
It is for the local planning authority in considering planning applications or the Planning Inspector in considering planning appeals to consider whether improvements can be undertaken within the transport network that cost effectively limit the significant impact of the development on traffic levels, and determine whether the residual cumulative impacts of development are severe.