Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what progress he has made on agreeing a bilateral trade deal to export British lamb to the US since 27 July 2016.
Answered by George Eustice
The US authorities are currently in the process of amending their regulation to formally lift their ban on EU ruminant products (including lamb).
Defra has provided the US authorities with required information on the UK animal and public health controls to review equivalence with US requirements. Once their review is complete we will welcome the US to conduct an in-country inspection visit.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many incidents of hate crime have been reported in the last 12 months.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Home Office collects and publishes statistics on the number of hate crimes recorded by the police on an annual basis. In 2015/16, the most recently published data, the police recorded 62,518 hate crimes in England and Wales. The statistical bulletin, which includes data for earlier years, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2015-to-2016
This Government is committed to tackling hate crime. The UK has a strong legislative framework to tackle hate crime. We are working across Government with police, (including National Community Tensions Team), the Crown Prosecution Service and community partners to send out a clear message that hate crime will not be tolerated and we will vigorously pursue and prosecute those who commit these crimes.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will publish the total lifetime cost of the Sellafield nuclear waste plant in Cumbria.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority publishes the amount spent on decommissioning Sellafield in its Annual Report and Accounts. It also publishes a more detailed figure on the cost of decommissioning the UK’s nuclear sites in the Nuclear Provision section of its website.
The total estimated cost for decommissioning the Sellafield site is £88 billion on an undiscounted basis.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many management contracts placed by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority have been cancelled early in each of the last five years.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Two management contracts have been terminated early by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in the last five years. These are the Parent Body Agreement with Nuclear Management Partners and the Management and Operation Contract with Sellafield Limited. These cancellations formed part of the process of turning Sellafield Limited into a subsidiary of the NDA which came into effect on 1 April 2016.
On 27 March 2017, my Rt Hon Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced in Parliament that the NDA intends to terminate the Parent Body Agreement with Cavendish Fluor Partnership for the management of Magnox sites.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 20 December 2016 to Question 57987 and the Answer of 24 March 2017 to Question 66627, how many of the 421 carcasses of badgers have been examined for bovine tuberculosis in line with the Chief Veterinary Officer's advice in his report on the badger culls in 2015.
Answered by George Eustice
Culled carcasses from between 2013 – 2016 were not routinely tested for TB as the RBCT established that approximately one-third of badgers in areas of high incidence of TB in cattle were infected. This year a pilot study was started to explore ways in which badger carcasses obtained from the cull potentially could be used to gather long term information on levels of disease in badgers. A number of carcasses from nine of the areas were sampled and testing methodologies are being piloted. It will be some time before any interim findings on this exploratory undertaking are available.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will make it his policy to encourage the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments to diversify its membership beyond the current required senior (a) military, (b) diplomatic and (c) business experience.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Government is committed to ensuring we have the very best people appointed to our public bodies and that the boards of public bodies reflect society as a whole.
We encourage applications from candidates with a diverse range of skills and backgrounds and have recently made a number of improvements to the appointments process, which are aimed at making public appointments accessible to the widest possible group of people.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department has taken to increase the number of voluntary deals with local authorities to widen the dispersal of asylum seekers.
Answered by Robert Goodwill
Since 2015, the Home Office has been working closely with accommodation providers and local authorities across the UK to increase the number of areas that participate in the asylum seeker dispersal scheme; this activity has already increased the number of dispersal areas by a third and continues to encourage those local authorities that aren’t participating to do so.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has commissioned or published reports on the use of medicinal cannabis.
Answered by Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford
The Department of Health part funded the Cannabinoid Use in Progressive Inflammatory brain Disease study through the National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme. The report of this study was published in February 2015 and is available on the NIHR Journals Library website at:
http://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/hta/volume-19/issue-12#abstract
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether her Department has commissioned or published any reports on vaccination as an alternative option to culling in the last 12 months.
Answered by George Eustice
No such reports have been commissioned or published in the last 12 months.
Asked by: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what assessment he has made of the (a) impact on and (b) additional cost to the Civil Service of negotiations on the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by David Gauke
HM Treasury is responsible to Parliament for the control of public resources – this includes overall responsibility for ensuring good value for money and setting departmental budgets. This responsibility remains as we prepare to leave the EU.
However, to ensure those closest to the decisions have the authority to manage public money efficiently and effectively, departments have a certain level of autonomy over expenditure which is not novel, contentious or repercussive.
Therefore, whilst HM Treasury has oversight of policies with significant spending implications, the Treasury will not monitor each individual cost incurred to prepare for EU Exit, including those relating to the Civil Service. This treatment is in line with the spending framework applied to all other expenditure.