Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which news applications staff in his Department are authorised to download and use on their work-provided phones and tablets.
Answered by David Lidington
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) provides many of its staff with Blackberrys, but for security reasons the ability to download apps has been disabled. Only one FCO-provided smart phone has authorised news apps downloaded to it. These are the Gorkana press-cuttings and BBC news apps. The apps have been downloaded as part of a pilot to test the viability of smart phone devices for work purposes.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the cost to the public purse was of Chevening scholarships in each of the last three years.
Answered by Lord Swire
The budget for the Chevening Programme in the past three financial years including this year is as follows:
2012-13 - £17.5 million – 712 scholars
2013-14 - £16.75 million – 620 scholars
2014-15 - £18.24 million – 650-700 scholars (projected)
Approximately 90% of Chevening funding is spent on scholarships at British Universities, scholar events and alumni activities each year. The remaining 10% is spent on administration and overhead costs.
This funding is supplemented by an increasing contribution from private business and universities (for example, through fee waivers). Partnership funding this financial year stands at around £5.6 million.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will place in the Library a copy of his Department's latest internal guidance for officials on the drafting of answers to parliamentary questions.
Answered by David Lidington
The Office of the Leader of the House provides guidance to all Departments on the practice of answering Parliamentary Questions.
The full Guide is available on the gov.uk website at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guide-to-parliamentary-work. A copy of the guidance has already been placed in the Library. The Office of the Leader of the House of Commons intends to review the Guide to Parliamentary Work in the coming months.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which powers he is seeking to repatriate from the EU.
Answered by David Lidington
As the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) said in May, Brussels has got too big, too bossy, too interfering. It should be nation states wherever possible, Europe only where necessary.
Our reform priorities are to make the EU more democratically accountable, more competitive and more flexible.