Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what proportion of racially motivated attacks in England and Wales targeted Jews in each of the last five years.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The Home Office does not hold the requested information. The Home Office receive data on hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales for the five centrally monitored strands (race, religion, sexual orientation, disability and gender identity) but these data cannot be broken down by race or religion of the victim and cover all offences, not just “attacks”. The most recently available data relate to the financial year 2014/15 and can be found at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2014-to-2015
The Association of Chief Police Officers also publishes data on hate crimes for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. These figures separate out the number of crimes that were anti-Semitic. Data for 2014/15 can be found at:
http://www.report-it.org.uk/files/hate_crime_data_npcc_2014-15.pdf
From April 2016, the Home Office will collect a breakdown of religion-based hate crime data from the police to help forces build community trust, target their resources and enable the public to better hold them to account. This information will be provided voluntarily in 2016/17, but we intend to make it mandatory from the following year.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask the Attorney General, how many people were prosecuted for offences relating to anti-semitism in the UK in each of the last five years.
Answered by Robert Buckland
The Whilst the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does flag cases on its case management system that are identified as racial or religious hate crimes, it does not maintain a central record of prosecutions for offences specifically relating to anti-semitism. Such information could only be obtained through a manual search of records which would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the value is of sanctioned Iranian assets that have been released by (a) UK Government and (b) other UK entities since the conclusion of the agreement with that country in May 2015.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
I refer my Honourable friend to the written answer I gave on 10 March 2016 (Ref: 29924).
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what timetable the Government has set for the release of sanctioned Iranian assets; and what value of assets the Government expects to release in 2016 and 2017.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
I refer my Honourable friend to the written answer I gave on 10 March 2016 (Ref: 29924).
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will take steps to ensure disabled access on all platforms at Bingham railway station.
Answered by Claire Perry
I would like to assure the hon. Member that we are committed to improving accessibility at railway stations. However, many stations date from a time when the needs of disabled customers were simply not considered and at present only around 460 of our 2,500 stations have step free access to every platform. We have therefore continued with the Access for All programme, launched in 2006, which by 2019 will have provided step free access at more than 200 stations and has already delivered smaller scale access improvements at over 1200 stations.
In 2013 we asked the industry to nominate stations for the latest tranche of Access for All funding. 278 were put forward and we selected 68 of these to add to the programme. To ensure the best possible value for money, these were chosen based on their annual footfall, weighted by the incidence of disability in the area. We also took into account the priorities of the industry and other factors such as the availability of third party funding. Around a third were also chosen to ensure a fair geographical spread across the country.
Bingham was not among the 278 stations nominated.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what information he holds on whether Network Rail plans to release a contribution to the cost of a disabled access footbridge at Bingham railway station in Nottinghamshire.
Answered by Claire Perry
The Department for Transport does not hold information on Network Rail’s plans for funding towards the cost of an accessible footbridge at Bingham station.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the value is of sanctioned Iranian assets which have been released by the Government or any other entity within the UK since the conclusion of the Iranian agreement in May 2015.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
Financial sanctions are implemented in the United Kingdom by HM Treasury. When assets are frozen they remain where they are held and are not seized or confiscated by the government or the Treasury. As such, the government does not hold frozen assets belonging to designated Iranian or other persons subject financial sanctions.
Every year the Treasury requests information from businesses on funds they hold that are frozen under financial sanctions legislation. The most recent data from September 2015 showed that there was approximately £728,450,000 of funds frozen under the Iran (non-proliferation) sanctions regime.
In July 2015 the EU/E3+3 and the Islamic Republic of Iran reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). On 16 January 2016 the initial sanctions relief provided for under the JCPoA came into effect. Part of this relief included the lifting of the asset freeze against certain individuals and entities with frozen balances of approximately £657,830,000. Therefore approximately £70,620,000 remains frozen.
The next phase of sanctions relief under the JCPoA is due on Transition Day in eight years’ time, or when the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that all nuclear material in Iran remains in peaceful activities, whichever is earlier.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the value of sanctioned Iranian assets currently held by (a) the Government and (b) any other entity within the UK.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
Financial sanctions are implemented in the United Kingdom by HM Treasury. When assets are frozen they remain where they are held and are not seized or confiscated by the government or the Treasury. As such, the government does not hold frozen assets belonging to designated Iranian or other persons subject financial sanctions.
Every year the Treasury requests information from businesses on funds they hold that are frozen under financial sanctions legislation. The most recent data from September 2015 showed that there was approximately £728,450,000 of funds frozen under the Iran (non-proliferation) sanctions regime.
In July 2015 the EU/E3+3 and the Islamic Republic of Iran reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). On 16 January 2016 the initial sanctions relief provided for under the JCPoA came into effect. Part of this relief included the lifting of the asset freeze against certain individuals and entities with frozen balances of approximately £657,830,000. Therefore approximately £70,620,000 remains frozen.
The next phase of sanctions relief under the JCPoA is due on Transition Day in eight years’ time, or when the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that all nuclear material in Iran remains in peaceful activities, whichever is earlier.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the Government's timetable is for the release of sanctioned Iranian assets; and what value of those assets the Government expects to release in 2016 and 2017.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin
Financial sanctions are implemented in the United Kingdom by HM Treasury. When assets are frozen they remain where they are held and are not seized or confiscated by the government or the Treasury. As such, the government does not hold frozen assets belonging to designated Iranian or other persons subject financial sanctions.
Every year the Treasury requests information from businesses on funds they hold that are frozen under financial sanctions legislation. The most recent data from September 2015 showed that there was approximately £728,450,000 of funds frozen under the Iran (non-proliferation) sanctions regime.
In July 2015 the EU/E3+3 and the Islamic Republic of Iran reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA). On 16 January 2016 the initial sanctions relief provided for under the JCPoA came into effect. Part of this relief included the lifting of the asset freeze against certain individuals and entities with frozen balances of approximately £657,830,000. Therefore approximately £70,620,000 remains frozen.
The next phase of sanctions relief under the JCPoA is due on Transition Day in eight years’ time, or when the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that all nuclear material in Iran remains in peaceful activities, whichever is earlier.
Asked by: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many acres of farmland she plans will be protected by government investment in flood defences over the next six years.
Answered by Elizabeth Truss
As a result of the Government’s £2.3 billion, six year capital investment programme more than 420,000 acres of farmland will be better protected by 2021.
Together with our investment in the last parliament this means that more than a million acres of farmland will be better protected from flooding over this decade.