Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many appeals of an initial eligibility decision under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy have been made; and how many and what proportion of these appeals were successful.
Answered by Andrew Murrison - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Published policy for the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) indicates that every principal applicant to the scheme is entitled to request a review within 90 days of receipt of an initial eligibility decision. Applicants should seek a review if new or further information which supports their ARAP application has become available since the initial eligibility decision.
As of 19 April 2024, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has received over 96,000 unique ARAP applications and a total of 6,268 requests for a review of an initial eligibility decision. 21 initial decisions have been overturned.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps her Department is taking to help protect workers from (a) dismissal and (b) other disciplinary action arising from their participation in legal strikes.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Under existing legislation employees taking part in official protected industrial action lasting up to 12 weeks are protected from dismissal. The question of what other disciplinary action an employer can take in these circumstances was recently considered by the Supreme Court in the case of Mercer v Alternative Futures Group Ltd. The Government is carefully looking at the judgment in that case and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they will support any proposal at UNECE’s Working Party 29 in June to re-establish the Informal Working Group on (vehicle headlight) glare.
Answered by Lord Davies of Gower - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The UK will consider any proposals at UNECE Working Party 29 on their merits based on a range of factors, including the availability and assessment of new independent evidence or justification. The UK government has committed to research headlamp glare to identify root causes and potential countermeasures, which may in due course support the establishment of a UNECE Informal Working Group to develop, amend and implement changes to the appropriate international regulations.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to enhance cybersecurity infrastructure to help tackle phishing scams through (a) text messaging and (b) fake payment websites.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
The Criminal Justice Bill will introduce a new offence of supplying or possessing “SIM farm” devices, which allow criminals to send scam texts to thousands of people at the same time, without good reason or undertaking adequate due diligence.
In addition, the Government and Industry have signed the Telecommunications Fraud Sector Charter, a voluntary agreement to improve counter-fraud efforts. Under the Telecommunications Charter, the sector has introduced firewalls that detect and stop scam texts from reaching customers. The firewalls have stopped 960million scam text messages since January 2022.
Furthermore, domain registrars, Internet infrastructure (IIPs) and service providers (ISPs) operate robust voluntary arrangements for filtering, blocking and takedown of malicious websites, which is supported by the operational work of our agencies and law enforcement. NCSC also works in collaboration with industry partners to present ISPs with real-time threat data that enables them to instantly block access to known fraudulent or malicious websites. This has a major impact in protecting citizens from cyber- and cyber-facilitated crimes.
Where voluntary arrangements prove unsuccessful, we are introducing a new legislative power will provide law enforcement and investigative agencies with a formal process to suspend IP addresses and domain names that are being used to facilitate serious crime. This power will also be introduced as part of the Criminal Justice Bill.
Asked by: Thérèse Coffey (Conservative - Suffolk Coastal)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, how many security passes are valid for use on the Parliamentary Estate by (a) MPs, Peers and their staff; (b) staff supporting Parliamentary activities in each House, (c) staff supporting non-Parliamentary activities, (d) security guards; (e) police officers; (f) contractors and (g) any other category.
Answered by Charles Walker
A breakdown of pass data is available, however the categories used do not match up exactly with the categories specified. This is because the House regards every member of the Administration as supporting parliamentary activities, whether directly or indirectly.
The number of passes on issue changes constantly, so the following represents a snapshot of data recorded on 17 April 2024:
(a) MPs, Peers and their staff
(b) (c) and (d) Staff in both Houses
(e) police officers
(f) contractors
(g) any other category
Asked by: Nadia Whittome (Labour - Nottingham East)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether his Department is taking steps to support nurseries experiencing financial challenges as a result of increased business rates.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government recognises the pressure that businesses have been under since the pandemic and that is why the government froze the business rates multiplier for three consecutive years from April 2021 until April 2024 at a cost of £14.5 billion.
To make sure that the most vulnerable businesses continue to be supported, the government announced a further freeze to the small business multiplier at Autumn Statement for 2024-25, which will protect over a million ratepayers from a multiplier increase. This means bills will be 6.6 per cent lower than without the freeze. In addition to this support, some nurseries will already be in receipt of business rates relief where they have a ‘charitable purpose’, such as those part of academy chains.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of the presence of foreign military bases on the sovereignty of host countries in West Africa.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
Decisions about hosting foreign military bases in Africa are for host countries to make. The UK supports the sovereignty of states and encourages all actors to ensure foreign forces are deployed in line with African Union and UN frameworks on peacekeeping and security operations. This ensures respect for international law and human rights, and accountability, are upheld. UK military will continue to work with, and at the invitation of, elected governments to support on security.
Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, what assessment the Commission has made of the level of performance of the Polycom phone system.
Answered by Charles Walker
The performance of the current telephony system is not good enough and is falling short of reasonable expectation. The Parliamentary Digital Service is working hard with our suppliers and technology partners to bring the level of service up to an acceptable standard. A new solution has been procured and will be implemented later this year. I apologise to the right hon. Member and all colleagues for the inconvenience they are experiencing.
Asked by: Mark Logan (Conservative - Bolton North East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what plans he has to collaborate with Israel on expediting the opening of the (a) Erez crossing and (b) Ashdod Port for humanitarian aid shipments to Gaza.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) (Minister for Development)
The UK has long urged Israel to take these steps and welcomes these commitments. We want to see Israel fulfil these commitments swiftly and in full. The Foreign Secretary discussed this with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on 17 April.
The Foreign Secretary and Foreign Minister Baerbock urged Israel to deliver on its promises of delivering more aid into Gaza through as many routes possible by land, sea and air.
We have also announced £3 million of additional funding for equipment to support the UN and aid agencies to get more aid into Gaza through new and existing land crossings. The UK's contribution will include trucks, forklifts, generators, fuel stores and lighting towers.
Asked by: Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Labour (Co-op) - Brighton, Kemptown)
Question
To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of including ethnic breakdowns in all national statistics.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Government departments are responsible for the production of different national statistics. I have asked my officials to liaise with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to ascertain the feasibility of including ethnic breakdowns in all national statistics.
A large amount of ethnicity data is already published on the Equality Hub’s Ethnicity Facts and Figures website. It was the first of its kind in terms of scale, scope and transparency and has been welcomed as best practice internationally. It contains statistics covering topics such as health, education, employment and the criminal justice system.
Publishing more ethnicity data for some topic areas may not always be possible. Ethnicity data may not be collected in some surveys or data collections. Where it is collected, data for some ethnic groups with smaller populations may not be published for reasons of disclosure or statistical reliability.