Tag: David Simpson

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-06-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that increases in the number of foreign, high-fee-paying students does not jeopardise access by UK students to places at their local university.

Joseph Johnson

International students are not in competition for places with British students. The UK is the second most popular destination for international students, and those coming here to study count towards our education exports. International students pay fees to fund their places, and also bring other benefits including providing diversity on our campuses.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much has been invested in the protection of honey bees in the UK in each of the last five years.

George Eustice

Defra has spent between £1.5 million and £2 million on protecting honey bees in England in each of the last five years.

Our programme aims to protect honey bees from pests and diseases, including tackling disease outbreaks and monitoring for exotic pests such as the Asian hornet.

Defra also contributed an additional £2.5 million to the £10 million Insect Pollinator Initiative carried out between 2010 and 2015. This was a joint initiative to look at different aspects of pollinator declines. Of the nine projects funded, two were specifically about honey bees and six were aimed at benefiting both honey bees and bumble bees.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2015-11-25.

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what information his Department holds on the number of people who have lost money through telephone scams (a) in each region and (b) in each of the last five years.

Mr Rob Wilson

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-06-03.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will take steps to ensure that private pension providers facilitate access by policyholders to details of their investments.

Harriett Baldwin

At Budget 2016 the government announced that it will ensure the industry designs, funds and launches a pensions dashboard by 2019. This will help people to ensure that people can clearly view all their pension savings in one place.

This work will be industry-led. The Treasury is starting the work on catalysing and challenging the industry to deliver and I will set out next steps in due course.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to address the change in Britain’s self-sufficiency rating.

George Eustice

The government has a manifesto commitment to introduce a 25 year plan to grow and produce more food, both to increase consumption of British food in the domestic market and to export more.

The UK Food Production to Supply ratio in 2015 was 61% for all food and 76% for indigenous-type food. This compares with 62% and 76% respectively in 2014. This has remained steady over the last decade.

Global food security is dependent on a number of factors including increasing production sustainably, reducing waste and ensuring open markets around the world to facilitate trade.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-02-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many people were recorded as homeless in each region in each of the last five years.

Mr Marcus Jones

The number of households accepted as being owed a main homelessness duty in each region of England in the last five financial years is shown in the atttached table.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-06-03.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department plans to take to make young working families aware of ways in which they can access (a) proposed Government schemes in the Lifetime Savings Bill and (b) other Government schemes relating to long-term savings.

Harriett Baldwin

We are committed to supporting savers of all incomes and at all stages of life. From April 2017, the Government will introduce a Lifetime ISA for adults under 40 to help save for a first home or retirement. The Government will also introduce a new Help to Save scheme, available from no later than April 2018, to support working families on low incomes to build up a rainy day fund.

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring that all consumers can access high quality, affordable advice so they can make informed decisions about their hard-earned money. That is why we will replace the Money Advice Service with a new commissioning body that will identify gaps in the financial guidance market and commission targeted money guidance accordingly.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the conclusion in the Flood Resilience Review, published in September 2016, that a 20 to 30 per cent increase in winter rainfall is possible over the next 10 years.

Dr Thérèse Coffey

The National Flood Resilience Review identified that over the next 10 years we could see extreme rainfall events that could be up to 20-30 per cent higher than recent past extreme rainfall events.

The Environment Agency will use 20 and 30 per cent extreme rainfall scenarios with local detailed models used to design new flood risk management schemes.

The scenarios will also be considered for wider flood incident planning and operational readiness that might be needed by relevant responders.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-02-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the cost to the public purse was of the campaign to encourage (a) young people and (b) first-year university students to take up the Men ACWY vaccine.

Jane Ellison

The total marketing budget for the campaign to encourage the uptake of the Men ACWY vaccine was £99,000.

The paid-for activities formed part of an integrated communications and marketing approach which involved Public Health England working closely with NHS England, meningitis charities and Universities UK. National, regional, online and specialist print and broadcast media coverage of the vaccination campaign was secured at no cost. The vaccination programme was also promoted through university networks at national and regional/local level.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David Simpson on 2016-07-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent changes her Department has made to licensing criteria for badger control in England.

George Eustice

Following a public consultation, the following changes to licensing conditions were published on 17 December 2015:

• Enabling Natural England to keep the duration of annual badger control operations under review rather than limiting them to six weeks.

• Reducing the minimum size of an area from 150km² to 100km².

• Removing the requirement for at least 70% of the land in candidate areas to be accessible but retaining a requirement that approximately 90% of the land in the control area be either accessible, or within 200m of accessible land.