Lord Fearn

We do not keep figures in a way that makes it possible to compare attendance in a weekly pattern without incurring disproportionate cost. A usual sitting week is 4 days long. So a member who attends 50% of sittings would attend an average of about two days per week spread over a year. In the year ended 21 October 2016 there were 535 current members who attended more than 50% of sittings and 275 who attended 50% or fewer sittings. These percentages do not take account of members on leave of absence, suspended from participating in the House or disqualified from sitting in the House.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects and publishes statistics on the income and expenditure of publicly funded UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the annual publication “Higher Education Finance Plus”. An introduction to the publication is available at the following link: https://hesa.ac.uk/pr213 and is attached.

Table 1 of the publication details the source of income for UK HEIs. The total income from the course fees of non-EU domiciled students was £3,892m in the 2013/14 academic year, which represents 12.7% of the total income of UK HE providers.

There are a total of 23 offshore wind farms off the coast of England with a combined installed capacity of 4181MW. These wind farms are located:-

The planning status of all renewable electricity projects with an installed capacity of 1MW or more can be found within the Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD).

Currently there are 175 fully operational wind farms (sites with two turbines or more) in England. These windfarms have a total installed capacity of 2019.2MW.

No legislative quotas have existed for women on UK boards since 2010. The Government is strongly committed to increasing the number of women on public and private sector boards and believes that the most effective way of effecting this change is through a voluntary approach, including non-legislative targets. The Government is supportive of the Hampton-Alexander Review into FTSE Women Leaders which has set a target of 33% female representation across FTSE 350 boards by 2020.

There a number of grant programmes, funded by the taxpayer and the lottery, from which England’s 43 surviving piers can benefit. There is no central record of all government grants awarded to piers in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

It is clear that grants from initiatives such as the Coastal Communities Fund and the Coastal Revival Fund as well as the Heritage Lottery Fund, have been invaluable in assisting with restoration works and creating new businesses and jobs. Such grants help to preserve our heritage and increase visitor numbers.

At Hastings Pier, which will reopen to the public this spring, a £14 million restoration project was awarded funding through the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Coastal Communities Fund and from DCLG, among other sources. The new visitor centre, arts centre and restaurant will provide a boost to tourism and local businesses.

According to the website of Sportech PLC, which owns the Football Pools, as of 2015, "the pools" have contributed £1.3 billion, at today's value, to football, other sports, the arts and charitable initiatives in the UK, in recent decades. More information is available at http://www.sportechplc.com/our-business/football-pools/football-pools-donations-map.

UK Sport’s investments in sports are made on a quadrennial rather than yearly basis, with all investment decisions and levels reviewed annually.

In the current 2013-17 Rio Olympic and Paralympic cycle, UK Sport are investing around £350 million in the Summer Olympic and Paralympic sports, and a further £31 million in the Winter Olympic and Paralympic sports, targeting success in PyeongChang 2018 and Tokyo 2022.

According to the Office for National Statistics International Passenger Survey, inbound visitors to the UK spent £21.85 billion in 2014. The top ten inbound markets by spend last year are set out in the following table.

Top 10 inbound markets by value 2014

More information can be found on the VisitBritain website -https://www.visitbritain.org/inbound-tourism-trends

In the last five years to date, one school (St Ambrose Barlow Catholic College) has closed without replacement provision. There has been one amalgamation/merger (Hugh Baird College and South Sefton College) which resulted in the closure of South Sefton College.

There have also been five academy conversions in this time.

Details are outline in the table below.

This data was obtained from Get Information About Schools (GIAS). The responsibility for updating GIAS is shared between the Department for Education, local authorities and schools. It changes each day as data is removed and uploaded therefore we are unable to guarantee complete accuracy.

*Merged with Hugh Baird College

[1] ‘Academy Convertor’ is a previously Ofsted rated ‘outstanding’ maintained school that has voluntarily converted to an Academy.

[2] ‘For Academy’ refers to schools which have closed to become academies following the issue of a Direct Academy Order in response to an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating.

As of 1 October 2017, a total of 148 academies, free schools, studio schools and University Technical Colleges (UTCs) have opened in the past two years in the North West region of England - 76 opened in the 2016 calendar year and 72 have opened in the 2017 calendar year to date. The breakdown of these is as follows:

As at 1 October 2017 a total of 1942 academies, free schools, studio schools and UTCs have opened in the past two years in England. The breakdown of these is as follows:

As at 1 July 2017 there were 566 academies, free schools, studio schools and University Technical Colleges (UTCs) in the North West region of England. The breakdown of these is as follows:

As at 1 July 2017 there were 6,925 academies, free schools, studio schools and UTCs in England

We want all pupils to be healthy and active, which is why Physical Education remains a compulsory subject at all four key stages in the national curriculum. The curriculum is designed to ensure that all pupils develop the competence to excel in a broad range of physical activities, engage in competitive sports and are physically active for sustained periods of time.

Academies and free schools are not required to follow the national curriculum but must provide a broad and balanced curriculum. The Government has made it clear that the national curriculum should be a benchmark which academies can use and improve upon.

The following schemes, resulting in improved protection from flooding and/or erosion for over 20,000 properties, have been, or are currently being, undertaken since 2007 in the North West of England:

In addition, there are dune restoration programmes on the Fylde Peninsula and the Sefton coast.

The Government does not hold this information. However, the Inland Waterways Association has compiled a directory of navigable waterways in Great Britain which can be accessed on its website.

Following a refresh of the Mersey Forest Plan in 2014, a boundary change increased the area of the Mersey Forest by 167 km² from 1,203 km² to 1,370 km², an increase of 13.9%.

The Mersey Forest is supported by Cheshire West and Chester Council, Halton Borough Council, Knowsley Council, Liverpool City Council, Sefton Council, St Helens Council and Warrington Borough Council.

It has reported woodland creation within its boundaries as 17.10ha in the 2013-14 planting season and 25.86ha in the 2014-15 planting season. No figure has been published for the 2015-16 planting season.

The Forest’s web site can be viewed here: www.merseyforest.org.uk/.

Forestry is a devolved issue, so the answer relates to England only.

Many English woods are grown for timber amongst other uses, including oak and cherry. 2.6 million tonnes of English wood was delivered to primary wood processors and others in 2014. This is a 3% increase from the previous year. Active management of English woodlands at September 2015 was reported to be at 58%, up from 53% in 2013.

This is why this Government strongly supports the work of the Grown in Britain initiative. Its work in support of the woodland economy has helped to grow a £2bn a year forestry and wood processing industry, which employs over 40,000 people.

Management control of heathland and other habitats with heather in the North West rests with a range of public and private entities.

There are three types of priority habitat that are dominated by heather: (i) lowland heath; (ii) upland heathland; and (iii) mountain heath and willow scrub.

The distribution of these habitats across the North West is shown in the maps which have been produced by Natural England and have been placed in the Library of the House and sent to the Noble Lord.

The Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) policy regarding autonomy in relation to unmanned aircraft is contained in its unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) guidance document, CAP722 (www.caa.co.uk/cap722). To date, the CAA has not received any applications to conduct autonomous UAS operations. Any application received would be extensively investigated and assessed to assure safety before any permissions to fly are issued.

This an operational matter for Network Rail; the Department for Transport does not hold this information.

Article 166 of the UK Air Navigation order (ANO) 2009 requires operators of RPAS to maintain direct, unaided visual contact with the aircraft sufficient to monitor its flight path in relation to other aircraft, persons, vehicles, vessels and structures for the purposes of avoiding collisions. It also states that an operator may only fly the aircraft if they are reasonably satisfied that the flight can safely be made.

In addition, Article 138 of the ANO 2009, which also applies to RPAS, states that “a person must not recklessly or negligently cause or permit an aircraft to endanger any person or property.” This includes persons within another aircraft, and of course the aircraft that those persons are within. The government expects users to understand and comply with this type of regulation which has been made in place for many years, albeit covering the flight of the more traditional model aircraft.

Safety and Security must always be the overriding priority and both commercial and leisure operators most operate drones responsibly and within the rules. I am able to confirm that with regards to the policing and monitoring of such vehicles the Police has provided initial guidance to constabularies across the UK.

Operators of RPAS that collect personal data must comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) unless a relevant exemption applies. The requirements of the DPA are regulated by the independent Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Civilian Remotely Piloted Aircraft operations are closely regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority and are treated in the same manner as that of equivalent manned aircraft. However, until such time that remotely piloted aircraft systems can demonstrate that they are both airworthy and capable of avoiding other airspace users, all operations must be contained within segregated airspace, to which access for manned aircraft is prevented or closely controlled.

The use of unmanned aircraft is specifically covered by the Air Navigation Order, which legislates for the ‘general’ flying aspects and the flight of those equipped for surveillance. As well as these specific articles, a more general article which prevents a person ‘causing or permitting an aircraft to endanger the safety of any person or property’ also remains applicable.

The latest Quarterly National Accounts (ONS) show that net household expenditure on tourism was 0.5% of UK gross domestic product in 2014. The first estimate of 2015 net tourism will be published by the ONS 31st March 2016. The ONS do not publish a breakdown of net tourism by England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The deployment and use of police animals are operational decisions for chief constables which are rightly made by local forces.

The number of police workers employed by Merseyside Police are published in the ‘Police Workforce, England and Wales’ release. The latest published figures are as at 30 September 2014 and figures broken down by police force area can be found in the data tables of the release:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-workforce-england-and-wales-30-september-2014-data-tables.

There were 6,012 full-time equivalent police workers employed by Merseyside Police as at 30 September 2014, which includes police officers, police staff, police community support officers and designated officers.

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 controls the possession, possession with intent to supply, supply, production, cultivation and importation and exportation of cannabis. Cannabis is a Class B drug, and a Schedule 1 substance under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001.

The 1971 Act also makes it unlawful for an occupier or manager of a premises to permit or suffer the consumption, production and supply of cannabis.

A new offence created by the Crime and Courts Act 2013 makes it illegal to drive with one (or more) specified drugs in the body above a specified limit. The new offence came into force on 2 March 2015.

RAF Woodvale, Southport is designated as an airfield for the Ministry of Defence. Liverpool University Air Squadron, Manchester and Salford University Air Squadron, No 631 Volunteer Gliding Squadron and No 10 Air Experience Flight are based there.

HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) undertook an Inspection of HMP Liverpool on 4-15 September 2017. The report of that inspection was published on 19 January 2018. We take the views of our independent scrutiny bodies very seriously. We published the action plan in response to the report published on 19 January 2018 on the same date and will ensure that agreed recommendations are implemented swiftly.

There was no Inspection of HMP Liverpool by HMIP in 2016.