Asked by: Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the case for the United Kingdom continuing to remain a member of UNESCO.
Answered by Lord Bates
The UK remains a member of UNESCO and there has been no change to this position. The UK is committed to ensuring UK aid goes to the highest-performing multilateral agencies. We make ongoing assessments of multilateral agency performance, consideration of whether Agencies are providing value for tax payers’ money is an important part of these assessments.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment have they made of the effectiveness of the Department for International Development being responsible for the UK's membership of UNESCO, given that UNESCO aims to promote peace through international cooperation in education, sciences and culture.
Answered by Lord Bates
UNESCO’s mandate and work is wide-reaching, ranging from leading the delivery of SDG 4 (Education) to reviving the city of Mosul and administering the Global Tsunami Warning System. DFID is well placed to act as the lead department for UNESCO within HMG and will continue to do so.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to increase the level of funding allocated through their Road Investment Strategy to widen any 3-lane highways which have been found to be dangerous.
Answered by Baroness Sugg
Safety is the first responsibility for both the Department and Highways England, and one of the key aims Her Majesty’s Government has set for both the Road Investment Strategy 1 and Road Investment Strategy 2. An affordable, deliverable investment plan that meets the Government’s objectives for RIS2 is under development, and final decisions will be announced in 2019.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of research by the Renewable Energy Foundation, The Performance of Wind Farms in the UK and Denmark, published in December 2012, which demonstrates that the working lifetime of offshore wind turbines is shorter than previously thought; whether they intend to revise their low carbon-energy policy or policy on wind turbines as a result; and whether they support any development to turbine technology which could deliver increases to their working lifetime.
Answered by Lord Henley
The Department periodically reviews the evidence base on the generation costs of renewable electricity technologies, including their operational lifetimes, and when appropriate publishes reports on the topic. The most recent of these publications can be found on the gov.uk website, and a copy is also attached here.
The UK’s oldest offshore windfarm, Blyth (off the coast of Northumberland), was commissioned in 2000 and is still in operation today. The world’s oldest offshore windfarm, Vindeby in Denmark, was decommissioned in 2017 after 25 years of operation.
The Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult has a programme of work looking at lifetime asset management and has recently announced an operations & maintenance centre of excellence in collaboration with the University of Hull.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they plan to review the assistance they and private sector providers offer to people with limited digital skills or understanding, in the light of the increasing number of public support and information services being provided online; and what assessment they have made of the adequacy and funding requirements of services provided to people living with disabilities in accessing public services online.
Answered by Lord Ashton of Hyde
We are committed to improving citizens’ digital skills and particularly those with limited skills and understanding.
We recently published our plans to improve adult basic digital skills by updating the national standards setting out the digital skills people need to get on in life and work and introducing improved basic digital skills qualifications at two levels:
We are also introducing a national entitlement to basic digital skills courses from 2020, similar to the existing legal entitlements for English and Maths.
In the interim, we will continue to support the provision of basic digital skills training for adults in colleges and community learning centres across England through the Adult Education Budget and other programmes, including the Future Digital Inclusion programme funded by DfE managed by the Good Things Foundation and delivered through the 3,000 strong Online Centres network. To date, this programme has supported over 800,000 adult learners to develop their basic digital skills, many of whom are socially excluded.
We have also established the Digital Skills Partnership (DSP) to bring together organisations from private, public and third sectors to improve digital skills and capability levels. The Government launched a Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund in September 2018 to support innovative projects aimed at helping older and disabled people.
Government ensures its services are accessible by design and has also committed to ensuring that assistance to access its services is always available for those who are not online. Government departments are mandated to provide assisted digital (offline) support for their services where it is required. Video Relay Service (VRS), for example, is available for some government services, including for claiming welfare benefits. VRS allows two parties in two separate locations to connect remotely via a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter so BSL users can make and receive telephone calls. The three parties involved in the call (caller, called party and interpreter) can all be in different locations.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, if any, to collaborate with other countries to seek to (1) control, and (2) conduct research into, the commercial fishing of krill close to the edge of the Antarctic ice sheet.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK has been proactive within the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) to strengthen the regulation of krill fishing around Antarctica. The British Antarctic Survey has led on a range of relevant scientific activities, including with international partners, to determine the abundance of krill, the factors that influence it's distribution, and the crucial role that krill plays in the Antarctic ecosystem. Work also includes studies to explore the overlap between fishing vessels and krill-eating seabirds and marine mammals, and the risks to these predators. The UK has proposed to CCAMLR that krill fishing activities should be moved offshore to avoid any potential overlap with the foraging areas of breeding wildlife. The UK has therefore welcomed the recent announcement by the Association of Responsible Krill Harvesting Operators (ARK) to voluntarily implement such measures. The UK also recently secured agreement by CCAMLR to protect marine areas that are newly exposed by ice shelf collapse or retreat around the Antarctic Peninsula.
Asked by: Lord Hunt of Chesterton (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they have taken with other countries and UN agencies, including the World Meteorological Organisation, to help restore water to the rivers and ground water resources in war torn countries in the Middle East.
Answered by Lord Bates
The UK Government is working closely with partners, including UN agencies, to improve access to and management of water resources in a number of Middle Eastern countries.
Examples include:
- Technical support for national policy and planning on water resources in Syria, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Jordan.
- Support for water resources management in Yemen, through the World Bank’s Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience.
- Working with UNICEF in Jordan to improve access to safe water and sanitation facilities for Syrian refugees and vulnerable Jordanians.
- Supporting the Water Authority of Jordan carry out urgently needed improvement of the wastewater system’s operational capacity, by building a new wastewater conveyor (redundancy pipe) benefitting a total of 2.3 million people.
- Support to the construction of the Central Gaza Desalination Plant and upgrading of the water distribution network in Gaza.