Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the Government Property Agency remains the Custodian of the Royal Naval Division War Memorial following transfer of the freehold.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Basildon - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The Government Property Agency does not hold the Royal Naval Division War Memorial within its property portfolio. It is located outside the Agency’s freehold title.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether all of the civil servants working in (1) the Department for Business and Trade, (2) the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, (3) the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, (4) the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, (5) the Department for Transport, (6) the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and (7) the Department of Health and Social Care, who have regular access to top secret material have been cleared through Developed Vetting.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
The UK government policy on National Security Vetting is outlined in the HMG Personnel Security Controls, which states the levels of clearance required for access to TOP SECRET material and the access controls in place. For long-term, frequent or uncontrolled access to TOP SECRET assets and/or access to TOP SECRET codeword material, the level of clearance required is Developed Vetting (DV). Occasional, supervised access to TOP SECRET assets is permitted for individuals with Security Check (SC) clearance.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Callanan (HL2382), whether the Cabinet Office coordination of departmental actions takes place from an operations room in real time; and whether this functions 24 hours per day.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
The Foreign Policy and National Security Secretariat (FPNSS) within the Cabinet Office works with responsible departments across Whitehall to coordinate policy on the resilience of subsea and offshore infrastructure. This policy coordination role compliments broader horizon scanning efforts within the department which aim to identify potential risks to infrastructure through early warning mechanisms or relevant intelligence.
Where crises impacting this infrastructure do materialise and could harm the UK’s national security, the Cabinet Office's National Security Watchkeepers, a team responsible for monitoring open source and government reporting tools on a 24/7 basis, alert the relevant teams within government.
Following any crisis notification, it is up to the relevant policy team in the FPNSS to work with the lead government department to assess the level of risk, identify any impacts and outline the appropriate next steps which HMG needs to take, including the activation of crisis machinery within the Cabinet Office where required.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 7 October (HL2313), when they expect work to be completed so that planning for a recommissioning ceremony can begin.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
Further to the last response from the Government Property Agency with regards to the Naval Monument, we can now confirm that all works have been completed and that it is now fully operational.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord True on 28 April (HL7898), whether the Government Property Agency has received the list of works needed on the Royal Naval Division war memorial from Heritage England; if not, why not; and whether they have been hastened.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
Remedial work has started and is ongoing. As our partners undertake remedial works, they have uncovered further defects and are continuing to carry out a full internal repair of the fountain and its pump system. Due to the location of the fountain, works were halted during the period of mourning, but have now resumed within the secure zone.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, how long the fountain of the Royal Naval Division War Memorial has not been functional; and when they expect the necessary repairs to have been completed.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Government Property Agency (GPA) remains the Custodian of the Royal Naval Division War Memorial following transfer of the freehold.
Renovation works to the Memorial were put on hold during a major refurbishment of London, Old Admiralty Building which was only completed in 2021.
The Government Property Agency is working with Heritage England to assess the works required to develop a suitable plan. We expect the works to be concluded at the earliest opportunity once we have received feedback from the Heritage survey, until this has been concluded the GPA is unable to give a timescale for completion.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Agnew of Oulton on 24 June 2019 (HL16339), whether the renovations due to be completed in 2019 have been carried out; whether there have been any further renovations since; and, if not, whether the Government Property Agency will conduct a survey to start renovations as soon as possible.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Government Property Agency (GPA) remains the Custodian of the Royal Naval Division War Memorial following transfer of the freehold.
Renovation works to the Memorial were put on hold during a major refurbishment of London, Old Admiralty Building which was only completed in 2021.
The Government Property Agency is working with Heritage England to assess the works required to develop a suitable plan. We expect the works to be concluded at the earliest opportunity once we have received feedback from the Heritage survey, until this has been concluded the GPA is unable to give a timescale for completion.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government further to the Written Answer by Lord Agnew of Oulton on 24 June 2019 (HL16339), whether they continue to be the custodians, through the Government Property Agency, of the Royal Naval Division War Memorial.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The Government Property Agency (GPA) remains the Custodian of the Royal Naval Division War Memorial following transfer of the freehold.
Renovation works to the Memorial were put on hold during a major refurbishment of London, Old Admiralty Building which was only completed in 2021.
The Government Property Agency is working with Heritage England to assess the works required to develop a suitable plan. We expect the works to be concluded at the earliest opportunity once we have received feedback from the Heritage survey, until this has been concluded the GPA is unable to give a timescale for completion.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to appoint someone to report directly to the National Security Advisor (1) on military co-operation with Australia and America, and (2) to help Australia develop SSN submarines.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The National Security Adviser has appointed Whitehall leads to report to him directly on the UK’s collaboration with the US and Australia on AUKUS. The Ministry of Defence reports regularly to the National Security Adviser on the programme of work, conducted alongside US and Australian colleagues, to identify the optimum way to deliver new submarine capability to the Royal Australian Navy.
Asked by: Lord West of Spithead (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the total number of COVID-19 deaths in England since 1 July; and how many of those deaths were people who were either (1) unvaccinated, or (2) had underlying health conditions.
Answered by Lord True - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have, therefore, asked the Authority to respond.
Professor Sir Ian Diamond | National Statistician
Lord West of Spithead
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
27 October 2021
Dear Lord West of Spithead,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking the total number of COVID-19 deaths in England since 1 July; and how many of those deaths were people who were either (1) unvaccinated, or (2) had underlying health conditions (HL3191).
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes mortality statistics for England and Wales compiled from information supplied when deaths are certified and registered as part of civil registration. Based on the latest data in the bulletin ‘Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: 15 October 2021’1, there were 7,673 deaths involving COVID-19 registered between 1 July 2021 and 8 October 2021 in England.
Information provided at death registration can be used to identify the presence of pre-existing health conditions. The data are published quarterly in the ‘Pre-existing conditions of people who died due to COVID-19, England and Wales’ dataset2. These are currently available until the end of June 2021. In the second quarter of 2021 (April to June), 18.8% of people who died due to COVID-19 in England and Wales had no pre-existing condition. The data for the third quarter (July to September) will be published on 23 November 2021.
The vaccination status of the deceased is not recorded at death registration unless the certifying doctor or coroner considered it to be relevant to the cause of death. To produce statistics on deaths by COVID-19 vaccination status the ONS has created a linked dataset which includes death registrations, vaccination data from the National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) and Test and Trace data on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results. The methods are described in ‘Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England: deaths occurring between 2 January and 2 July 2021’3. Unfortunately, this publication only covered deaths that occurred up to 2 July 2021. However, an update of this publication, covering deaths that occurred up to 24 September 2021, will be published on 1 November. Of the 51,281 deaths involving Covid-19 that occurred between 2 January and 2 July 2021, 38,964 (76.0%) occurred in unvaccinated individuals. Please note, however, that this proportion is likely to change in the most recent period, as an increasing number of people are now vaccinated.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sir Ian Diamond
1 Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: 15 October 2021
2 Pre-existing conditions of people who died due to COVID-19, England and Wales