Asked by: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of HS2 Ltd's noise mitigation proposals for Wendover.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Operational sound, noise and vibration assessments were undertaken for the additional noise mitigation at Wendover as part of Supplementary Environmental Statement 4 which accompanied the deposit of Additional Provision 5.
Asked by: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have received new evidence from OTB Engineering relating to the Wendover short mined tunnel; and whether, as a result, they will order a review of the engineering costs used by HS2 Ltd.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
HS2 Ltd received a copy of the OTB Engineering report on 25 October 2016. The report contains no evidence to suggest that the current cost estimates prepared by HS2 Ltd need reviewing.
Asked by: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect to publish the Frontier Economics report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on the level of contributions from the betting industry to the horse-racing industry.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
The Frontier Economics report is an independent economic analysis of the costs and revenues of the horseracing sector in Great Britain. This report forms one element of Government’s work on determining the rate which will be payable by gambling operators under the new funding system which is due to be in place by April 2017.
The Government intends to publish the findings of the Frontier Report in due course.
Asked by: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to introduce the horse racing betting right announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his 2014 Autumn Statement.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
We are committed to replacing the current levy system to create a level playing field for British based and offshore gambling operators.
It has always been recognised that more work will be needed on the detailed design of a Horserace Betting Right before any legislative proposals can be brought forward. This work is now under way and is expected to be completed later this year. We have not set a target date for introducing a bill as this will depend on both the completion of the detailed design work and the availability of Parliamentary time.
Asked by: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many times Ministers in the Ministry of Justice have met RSPCA representatives in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Answered by Lord Faulks
All meetings that take place between Ministers and external organisations are recorded in quarterly transparency statistics, published at the link below;
https://www.gov.uk/
Asked by: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much of the legal aid budget has been spent on reimbursing defendants in RSPCA private prosecutions in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) has no record of any payments being made relating to the RSPCA in the years in question.
Asked by: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how much of the legal aid budget in 2012, 2013 and 2014 has been spent reimbursing the RSPCA.
Answered by Lord Faulks
The Legal Aid Agency (LAA) has no record of any payments being made relating to the RSPCA in the years in question.
Asked by: Viscount Astor (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Attorney General:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many times in 2012, 2013 and 2014 the Crown Prosecution Service has either taken over or forced discontinuation of a private prosecution brought by the RSCPA.
Answered by Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not maintain an authoritative central record of the number of private prosecutions taken over. To identify the exact number of times the CPS took over or forced the discontinuation of a private prosecution brought by the RSPCA would require a manual exercise to review individual files which would incur a disproportionate cost.