Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to her Department's policy paper entitled English Devolution White Paper, published on 16 December 2024, what the evidential basis is that unitary councils save money.
Answered by Jim McMahon - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The Case For Local Government Reorganisation in the English Devolution White Paper, states “In 2020 a PwC report, “Evaluating the importance of scale in proposals for local government reorganisation”, for the County Councils Network, estimated that reorganisation of the then 25 two-tier areas to a single unitary structure would have a one-off cost of £400 million, with the potential to realise £2.9 billion over five years, with an annual post implementation net recurring saving of £700 million. The unitary proposals submitted in relation to the most recently established unitary councils identified a range of efficiencies that could be achieved where council services are brought together in one organisation. For North Yorkshire Council, established in April 2023, unitarisation has enabled the council to manage financial pressures through structural changes and service transformation which are expected to achieve more than £40 million in savings by March 2026.”
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what definition his Department uses for socio-economic welfare, the context of publications by Ofgem.
Answered by Miatta Fahnbulleh - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Socio-economic welfare is a standard economic tool that aims to identify how much better off the country would be if an improvement is made by tracing the effects on the economy. In this regard, Ofgem uses the same definitions of welfare as used in other areas of government.
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, when he plans to implement a British jobs bonus scheme; and how much he plans to allocate to each year of the scheme.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government has launched the Clean Industry Bonus, an addition to Contract for Difference (CfD) payments for fixed and floating offshore wind developers who invest in their supply chains. The budget for the Bonus will be £27m per gigawatt of offshore wind capacity that applies to the 2025 CfD round. Policy on future rounds will be communicated in due course.
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, when he plans to respond to the First Report of the Liaison Committee of 2023-24 on Promoting national strategy: How select committee scrutiny can improve strategic thinking in Whitehall, HC 31, published on 29 May 2024; and whether he plans to establish a new national school for government and public services.
Answered by Nick Thomas-Symonds - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government looks forward to discussing this report with the incoming Liaison Committee Chair once elected.
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of the fire in a submarine construction facility in Barrow-in-Furness on delivery of the AUKUS submarine programme.
Answered by Maria Eagle - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
I refer the right hon. Member to the written statement I laid in the House on 30 October 2024 on this issue. The UK remains committed to delivering the SSN-AUKUS Optimal Pathway announced by the three leaders of the AUKUS nations in March 2023. The UK’s continued commitment to AUKUS was recently demonstrated by the Defence Secretary hosting his Australian and US counterparts at the Old Royal Naval College in London to drive forward progress on AUKUS.
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, for what reason an updated version of the transparency data entitled Government ministers and responsibilities has not yet been published; and when he plans to publish an updated version.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
A new List of Ministerial Responsibilities will be published shortly.
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to the decision to make a protective award to former employees of MADE.COM, what steps she is taking to help tackle the delays in processing redundancy payments by the Redundancy Payments Service.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
My officials at the Insolvency Service’s Redundancy Payments Service have confirmed that due to uncertainties around the period detailed in the Protective Award consent order, legal advice was required before payments could be made. All other redundancy related payments due to the former employees of MADE.COM, which total £436,000, have already been paid. I am pleased to confirm that following resolution, payments under the Protective Award have now commenced.
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many road traffic accidents have occurred on the A120 between Horsley Cross and Harwich in each of the past five years; and if he will publish details of (a) the location, (b) fatalities and (c) serious injuries in each case.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Department holds information on reported personal injury road collisions only.
The number of reported personal injury road collisions on the A120 between Horsley Cross and Harwich between 2018 and 2022 (the last five years for which figures are available) can be found in the table below.
Reported road collisions, A120 between Horsley Cross and Harwich, 2018 to 2022 | |
Source: DfT, STATS19 | |
Year | Collisions |
2018 | 6 |
2019 | 5 |
2020 | 11 |
2021 | 8 |
2022 | 6 |
The number of fatalities and seriously injured casualties on the A120 between Horsley Cross and Harwich between 2018 and 2022 can be found in the table below.
Reported road casualties, A120 between Horsley Cross and Harwich, 2018 to 2022 | ||
Source: DfT, STATS19 | ||
Year | Fatal | Serious (adjusted) |
2018 | 1 | 2 |
2019 | 0 | 2 |
2020 | 0 | 5 |
2021 | 1 | 3 |
2022 | 3 | 5 |
Data containing location and severity of all reported collisions and casualties involved is published at a record level on data.gov.uk.
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, whether he has received representations on the practice of house builders prohibiting in perpetuity new homeowners from installing solar panels on their homes.
Answered by Lee Rowley
I am grateful to my Hon Friend for bringing correspondence about housebuilders prohibiting the fitting of solar panels post-sale to my attention. Renewable energy, such as that generated from solar panels, will contribute to the objective of getting to net zero, so we are grateful for you flagging this concern. The Department will review this matter further.
Asked by: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will make an assessment of the adequacy of Royal Mail's postal service in the CO postcode area.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
I am aware that Royal Mail continues to have particular service challenges in some postcode areas. I note that Royal Mail management accepts its performance needs to be much better and has started to address this, for example, by recruiting an additional 3,000 postmen and women so far with a further 500 permanent delivery positions a week going forwards.
Ofcom sets and monitors Royal Mail’s service standards and has powers to investigate and take enforcement action where there are reasonable grounds for concluding Royal Mail has failed to achieve its obligations. I note that the regulator recently fined the business £5.6m for failing to meet its service delivery targets in 2022-23.