Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department is taking steps to reduce processing times for blue badge applications.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Department for Transport sets the legislation that governs the Blue Badge scheme and provides guidance for local authorities who are solely responsible for administering the scheme, including issuing the badges.
There are no timescales set for administering applications other than a suggested guideline that issuing authorities should aim to complete end to end applications within 12 weeks.
80% of citizens apply for a badge using the Blue Badge Digital Service (BBDS) operated by the Department for Transport. The Department has a programme of continuous improvement to the BBDS. Working closely with local authorities and citizen users as part of its National Disability Strategy commitments, the Department’s aim is to make online badge applications quicker and easier for both applicants and local authorities.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department is taking steps to help increase access to grassroots football in deprived areas.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government is committed to delivering top class sports facilities across the country, so that everyone can take part in sport and physical activity. As part of this commitment, the Government is delivering an historic level of direct investment to build or upgrade thousands of grassroots sport facilities across the UK.
Between 2021 and 2025, the UK Government is delivering investment of over £400 million to build or upgrade thousands of grassroots facilities across the UK. The largest component of this funding is the Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme, which is investing over £320 million between 2021 and 2025 into football and multi-sport pitches, changing rooms and other ancillary facilities. Through this programme over £56,000 has been awarded to Northumberland County Council to improve grass pitches on Morpeth Common.
Central to this investment is a clear objective to level up access for under-represented groups through investment in deprived areas and an emphasis on equal access. 50% of funding will go to the 40% most deprived local authority areas, based on a combined inactivity and deprivation ranking.
All projects are assessed against their ability to deliver increased participation by under-represented groups - including women and girls, ethnic minority communities and people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. All projects can be viewed here on gov.uk.
In addition to facilities funding, in November 2023 Sport England announced £250 million of funding that will provide a major expansion of their investment into local communities across England to ensure those in greatest need are able to be physically active.
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what percentage of cargo is transported by train in the UK.
Answered by Huw Merriman - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
In 2022, 7% of total freight moved in the UK was by rail - 81% was by road and 12% by water.
Source: Transport Statistics Great Britain, table TSGB0401 Freight (TSGB04) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Ian Lavery (Labour - Wansbeck)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of (a) allowing people that are moving from legacy benefits to Universal Credit to use a countersignature as proof of ID and (b) opening Job Centres on (i) evenings and (ii) weekends for people who are in full-time employment.
Answered by Jo Churchill - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Countersignatures or vouching can be used to verify an identity as an exception where the customer does not have any other method to prove who they are. This method is more time consuming for both the customer and agent and we have found that the majority of our customers can meet the identify verification criteria.
A number of our Jobcentres across the network already offer a Saturday service. We do not offer evening appointments, but it is important to emphasise that we have a number of different mechanisms through which customers can access our services; for example, through our Universal Credit (UC) system which is a digital platform where customers can leave messages on their journal to update UC agents on their current circumstances. A number of our service lines also offer telephony services into the evening.