Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
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 providing additional information on (a) his Department's website and (b) the State Pension Claims Form on taking up to 12 months of a State Pension deferral as a single arrears payment.
Answered by Paul Maynard
There is no lump-sum payment for deferral in the new State Pension scheme. This change came in from 2016. Under the new State Pension scheme, the single arrears payment (of up to a maximum of 12 months) is a backdated payment for money which would have been received during that period and does not accrue interest. The arrears payment is separate from the deferral process.
The customer is provided with guidance on backdating and deferral alongside their State Pension claim form.
The Department reviews the information available on its website and the State Pension claim form on an ongoing basis as part of continuous improvements to customer communications and products. Additional information on the State Pension arrears payment is currently being reviewed for inclusion on the Department's website by the end of July 2024. Additional updates to the information on backdating are also being considered for the State Pension claim form (digital and paper).
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, what the policy of the Parliamentary Digital Service is on (a) the rights of access to parliamentary (i) emails and (ii) electronic devices for line managers of hon. Members’ staff and (b) providing access to parliamentary (A) emails and (B) electronic devices to parliamentary staff funded via short money; and whether the Parliamentary Digital Service has issued guidance to political parties on these matters.
Answered by Charles Walker
Members are the Controllers for the personal data held by their Parliamentary offices. This includes the data and information stored on the Parliamentary-provided devices and network accounts of their Parliamentary staff, including staff funded by short money.
In almost all circumstances, access is only provided to the data held in a Member’s parliamentary account or devices (or those of their staff) by the Parliamentary digital Service (PDS) on the instruction of that Member in their capacity as Controller. This is in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) data processing contract between each Member and the Administration.
As the Controller, a Member can instruct PDS to grant themselves, or members of their Parliamentary staff, access to the accounts and devices assigned to other staff in their own office.
Devices funded by short money that have been ordered through PDS are managed by PDS. In line with the UK GDPR data processing contract between individual Members and the Administration, PDS would facilitate access to the information stored on these devices at the instruction of the Controller.
Although no specific guidance has been issued by PDS to political parties on this issue, the Administrations of both Houses of Parliament have a data processing contract that applies to Controllers using Parliament’s IT systems. The contract for Members of both Houses includes a service description that sets out how Members are using Parliament’s IT systems to process the personal data which they are responsible for.
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) student and (b) student dependent visa applications were received by his Department in the first two weeks of January (i) 2023 and (ii) 2024.
Answered by Tom Pursglove
Our published data on student and student dependent visa applications up to September 2023 can be found in the available migration statistics on GOV.UK: www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/immigration-system-statistics-data-tables#entry-clearance-visas-granted-outside-the-uk
Figures up to 31 December 2023 will be published in the next release. January 2024 figures will be published in due course.
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with which (a) foreign countries and (b) administrative regions of foreign countries that issue their own driving licences his Department has an agreement for mutual recognition of documents; and whether his Department is taking steps to reach such agreement with other countries and regions.
Answered by Richard Holden - Opposition Whip (Commons)
The UK continues to exchange and recognise licences originating from all European Economic Area (EEA) countries. Arrangements are in place with all EEA countries for the recognition and exchange of the vast majority of GB licences.
Outside of the EEA, mutual driving licence exchange agreements are in place with the following designated countries:
Andorra | Gibraltar | South Africa |
Australia | Hong Kong | Switzerland |
Barbados | Japan | Taiwan |
British Virgin Islands | Monaco | Ukraine |
Canada | New Zealand | United Arab Emirates |
Cayman Islands | Republic of Korea | Zimbabwe |
Falkland Islands | Republic of North Macedonia |
|
Faroe Islands | Singapore |
|
Work is currently progressing on arrangements with a further seven countries:
Albania | Moldova | Sri Lanka |
Kosovo | San Marino |
|
Malaysia | Serbia |
|
I also recently met with an official delegation from Kenya to discuss existing arrangements with them as well.
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which rail lines have been fully electrified since 1997; of those, how many miles were electrified; which rail lines are in the process being electrified as of October 2023; and of those, how many miles are being electrified.
Answered by Huw Merriman
From 1997/98 to 2009/10, around 63 miles of track were electrified in Great Britain (this figure excludes around 7 miles of an electrical format conversion on the North London Line).
From 2010/11 to 2022/23, around 1265 miles of track have been electrified.
Major projects since 2010 have included the North-West Electrification programme and the Great Western Electrification Programme.
A number of electrification projects are currently underway, this includes the Midland Main Line (MML), the TransPennine Route Upgrade (TRU) and Wigan to Bolton Electrification. As of October 2023, 31.3 miles has been electrified on the MML between Bedford and Corby, with 22.4 miles from Kettering to Wigston due to be complete between 2023 and 2024. TRU is expected to be complete by 2028, with 70 miles of line being electrified between Manchester Victoria and York, alongside two subprojects between Church Fenton and York and Manchester Victoria to Stalybridge which amount to approximately 18 miles.
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which local transport authorities have introduced lane rental schemes; how much mileage is covered by each scheme; what the average reduction in roadworks has been in the areas that have implemented those schemes; and how much money has been raised in fines from utility companies for overrunning works in those areas in each year since the inception of lane rental schemes.
Answered by Richard Holden - Opposition Whip (Commons)
The Government recently published a plan for drivers which included support for further Lane Rental schemes, which reduce roadworks by incentivising utilities to avoid the busiest roads at the busiest times helping to reduce congestion caused by road works. The Department will be consulting on requiring local authorities with Lane Rental schemes to use at least 50% of any surplus on pothole repairs or resurfacing poor quality roads.
There are currently four schemes in operation which publish annual monitoring and evaluations of their own schemes, and which include information relating to the impact of lane rental on works carried out by utility companies. These can be found on Transport for London’s and Kent County Council’s websites. Surrey and West Sussex County Councils are yet to publish their evaluations due to the recent implementation. As scheme coverage can vary year on year, these authorities will be best placed to advise on current mileage.
Ongoing discussions are now taking place with other local authorities, and I would encourage all Members of Parliament to press their own Local Authorities to implement lane rental schemes.
The Department commissioned an independent evaluation of lane rental pilot schemes, which was published in 2016. The evaluation estimated that Lane Rental led to 3000 fewer days of congestion on the highways network.
We do not collect nor hold information on fines relating to overrunning works carried out by utility companies. This is held by highway authorities.
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding his Department has provided for new buses in Greater Manchester in the latest period for which data is available; and how many and what proportion of the buses that have been purchased with that funding were manufactured in the UK.
Answered by Richard Holden - Opposition Whip (Commons)
The Department for Transport has allocated over £1.1 billion of taxpayer funding to Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) through the five-year City Regional Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS) and Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme.
While the Department for Transport (DfT) allocate funding for schemes, it is up local authorities and operators how they manage the tender process and who they chose to manufacture the buses on their networks.
As part of the ZEBRA scheme, GMCA was awarded £35.7m to deliver 170 zero emission buses (ZEBs). These buses will be manufactured by Volvo. The body of these buses are manufactured in Egypt by Volvo’s partner MCV.
GMCA has been allocated £1.07bn through its City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement. The city region has chosen to allocate some of this funding towards the purchase of 100 ZEBs, which will be produced by UK manufacturer Alexander Dennis Limited, based in Scarborough and Falkirk. GMCA have informed DfT that they intend to use further CRSTS funding to deliver additional ZEBs.
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many deaths there have been (a) on (i) conventional and (ii) smart motorway hard shoulders and (b) on smart motorway rest areas in the last five years.
Answered by Richard Holden - Opposition Whip (Commons)
In May 2022, National Highways (NH) published its ‘Smart motorways stocktake Second year progress report 2022’, with the latest available five-year (2016-2020) safety data per road type.
a) The data in the ‘Smart motorways stocktake Second year progress report’ shows that for the period 2016-2020 there were 28 fatal casualties (out of a total of 403 fatal casualties on motorways) resulting from a motorway collision which involved a vehicle recorded as entering, leaving or on a hard shoulder, which is 1 out of every 14 fatal casualties. Of these fatalities, 26 occurred on conventional motorways, 2 on controlled motorways and none on a Dynamic Hard Shoulder (DHS) motorway. (There were 2 additional fatal casualties on DHS motorways which occurred when the hard shoulder was operating as a live lane the collisions are categorised as live lane collisions and included in the DHS live lane data).
b) Between 2016 and 2020, there were no fatalities in emergency areas.
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many road casualties there have been involving (a) cars, (b) vans and (c) motorcycles per billion miles travelled in the latest period for which data is available.
Answered by Richard Holden - Opposition Whip (Commons)
The Department does not publish information on casualty rates for all casualties involved in road collisions by vehicle type. The published casualty rates are only where the casualty is in the same vehicle type as the relevant vehicle mileage by vehicle type. For example, the car occupant casualty rate only includes car occupant casualties per billion vehicle miles travelled by cars, irrespective of whether the collision may have involved casualties of other road users, such as pedal cyclist casualties and pedestrians.
These casualty rates for users of (a) cars, (b) vans and (c) motorcycles per billion miles travelled in the latest period for which data is available, 2021, is given in the table below:
Reported road casualty rates by severity and road user type, Great Britain: 2021 | |
Per billion vehicle miles | |
Road user type | |
(a) Car | 320 |
(b) Light goods vehicle | 72 |
(c) Motorcycle | 6,259 |
Asked by: James Daly (Conservative - Bury North)
Question
To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, how many Parishes currently have interregnums in the Diocese of Manchester.
Answered by Andrew Selous - Second Church Estates Commissioner
The appointment of parish priests is a matter for diocesan bishops. The information is not held centrally by the National Church Institutions.
You may wish to enquire with the Manchester Diocese: https://www.manchester.anglican.org/about-us/our-staff/
or with the Bishop of Manchester: https://www.manchester.anglican.org/about-us/bishops/bishopmanchester.php