Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, pursuant to the Answer of 23 March 2015 to Question 227858, if he will estimate how many unsolicited CDs and DVDs hon. Members received by post at their offices on the parliamentary estate in the last 12 months.
Answered by Viscount Thurso
The House Service has no access to information on which it could base a realistic estimate.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, when the Commission plans to introduce recycling for DVDs and CDs.
Answered by Viscount Thurso
There are currently no plans to introduce dedicated recycling facilities for DVDs and CDs. However, we continue to review Parliament’s waste recycling and recovery arrangements as part of our objective to move waste streams up the waste hierarchy.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will direct Jobcentre-plus districts to address the geographical variations in the distribution of jobseeker's allowance sanctions as set out in the report by Crisis entitled Benefit sanctions and homelessness: a scoping report, published March 2015.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
We deploy a comprehensive monitoring regime to check that sanctions are applied appropriately across our network. Where any site is making significantly more or fewer referrals, an independent team reviews their activity to ensure sanctions are being applied appropriately.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many jobseeker's allowance (JSA) sanctions there were per 100 JSA claimants in each London borough in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Esther McVey - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Information on the number of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) sanctions, by various geographies, is available and published at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Stat-Xplore_User_Guide.htm
Claimant count JSA figures are published at:
These figures will enable the information requested to be estimated.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he plans to take in response to the conclusions of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, held in December 2014.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The UK was represented at the Vienna conference by our Permanent Representative to the International Organisations in Vienna, Susan le Jeune. As the Vienna Conference was a discussion platform there were no formal follow up outcomes agreed. However as stated at the Conference, the UK will continue to follow the step-by-step approach to disarmament through the existing UN disarmament machinery and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether there will be a joint P5 statement on the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The UK attended the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons and made a statement afterwards. Not all the P5 Nuclear Weapons States attended; there are therefore no plans for a joint P5 statement on the Vienna Conference.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, when the P5 nuclear weapon states will next meet in London; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The UK will host the sixth Conference of P5 Nuclear Weapon States in London on 4-5 February; I will update the House after the meeting.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many people in (a) Lewisham, Deptford constituency and (b) the Borough of Lewisham have been assisted by the (i) Help to Buy equity loan and (ii) Help to Buy mortgage guarantee schemes; and what the (A) range and (B) average value has been of mortgages so assisted.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
This Government is committed to supporting people’s aspirations to own their own home.
By 30 November 2014, 83 families had bought a home with the assistance of the three Help to Buy schemes in the constituency of Lewisham, Deptford. This includes 59 families using the support of Help the Buy: Equity Loan and 24 families using the support of Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee scheme.
By 30 November 2014, 180 families in the London Borough of Lewisham had bought a home with the assistance of the three Help to Buy schemes. This includes 66 families using the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme and 85 families using the Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee scheme.
Statistics on the average purchase price of a property bought under the schemes are all produced and published at the national level, but not at the level of constituency or local authority.
The Department’s official statistics on sales for the respective Help to Buy schemes are available at:
Help to Buy: Equity Loan (broken down by constituency, local authority and postcode):
www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/help-to-buy-equity-loan-scheme-monthly-statistics
Help to Buy: Mortgage Guarantee (broken down by constituency, local authority and postcode):
Help to Buy: New Buy (broken down by local authority):
www.gov.uk/government/statistics/help-to-buy-equity-loan-scheme-and-help-to-buy-newbuy-statistics-april-2013-to-september-2014. Figures are not available by constituency.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what conclusions he has drawn from the outcomes of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons on 8 to 9 December 2014.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
The UK was represented at the conference by Mrs Susan le Jeune, our Ambassador to Austria and Permanent Representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. At the Conference, officials listened carefully to the participants, who expressed a very wide range of views.
Some argued that the way to achieve the goal of a world without nuclear weapons was to ban weapons now or to fix a timetable for their elimination. This approach fails to take account of the stability and security which nuclear weapons can help to secure. None of us would gain from a loss of that stability. The UK believes that the UN Disarmament Machinery, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty, provide the right forum for working towards a world without nuclear weapons.
Our Ambassador to Austria restated our concern at the humanitarian consequences which could result from the use of nuclear weapons. We are committed to working towards a world without nuclear weapons. In our Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010, the Government undertook to reduce the number of warheads we have by the mid-2020s. However, we shall retain a credible, continuous and effective submarine based deterrent, for as long as the global security situation makes it necessary.
A copy of the UK intervention at the Conference has been placed in the Library of the House.
Asked by: Joan Ruddock (Labour - Lewisham, Deptford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what progress his Department has made on dealing with claims for compensation by haemophiliacs given contaminated blood provided by the NHS; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jane Ellison
Work on what can be done to improve the system of support for those affected by HIV or hepatitis C through historic treatment with NHS supplied blood or blood products is ongoing. We also wish to consider the final report of Lord Penrose’s Public Inquiry in Scotland before making a statement on the way forward.