Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to remove copycat third-party websites that re-sell government services.
Answered by Baroness Chapman of Darlington - Minister of State (Development)
In 2024 the National Cyber Security Centre's (NCSC) Takedown Service resolved over 2.3 million attacks of which 57,000 directly targeted HMG brands. The NCSC Takedown Service reduces the return on investment for attackers by removing sites and blocking any attack to infrastructure. As part of the Takedown Service, members of the public can report a scam website [https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/phishing-scams/report-scam-website]. The NCSC also offers a suspicious email reporting service which links into the Takedown Service, this analyses emails and when they are found to contain links to malicious sites, seeks to disrupt them. The email reporting service is report@phishing.gov.uk.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what action they are taking to facilitate medically qualified individuals from abroad who have been granted leave to remain in the UK having their qualifications recognised so that they can be recruited into the NHS workforce.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
All medical practitioners wishing to practise in the United Kingdom must be registered with the General Medical Council (GMC) and hold a licence to practise. The GMC is statutorily independent of the Government and sets the standards that must be met by domestic and international applicants wishing to be added to its register. This ensures registrants are safe to practise, and that patients receive a high standard of care.
Information on the process for joining the GMC’s register and tailored support for international applicants can be found on its website.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their latest estimate of the number of individuals in England on the parliamentary electoral register, and what percentage this represents of the number of those eligible to vote.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Office for National Statistics publishes annual electoral statistics. Its most recent report, published in April 2024, shows that the numbers of parliamentary electors registered to vote in England stood at 38,969,669.
There are no official statistics on, or Government estimates of, the numbers eligible to vote in parliamentary elections in England but not registered. The best available estimate, produced by the Electoral Commission in 2023, is that the parliamentary register in England is 86% complete.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is their latest estimate of delivery times for equipment to expand capacity on the electricity grid, including high voltage cable, pylons, large power transformers and circuit breakers.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Through engagement with electricity operators, we are aware of estimated lead times for grid components. Due to growing cross-industry demand, lead times have increased, for example, to 24-months for 132kV transformers and to four years for 400kV transformers and network cabling.
We continue to support Ofgem’s developing Advanced Procurement Mechanism (launching early this year) which will allow transmission operators to access constrained equipment earlier in project development.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assist local authorities in taking action to bring empty dwellings back into occupation and to expedite the administrative and legal process.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
According to the latest published statistics, excluding second homes, there are 719,470 vacant dwellings in England. 265,061 of these dwellings are classed as Long-Term Empty Homes, meaning they have been empty for more than 6 months. These statistics are published annually and accessible on gov.uk.
I refer the Noble Lord to the answer given to Question UIN 6686 on 14 October 2024 regarding the support government is providing to help local authorities tackle empty homes.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of empty dwellings in England.
Answered by Baroness Taylor of Stevenage - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
According to the latest published statistics, excluding second homes, there are 719,470 vacant dwellings in England. 265,061 of these dwellings are classed as Long-Term Empty Homes, meaning they have been empty for more than 6 months. These statistics are published annually and accessible on gov.uk.
I refer the Noble Lord to the answer given to Question UIN 6686 on 14 October 2024 regarding the support government is providing to help local authorities tackle empty homes.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the enforcement of section 32 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992 by the Certification Officer.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Section 32 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 requires a trade union to send an annual report to the Certification Officer.
The Certification Officer is the regulator of trade unions and employer associations. The Certification Officer has the power to require a union to provide its annual return. The annual return must include, among other things, details of the union’s finances for the reporting year.
It is not for Government to compel a union to provide its annual return. That is for the Certification Officer, who is independent of Government.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many prisoners on remand are currently held in prison.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
As of 30 September 2024, the remand prison population was 17,662.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
Question
To ask the hon. Member for Broxbourne, representing the House of Commons Commission, for what reason the Polycom phone system malfunctioned on 9 May 2024.
Answered by Charles Walker
I am sorry that the right hon. Member and all colleagues continue to experience inconvenience in telephony services which are currently below standard. The latest issue with handsets underlines the need for the solution which the Parliamentary Digital Service is implementing later this year.
Polycom devices need to communicate with an external supplier to register the device and make/receive calls. Each device communicates with one of two external servers. One of the servers experienced issues on Thursday 9 May and any device that attempted to connect to this server was impacted by the outage. Polycom phones communicating with the working server did not experience an outage.
The first report the Digital Service received of handsets not working was at 12.13pm on Thursday 9 May. The team declared a major incident shortly afterwards and service was restored at 9.46am on 10 May.
The Voice Programme is upgrading and replacing the existing telephony infrastructure and when implemented, handsets will have 99.999% reliability of connecting.
Asked by: Lord Spellar (Labour - Life peer)
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 bringing forward legislative proposals to remove access to benefits for people sentenced to be held in secure mental health facilities.
Answered by Jo Churchill
The DWP Secretary of State has asked officials to look into the rules around benefits entitlements for offenders who are detained in psychiatric hospitals.