Keith Vaz

Parliament’s telephone system was installed in 1985 and – like much of the Palace of Westminster’s core infrastructure – is at the end of its supported life; at significant risk of failure; and growing increasingly difficult to support. Replacement parts for the system are no longer made and the organisation has been buying second hand parts for the last ten years. There are no longer providers in the market place that support the corresponding software. If our legacy system were to fail we could not reliably restore the service.

Given this situation, a project was initiated in 2014 to examine the options to replace our legacy telephone system, whilst also meeting the needs of Parliament’s mobile workforce and the impending estates challenges associated with the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster. That project identified Skype for Business as the most suitable solution to meet these needs.

The total implementation cost for rolling out the system across Parliament (House of Commons and House of Lords Members and the Administrations) to February 2019 is £3.9 million (revenue) and £1.4 million (capital). It is forecast to spend in total £5.5 million (revenue) and £1.5 million (capital). The total revenue cost per user is £611 and the total capital cost is £166 per user. The cost is shared between the House of Commons and the House of Lords on a 70%:30% ratio.

The House of Commons has ten vending machines provided by an external contractor:

• 4 hot beverage machines

• 6 chilled snack and cold beverage machines

In the majority of the chilled snack and cold beverage machines, out of 16 drinks items approximately 80% are lower sugar items; and out of 22 snack items approximately 50% are lower sugar items. It is more difficult to quantify for the products in the hot beverage machines, because the raw coffee or tea product can be turned into multiple finished products and purchasers can add sugar. However, based on the raw product alone, the hot beverage machines have a minimum of 66% low or no sugar products.

The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society and sets out the different ways in which it is unlawful to treat someone. There are specific exceptions for providers of financial services such as insurance companies, which allow them to use a person’s age as a factor in assessing risk and charging for their products. However, insurers are not able to use a person’s race as a factor in assessing risk and charging for their products.

The pricing of risk is a commercial decision for individual insurers, and differences in premiums reflect different insurers’ experience of claims and other industry-wide statistics. While insurers are not required by the Financial Conduct Authority to be transparent about pricing decisions, it expects firms to comply with relevant legislation, including the Equality Act 2010, and can undertake its own enquiries to better understand what the firm is doing and whether any of its regulatory requirements have been breached.

The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society and sets out the different ways in which it is unlawful to treat someone. There are specific exceptions for providers of financial services such as insurance companies, which allow them to use a person’s age as a factor in assessing risk and charging for their products. However, insurers are not able to use a person’s race as a factor in assessing risk and charging for their products.

The pricing of risk is a commercial decision for individual insurers, and differences in premiums reflect different insurers’ experience of claims and other industry-wide statistics. While insurers are not required by the Financial Conduct Authority to be transparent about pricing decisions, it expects firms to comply with relevant legislation, including the Equality Act 2010, and can undertake its own enquiries to better understand what the firm is doing and whether any of its regulatory requirements have been breached.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency collects and publishes data on student enrolments at UK Higher Education Institutions. Statistics on enrolments by country of domicile, mode of study, level of study and institution can be accessed via the following link for the latest available academic years, which are 2011/12 and 2012/13.

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/content/view/1973/239/

Information on enrolments at UK Higher Education Institutions in the academic year 2013/14 will become available from Higher Education Statistics Agency in January 2015.

The Attorney General’s Office is not responsible for determining the legal status of any document. The legal status of a document would depend on a number of factors including the context it was being presented in.

The cost relating to the use of external lawyers (including lawyers in the Government Legal Department, formerly the Treasury Solicitor’s Department) by the Attorney General’s Office for the last three financial years is in the table below:

All figures are exclusive of VAT.

The Government Legal Service (GLS) is not a department but a grouping of the legal profession within Government. Government lawyers take different forms; some are employed by the Government Legal Department (GLD), others employed by regulators and organisations at arm’s length from Government. The GLS is supported by a very small secretariat of fewer than five staff and does not systematically collect information as data is held by the lawyer’s own organisations. We are therefore unable to provide this information for the GLS. There is data for the GLD, which is the single largest ‘member’ of the GLS and the largest provider of legal services to government. As of 31 December 2016 the figures for the Government Legal Department are as follows:

*This figure is obtained from the information that is voluntarily self-recorded by employees

The information requested in respect of the Crown Prosecution Service was contained in an answer given to the Rt. Hon Member by the Attorney General on the 16^th July (Official Report, Col 678W).

The table below contains details on the consultants used by the SFO since 2010-11.

* Two individuals carried out some work relating to an incident of data loss

Note 1: Records for this type of expenditure were not properly documented prior to April 2012. Available records are summarised above:

Note 2: The combined total of costs for the year 2010/11 does not match SFO’s previously published figures. The previous figure was understated by £10k because of credits for late invoices relating to 2009/10 which had been incorrectly categorised as consultancy expenditure.

A table setting out the proportion of the money spent on consultancy fees by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) paid to companies for services in financial years from 2010/11 to 2013/14 has been placed in the Library of the House, together with the corresponding expenditure. The CPS financial reporting systems are configured to provide information based on financial rather than calendar years.

In conversations about the situation in the region with my counterparts, I have reiterated the UK’s support for the UN-led political process on Yemen. On 26 September, the UK co-hosted a political event at the UN General Assembly to coordinate the international community’s support for the UN-led peace process and endorse the UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths’ plan to begin wider political discussion. We have longstanding concerns about Iranian involvement in Yemen and continue to urge Iran to be a constructive part of the solution to the conflict.

I refer the right hon. Member to my statement on 29 June at the G20 summit, which is available at the gov.uk website https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-statement-at-the-g20-summit-29-june-2019 .

President Trump and I agreed that there had been political progress and that it was essential to continue to work with partners in the region in order to deliver a peace deal.

I refer the right hon. Member to the press release issued on 9 April 2019 following my meeting with Chancellor Merkel and which is available on the gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-meeting-with-chancellor-angela-merkel-9-april-2019

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

The Department provides strong support for the UK aerospace sector through the Aerospace Growth Partnership. We believe this has been successful in protecting the industry and supporting its growth. Since 2010, the UK aerospace industry has seen turnover grow from £23.7billion to £32billion; exports have increased from £18billion to £30billion; direct jobs have grown from 110,000 to 120,000, with indirect jobs up from 148,000 to 161,000; and, between 2010 and 2016, productivity growth in the sector was over five times more than in the economy as a whole. In addition we have created a more certain environment to drive increased investment in R&D, through a £1.95billion Government commitment over 13 years to 2026, matched by industry, to fund new R&D projects.

But we are not complacent and will continue to work with industry through the AGP to retain the UK's position as a leading aerospace nation.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have made it clear that we want our companies and our universities to continue participating in key EU space programmes.

Furthermore my Department has shown strong support for the UK space industry through the €1.4bn investment I made with the European Space Agency in December 2016. I have also announced an investment of £99m in a National Satellite Testing Facility at Harwell.

The Prime Minister has a goal of increasing by 20% the number of BME students in higher education. In our new guidance to the Director of Fair Access, which we published on 11 February, we ask him to maximise the contribution of Access Agreements towards this ambition. The share of BME enrolments at UK institutions has already risen from just over 20% to 23% between 2009/10 and 2014/15. Entry rates for 18 year olds in each ethnic group increased in 2015, reaching the highest recorded values for each group. Between 2009 and 2015, the entry rate for young people in the Black ethnic group increased by over 40 percent proportionally.

Investment by the higher education sector through Access Agreements is expected to reach £746 million in 2016/17 up from £404 million in 2009/10.

The Government accepts that selective institutions already do much to widen participation. We also acknowledge the work that they already do. Nonetheless, we are convinced that more could and should be done. In our recent guidance to the Director of Fair Access, www.offa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/11-02-2016-OFFA-Guidance.pdf we asked him to secure more progress. Institutions must use evidence and good practice to lever better results and there needs to be more innovation in this area. As the Director of Fair has also said, ‘it should not be beyond institutions themselves to find ways of making more progress.’

The government announced in 2018 that it would not be taking forward Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry. The Inquiry and subsequent police investigations were comprehensive. More than 300 people gave evidence to the Inquiry, and over 40 people were convicted during the three major investigations. The media landscape has changed significantly since Part 1 of the Inquiry. Reopening the Inquiry would cost millions, and we believe it is no longer appropriate, proportionate, or in the public interest to do so. There have been extensive reforms to policing practices, as well as significant changes to press self-regulation.