Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what fiscal steps he is taking to support businesses.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer I gave to the Hon Member for Richmond (Yorks) during Treasury oral questions on 19 April 2016.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, when he plans to undertake the review of shared ownership announced in the report, Proposals to streamline the resale of shared ownership properties, Consultation: summary of responses, published in March 2015.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Government carried out an internal review of Shared Ownership policy last year. Following this, the Autumn Statement confirmed £4.1 billion for 135,000 new Help to Buy: Shared Ownership starts by 2021. It also raised the income cap on Shared Ownership in England from £60,000 to £80,000, removed restrictions on who can buy Shared Ownership homes, enabled existing shared owners to climb the Shared Ownership ladder and removed restrictions on how many bedrooms Shared Ownership buyers can purchase.
The prospectus for the Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme 2016 to 2021 was launched on 13 April 2016 and invites applications for up to £4.7 billion of funding to increase the supply of new shared ownership and affordable homes.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what support the Government is providing to enable developing countries to harness mobile phone technology.
Answered by Nick Hurd
Our partnership with mobile phone operator group, the GSMA, has used mobile technology to improve the reach, delivery and affordability of basic energy, water and sanitation services for 1.3 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, and many of our other programmes in health, education and other sectors use mobile technology.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether the data collected by the Government for use in the LMI for All programme includes the (a) school attended, (b) A-levels studied, (c) subject taken at university, (d) name of the university, (e) apprenticeship taken, where appropriate, (f) employment subject area, (g) salary earned and (h) name of employer for the individuals recorded; and what his policy is on continuing the provision of LMI for All.
Answered by Nick Boles
LMI for All does not contain information about individual people. It is an online open source data service which brings together public labour market information from organisations such as the Office for National Statistics and the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
It has been agreed that LMI for All will transfer to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills later this year.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of the collection and use of LMI for All data.
Answered by Nick Boles
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has consulted the Devolved Administrations and other users of labour market information on future research priorities. This identified the importance of LMI for All data, and it has been agreed that LMI for All will transfer to BIS later this year.
The UK Commission for Employment and Skills tracks the use of the LMI for All service by such websites and applications. Current users of LMI for All include careers websites such as icould, SACU, RCU and Plotr. In addition, Active Informatics, and National Careers Service contractor Adviza are using LMI for All in their subscription based services offered to schools, colleges and universities. A number of government departments and agencies, including the Department for Work and Pensions, National Careers Service and Skills Development Scotland are also developing resources and tools that draw upon LMI for All. A report containing detailed case studies focusing on specific applications is currently under preparation and will be published this year.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what restrictions there are on who is allowed to access LMI for All data; and what assessment his Department or the UK Commission for Employment and Skills has made of how that data is being used by third parties.
Answered by Nick Boles
There are no restrictions to accessing LMI for All.The data in LMI for All is made available via an Application Programming Interface (API) for use in websites and applications. Neither the Department nor the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) evaluates or assesses the impact of third party applications and websites although UKCES tracks the use of the LMI for All service by such websites and applications. A report containing detailed case studies focusing on specific applications is currently under preparation and will be published this year.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will take steps to ensure that the Deaflympics are recognised as equal to the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
Government recognises the importance of deaf sport to those who take part at both grassroots and elite level. Sport England is investing £365,872 in UK Deaf Sport between 2014 and 2017 in recognition of this.Questions of official recognition at an international level are a matter for the International Olympic Committee.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans his Department has to reform the allocation of funding to increase participation in sport.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
The funding model used to date has not delivered the sustained increase in participation we want to see across the country. The new sport and physical activity strategy will ensure that funding is clearly targeted at those organisations that can best deliver results.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the potential savings to the public purse offered by biosimilars.
Answered by George Freeman
A biosimilar sub group of the Pharmaceutical Market Support Group is working to help the National Health Service achieve benefits from the new biosimilar molecules and to encourage uptake. This work is supported by other activity including the Hospital Pharmacy and Medicines Optimisation Project work stream of the Lord Carter NHS Productivity & Efficiency Programme and initiatives from NHS England, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and manufacturers. Work has focused on identifying efficiency opportunities for specific molecules and as a result a collective assessment of potential savings to the public purse has not been compiled.
In an era of significant economic, demographic and technological challenge it is crucial that patients get the best quality outcomes from medicines. Recent research has given clear evidence that competition between different biological medicines, including biosimilar medicines, creates increased choice for patients and clinicians, and enhanced value propositions for individual medicines. As the range of biosimilar medicines increases, it is important that the NHS plans for their timely, appropriate and cost effective introduction. NHS England in its role as system leader is undertaking a programme of work to support decision makers, such as commissioners, clinicians, pharmacists, patients and others in their consideration of the optimal use of biosimilar medicines.
Asked by: Lucy Frazer (Conservative - South East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps the Government is taking to improve science education.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Science is vital to our economy and science skills are in high demand. Our reforms to the curriculum and qualifications are designed to ensure young people acquire the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in a modern economy and to progress.
Bursaries and scholarships of up to £30,000 are designed to attract the best science graduates into teaching. We have also announced £67m to train up to 17,500 new and existing maths and physics teachers by 2020.
We also fund a range of programmes to provide high quality professional development for science teachers.