Mark Prisk

The Government has an ambition to sell surplus land and property to generate £5 billion from sales receipts and create capacity for at least 160,000 homes by the end of March 2020.

In March we published a Government Review: Making Commercial Terms of Government Land Disposals More Transparent. The report committed to publish details of Government land sales annually, with the first publication in summer 2017. The report will include all sales in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Progress towards meeting the housing ambition is set out in Table 3 of the Public Land for Housing Programme Annual Report published in February 2017.

Increasing the supply of land for new homes is central to this Government’s vision of a country that works for everyone. As a major landowner the Government has a crucial role to play in managing its estate more efficiently to secure best value for money for the taxpayer, boost growth and help support the building of new homes.

The table below sets out the percentage of licensable places that hold a TV licence. This is based on TV Licensing's evasion model which compares total licences in force to total licensable places but does not split between domestic households and other places such as businesses and student halls. Therefore it cannot be stated specifically what proportion of households had a licence.

Such figures are not readily available. However based on estimates 82% of households have some form of internet access. This is based on Ofcom's 2014 Infrastructure report 2014 which quotes 18% of households (estimated) have no home access to the internet, fixed or mobile and 27% of UK households do not take a fixed broadband connection of any kind. Some of these will be using mobile data services, such as 3G and 4G connections on their smartphones or tablets.

5.94% of licensable premises do not have a TV licence - this is based on TV Licensing's figure of 94.06% total licences in force to total licensable places. However, this does not split between domestic households and other places such as businesses and student halls. Therefore it cannot be stated what proportion of households have a licence, and nor is the data available on which of these homes have internet access.

The Department completed its sale of planned surplus properties in 2015-2016 and therefore there has been no sale of surplus property assets from the core departmental estate in 2016-17.

The Department keeps its estate under review to ensure that it delivers value for money.

No staff in my Department are employed full time on TB testing. Animal and Plant Health Agency vets and animal health officers involved in TB testing also carry out other duties.

The direct costs of TB tests for routine surveillance and control are met by government although no staff in my department are employed full time on TB testing. In England government staff costs associated with TB testing totalled £2,454,234 in 2016-17. In the same year the cost to government of TB testing carried out under contract by delivery partners totalled £17,489,217. Cattle keepers pay for pre- and post-movement TB tests, however they can use a government-funded surveillance test instead if it takes place within the required time period.

The details of the government land and property released over the previous financial year will be published as part of the Transparency Review in summer 2017.

The requirement for tick treatment was dropped as part of the harmonisation of the EU pet travel rules for movement and import of non-commercial dogs following a qualitative risk assessment and economic impact assessment for the introduction of Mediterranean Spotted fever (MSF) and the Brown Dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus.

The evidence which informed these pieces of work has not changed and therefore there is still no strong scientific basis for reintroducing the requirement for tick treatment to control MSF, a zoonotic disease.

Treatments for ticks are readily available and veterinary practices are able to advise on the most appropriate treatments.

The Department for Exiting the European Union does not own any land and has not sold any land since March 2016.

DFID does not own any land beyond its headquarters buildings in London and East Kilbride.

We will celebrate UK Export Finance’s centenary throughout the year, notably at the UK Trade & Export Finance Forum in June. I am delighted that in its centenary year UK Export Finance was awarded ‘Best Export Credit Agency’ at the 2019 International Trade Finance Awards. As the world’s first export credit agency, UK Export Finance will continue to innovate as it has done for the past 100 years.

The Export Strategy sets out how the Government will encourage, inform, connect and finance UK businesses to enable them to take advantage of the international demand for British goods and services. Last month we launched an enhanced digital service on great.gov.uk, connecting businesses to over 20,000 export opportunities.

The Spending Review and Autumn Statement 2015 were conducted before the establishment of the Department for International Trade (DIT) and at this time UK Trade and Investment was part of the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). When DIT was set up there was no transfer of land assets from BIS or FCO and hence DIT do not own any land or property assets that could be sold.

The Government’s consultation response on bus open data explains that the Government will bring forward a statutory instrument later this year which will require bus operators in England to publish various forms of data.

The key requirements are for data on routes and timetables to be published from January 2020; real time information and simple fares by January 2021; and complex fares by January 2023. The difference between simple and complex fares is explained in section 4 of the consultation response.

To support this, the response also explains that the Government is developing a Bus Open Data Digital Service, which will allow app developers to access all of the information in a machine-readable format. We are currently developing the digital service and expect it to be available for use by all bus operators towards the end of the summer.

The consultation on the draft Airports National Policy Statement closed on 25 May, and we are analysing the tens of thousands of responses received. The Government will set out the next steps in the process in due course.

The Government has an ambition to sell surplus land and property to generate £5 billion from sales receipts and create capacity for at least 160,000 homes by the end of March 2020.

In March we published a Government Review: Making Commercial Terms of Government Land Disposals More Transparent. The report committed to publish details of Government land sales annually, with the first publication in summer 2017. The report will include all sales in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

Progress towards meeting the housing ambition is set out in Table 3 of the Public Land for Housing Programme Annual Report published in February 2017. which shows that between 8 May 2015 and 30 September 2016, the Department for Transport released land with capacity for 1,673 homes.

Increasing the supply of land for new homes is central to this Government’s vision of a country that works for everyone. As a major landowner the Government has a crucial role to play in managing its estate more efficiently to secure best value for money for the taxpayer, boost growth and help support the building of new homes.

The Greater Anglia franchise already provides a Delay Repay scheme across the whole franchise including the West Anglia route.

Rail passengers will soon be able to claim compensation if their train is more than 15 minutes late under an improved compensation scheme we announced on 13 October 2016. However, we cannot set out the dates on each franchise as this is subject to commercial negotiation. To set out dates could place the Department in a weaker position in its commercial negotiations and we have a duty to ensure that we secure the best possible deal for taxpayers.

We are committed to improving compensation arrangements for passengers. The Chancellor announced in his Autumn 2015 Spending Review that passengers will soon have access to compensation when trains are over 15 minutes late. We expect to make an announcement on this in the coming months.

The Department for Work and Pensions does not own any land and has not owned any land since 2003.

I would refer my Hon Friend to PQ55481, my previous answer to this question given on 2 December 2016.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 18 March 2015 to Question UIN 227440.

Increasing the supply of land for new homes is central to this Government’s vision of a country that works for everyone. As a major landowner the Government has a crucial role to play in managing its estate more efficiently to secure best value for money for the taxpayer, boost growth and help support the building of new homes.

The Government has an ambition to sell land with capacity for at least 160,000 homes by the end of March 2020. Progress towards meeting this ambition is set out in Table 3 of the Public Land for Housing Programme Annual Report published in February 2017, which shows that between 8 May 2015 and 30 September 2016, the Department released land with capacity for 3,516 homes.

Public Land for Housing Annual Report 2017 (published February 2017):

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-land-for-housing-programme-2015-to-2020-annual-report

Housing capacity of sites sold by the five largest landowning departments:

The Department’s target of £1.95 billion (referred to in paragraph 1.297 of the Spending Review publication referenced in the question) relates to the Spending Review period from 2016-17 to 2020-21. Information on the value of disposals for the 2016-17 financial year is not yet available.

NHS England is currently in the process of tendering for a veterans mental health service to begin in April 2017. The service will offer consistent support across England for both veterans and serving personnel on a pathway to leave the service and build on the veterans mental health services already in place following the Fighting Fit report by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Andrew Murrison).

The Department does not assess services provided by the voluntary sector.

Following a national engagement exercise during 2016 on mental health services for veterans, NHS England commissioned a pathfinder transition, intervention and liaison mental health service for armed forces serving personnel approaching discharge and after discharge.

The service has been launched and is a joint initiative between the National Health Service and the Ministry of Defence and will run until the end of March 2017. The evidence from this service will help to shape the service specification from April 2017.

Local authorities carried out 255,750 carer assessments in 2015/16, following the Care Act coming into force in April 2015. This figure represents around two-thirds of the total number of carers identified by local authorities in England (386,910) in that year.

The diversity of caring roles – and the impact that caring might have on the carer - means that not every carer will want or need an assessment; and not every carer will want or need formal support through local adult care services.

The forthcoming national Carers Strategy will therefore take a wide view of carers and their caring roles. Crucial to this will be increasing public awareness of caring, in order to improve timely identification, ensure carers are aware of the range of support available to them, and can take advantage of that which best meets their needs.