Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the reduction in journey time from Rochester to London that will result from the new station in Rochester and the improvements to signalling on that route being undertaken by Network Rail.
Answered by Claire Perry
This Government is committed to an unprecedented programme of planned rail improvements, including the entire £26m rebuild of Rochester station this year. The signalling work on that route will improve network capacity in the Rochester area and promote more robust performance and infrastructure reliability for rail services. The new station, which will provide 12-carriage platforms at Rochester for the first time, will improve access and integration with Rochester city centre, with step-free access to all platforms and new facilities for passengers, including additional car parking spaces. Network Rail has advised that there may be a slight decrease in journey time although the final December 2015 timetable has not been settled.
Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the reason was for the time taken for the Quality Care Commission to publish the report of its August inspection of Medway Hospital's accident and emergency unit.
Answered by Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers in England. The CQC is responsible for assessing whether providers are meeting the registration requirements; this includes the decision of when to publish its inspection reports on individual hospitals.
The CQC has advised that a timeline of 11-12 weeks from conclusion of the physical inspection to publication of the final report is within expectation.
The CQC commenced its inspection of Medway Hospital Foundation Trust at the end of August 2014. As part of the CQC’s inspection process, once the actual physical inspection has taken place, additional time is taken to analyse the data from the inspection in order to formulate an accurate report on the state of the trust inspected. Once this has been done, recommendations can be made regarding any required improvements.
In the case of the Medway Hospital Foundation Trust, the CQC followed up on previous improvements made since an inspection in July 2014 and continued to have regular meetings with the Trust, Monitor and NHS England to ensure necessary action was taken in order to implement recommended improvements. Once this work was completed, the report was finalised and published.
Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many teacher training bursaries for (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15 have been allocated to high-priority subjects of physics and mathematics at each of the four bursary tiers.
Answered by David Laws
Provisional figures on the number of trainees and proportion with a first or second class honours degree by subject are published in the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Census in November each year. Finalised figures are published the following year. Provisional figures for 2013-14 are available at:
Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many of the graduates receiving bursaries to teach mathematics in (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15 at each of the four tiers had (i) a mathematics degree, (ii) a relevant degree as defined by the School Workforce Survey and (iii) any other degree.
Answered by David Laws
Information in relation to 2013-14 is not held in the form requested and could be compiled only at disproportionate cost.
Data on 2014-15 participants has not yet been collected.
Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many places for initial teacher training starting in 2014 have been allocated to (a) Schools Direct and (b) higher education providers.
Answered by David Laws
We initially allocated 15,254 places to School Direct and 23,095 places to higher education institutions for the 2014/15 academic year.
Further details of the initial allocations have been published on the gov.uk website:
We will publish final allocation information reflecting any changes later this year.
Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many of the graduates receiving bursaries to teach physics in (a) 2013-14 and (b) 2014-15 at each of the four tiers had (i) a physics degree, (ii) a relevant degree in respect of physics as defined by the School Workforce Survey and (iii) any other degree.
Answered by David Laws
Information in relation to 2013-14 is not held in the form requested and could be compiled only at disproportionate cost.
Data on 2014-15 participants has not yet been collected.
Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many School Direct initial teacher training offers in (a) 2013-14 and 2014-15 in each subject area were made conditional on completion of a subject knowledge enhancement programme.
Answered by David Laws
Since January 2014, we have allocated subject knowledge enhancement (SKE) places to 110 schools, supporting 151 applicants to commence their initial teacher training. One applicant relates to entry into initial teacher training (ITT) in 2013/14 and 150 relate to entry in 2014/15. We did not collect data on SKE courses requested by School Direct schools before January 2014. Because SKE can be delivered in parallel with ITT, the trainee does not necessarily have to complete SKE prior to starting ITT.
A full breakdown of SKE course data by subject will be available from October 2014.
Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate by country of residence of the child he has made of the number of migrants residing in the UK who claimed benefits on behalf of children living abroad during 2013.
Answered by Baroness Morgan of Cotes
HMRC are not able to provide the information in the manner requested. HMRC do not record the nationality of the claimant receiving Child Benefit for children living in another member state.
Published Child Benefit statistics provide annual estimates of the number of families and children claiming. The latest available (August 2012) show that there were 7.92 million families, responsible for 13.77 million children and qualifying young people receiving Child Benefit.
The main purpose of Child Benefit is to support families in the UK. Consequently, the rules generally do not provide for them to be paid in respect of children who live abroad.
Nevertheless, Child Benefit is a family benefit under EC Regulation 883/2004. This regulation protects the social security rights of nationals of all member states of the European economic area, including the UK, and Switzerland when they exercise their rights of free movement under EU law.
HMRC holds information on the number of Child Benefit awards under EC Regulation 883/2004. As at 31 December 2013, there were 20,400 ongoing Child Benefit awards under the EC Regulation in respect of 34.268 children living in another member state.
This is a fall of 3,682 (15.3%) awards in respect of 5,903 (14.7%) fewer children since 31 December 2012.
The breakdown by member state is as follows:
*We have withheld the number where it is fewer than 5, as there is risk that the information could be attributed to an identifiable person, which would prejudice their right to privacy and would therefore be a breach of Principle 1 of the Data Protection Act.
Child Benefit
Country of residence of children | Number of awards | Number of children |
Austria | 23 | 37 |
Belgium | 75 | 140 |
Bulgaria | 186 | 245 |
Croatia | *5 | *5 |
Cyprus | 39 | 61 |
Czech Republic | 124 | 203 |
Denmark | 13 | 23 |
Estonia | 45 | 65 |
Finland | 12 | 23 |
France | 789 | 1429 |
Germany | 283 | 495 |
Greece | 44 | 69 |
Hungary | 136 | 196 |
Iceland | *5 | *5 |
Italy | 156 | 273 |
Latvia | 797 | 1091 |
Liechtenstein | 0 | 0 |
Lithuania | 1215 | 1712 |
Luxembourg | 7 | 14 |
Malta | 15 | 22 |
Norway | 30 | 61 |
Poland | 13174 | 22093 |
Portugal | 202 | 309 |
Republic of Ireland | 1231 | 2505 |
Romania | 230 | 392 |
Slovakia | 692 | 1232 |
Slovenia | 11 | 21 |
Spain | 600 | 1019 |
Sweden | 49 | 95 |
Switzerland | 77 | 150 |
The Netherlands | 142 | 288 |
Totals | 20400 | 34268 |
As announced in the 2014 Budget, to prevent EEA migrants claiming benefits they are not entitled to, the Government will increase compliance checks to establish whether EEA migrants meet the entitlement conditions to receive Child Benefit
Under domestic law, in order to claim Child Benefit EEA Migrants must be present in the UK, ordinarily resident and have a right to reside in the UK and their children must live in the UK.
The recent changes to migrants' access to benefits announced by the Government sends a strong message that the UK benefit system is not open to abuse, as well as deterring those who may seek residence in the UK primarily to claim benefits.
Strengthening compliance checks will help prevent EEA migrants from claiming, and continuing to claim, benefits they are not entitled to. Checks will be applied to both new claims and existing awards.
Asked by: Mark Reckless (UK Independence Party - Rochester and Strood)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what his policy is on the implementation of the so-called Eve's Law.
Answered by Damian Green
The Government takes the issue of domestic violence very seriously and is committed to ensuring greater protection for victims of all forms of violence.
The issue raised by the Eve's Law campaign is complex and cuts across a number of justice jurisdictions, and into many areas of a victim's interaction with the state and other agencies.
Having considered the issues raised by the campaign this Department is not persuaded that primary legislation is the necessary and appropriate way forward. However, we are committed to taking action to improve the protection of personal information of victims and will identify opportunities in the cross-Government programmes that are tackling the priority issues of domestic and sexual abuse.
I refer the Honourable Member to my response to questions raised in the House by Dan Jarvis MP, Honourable Member for Barnsley Central, regarding the Eve's Law campaign, on 17 December 2013, and 14 January this year (Hansard 14 Jan 2014 : Column 480W, 17 Dec 2013 : Column 607).