Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Prime Minister, which Government Ministers visited (a) Kenya and (b) Uganda in 2016; and how many times each such Minister visited those countries.
Answered by Baroness May of Maidenhead
Details of Ministerial overseas travel is published quarterly and is available on the gov.uk website.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate he has made of the number of jobs in the green economy.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) carry out an annual survey to report on economic activity in the low carbon and renewable energy sector in the UK.
The latest release provides first estimates for 2015 and shows that an estimated 233,000 full-time equivalent employees were working directly in low carbon and renewable energy activities.
The ONS has not yet published estimates for 2015 of the additional employees supported in the supply chain to the sector. However, estimates for 2014 indicate that this activity could amount to around a further 200,000 full-time equivalent employees. Further information on the ONS releases can be found at the links below.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/bulletins/finalestimates/2015
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to her Department's press release, Lamb exports to America closer, published on 27 July 2016, what information she holds on when the first Welsh lamb exports to the US are expected to take place.
Answered by George Eustice
The US authorities are conducting the necessary steps to formally lift their restrictions on exports of EU lamb to the US. Defra is working with the US authorities to ensure exports of lamb from the UK can commence as quickly as possible once the restrictions have been lifted.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how much has been spent promoting British tourism in (a) Europe, (b) Asia, (c) North America and (d) total in (i) 2016, (ii) 2015 and (iii) 2014.
Answered by Tracey Crouch
The below table from Visit Britain, which contains spending figures on Tourism for the aforementioned periods. The increase in funding during Financial Year 15/16 can be attributed to the inclusion of the North and South West Growth Funds.
| Europe | Asia | North America | Total Overseas Investment |
2014/15 Actuals | 7,912,466 | 8,769,694 | 7,714,661 | 25,641,070 |
2015/16 Actuals | 10,016,595 | 9,555,699 | 9,154,013 | 29,574,545 |
2016/17 Forecast | 6,053,255 | 7,923,478 | 6,659,807 | 20,961,784 |
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to ensure that her Department's education spending delivers the best learning outcomes.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
A focus on improving access to school and learning outcomes drives DFID’s approach to investment in education in priority countries.
DFID has pledged to support 11 million children with an education between 2015 and 2020. Not just to get children into school, but to ensure they are learning. All of DFID’s education programmes prioritise learning and we are seeing results; for example the Girls Education Challenge has increased the learning outcomes in literacy and mathematics for 700,000 girls across 18 countries. Motivated, trained, effective teachers are essential for children to learn. In Tanzania we are rolling out in-service teacher training with a focus on literacy, numeracy and better pedagogy for over 45,000 teachers in 7 disadvantaged regions.
In Bangladesh, DFID support the ‘English in Action’ programme in which school teachers receive specially designed training modules and lesson plans directly to their low cost mobile phones. It has been shown to improve their teaching and is being modified for use in Nigeria. DFID is also working internationally to embed a global focus on the quality of education.
DFID championed the inclusion of learning indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals and increased support for international monitoring to track progress. We have commissioned rigorous impact evaluations to understand what works to improve learning and ensure good value for money is achieved.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many inspections Trading Standards has undertaken of animals during transit for slaughter abroad in each of the last three years.
Answered by George Eustice
Defra does not hold data on local authority Trading Standards inspections of animals during transit for slaughter abroad. APHA carry out supervised loadings on export consignments of live animals for slaughter.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how many prosecutions there have been for breaches of the animal welfare regulations governing live animal exports in each of the last three years.
Answered by George Eustice
Information is available on the number of convictions rather than on the number of prosecutions. In the last three years there have been the following number of convictions for breaches of the regulations protecting animal welfare during transport in England and Wales. Separate figures are not kept for convictions relating to live animal exports.
2015 - 8
2014 - 15
2013 – 14
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much Government overseas development assistance expenditure is spent directly or indirectly on low-fee, for profit private schools in (a) Nigeria, (b) Pakistan, (c) Kenya and (d) Uganda.
Answered by Rory Stewart
Our absolute priority is to ensure children in the world’s poorest countries get the education they deserve, regardless of whether the school is public or private. When state provision is not delivering for the poorest, we work with low-cost privately run schools to provide an education to children who would otherwise get none. DFID has made direct investments in low-fee schools in Nigeria, Kenya and Pakistan. In Nigeria, we have spent £7.6m since 2013, 4,000 students are enrolled in 17 new schools in deprived areas of Lagos, with ongoing work to improve the quality standards of education provided to 1.8 million primary students in private schools. In Kenya we have spent £2.4m since 2014. We paid for 20,000 children to go to private schools in deprived urban areas where there is very limited state provision.
In Pakistan we have spent £28m since 2012, contributed to enrolling 1.7 million children in Punjab and 16,000 children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. In addition, the UK’s development finance institution, CDC, invested $7.1m in 2014 on low fee private schools, which includes support in Uganda.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to respond to the recent recommendations by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on privatisation and the right to education.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The United Kingdom notes the recent recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Our priority is to ensure children get the education they deserve and in the vast majority of cases this means investing in the state sector. However, where state provision is weak or non-existent we work with paid-for schools to provide an education to children who would otherwise get none.
It is important for national governments to define the appropriate balance between private and public provision in their country, in compliance with their international human rights obligations. We do not accept that DFID’s funding of private provision of education violates children’s right to an education. On the contrary, in many cases it secures it.
Asked by: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, when her Department plans to publish a new global education strategy setting out how the UK will help to meet Sustainable Development Goal 4.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The UK Aid Strategy sets out how the Government will tackle the great global challenges of our age in order to eliminate poverty. DFID is helping to ensure that every girl and boy can access, and complete, a good quality basic education.