Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
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 the oral evidence given by Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Water and Rural Growth) to the Environmental Audit Committee on 15 May 2024, which designated bathing water location was tested three times more than was statutorily necessary.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
There are currently 451 designated bathing waters in England and the Environment Agency takes over 7,000 bathing water samples each year. The Bathing Water Regulations 2013 require designated bathing waters to be sampled at least 5 times per bathing season. This year, all bathing waters in England will be sampled more than this statutory minimum. The table below summarises the number of sites at each planned sampling frequency for the 2024 bathing season.
Number of planned samples per season | Number of sites |
20 | 236 |
15 | 109 |
10 | 106 |
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, how many times the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy for Sri Lanka has visited Sri Lanka in the last 12 months.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
It has not proved possible to respond to the Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Deputy Foreign Secretary, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Sri Lankan reconciliation process.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Sri Lanka is a human rights priority country, and the UK regularly engages with the Government of Sri Lanka on areas of concern, including progress on reconciliation. We recognise the significant doubts expressed by affected communities regarding the credibility of reconciliation mechanisms. The UK has stressed the importance of an inclusive participatory process to build trust. Any mechanism must be independent, meaningful, and transparent, meet the expectations of affected communities, build upon previous transitional justice processes, and provide pathways for accountability. The UK continues to fund work on the removal of landmines and the resettlement of internally displaced communities to support reconciliation efforts.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much Value Added Tax has the charge for single-use carrier bags raised since its introduction.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The single-use carrier bag charged has generated over £72 million in Value Added Tax since its introduction in October 2015 to April 2023. Data from April 2023 to April 2024 is currently being requested from retailers and is not available yet.
Full data on the single-use carrier bag charge, including VAT figures, can be found online at Single-use plastic carrier bags charge data for England - data.gov.uk.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the planned timeframe is for the completion of the Environment Agency (a) works and (b) removal of scaffolding located by the bridge on the Silkstream on Colindale Avenue in Colindale.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Environment Agency is aware of the scaffolding next to the bridge over the Silk Stream on Colindale Avenue. This scaffolding is not associated with any Environment Agency work. The Environment Agency has been in contact with the third party who arranged for the scaffolding to be erected and has asked them to remove it. As the scaffolding and sandbags appear to still be in place, this will be followed up to expedite the removal.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what (a) meetings and (b) other discussions he has had with the Mayor of London on knife crime in the last 12 months.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
The Home Secretary and Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire regularly meet with the Mayor of London and Police and Crime Commissioners to discuss crime and policing matters.
Since 2019, the Home Office has provided over £43m of funding for a Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in London which is providing a multi-agency, preventative response designed to tackle the drivers of serious violence and knife crime in London. In addition, c.£8.1m has been awarded in 2024/25 to deliver the ‘Hotspot Response’ programme and enable additional, high visibility patrols and problem-solving tactics in the areas worst affected by serious violence and ASB.
Additionally, just under £1.3m has been awarded in 2023/24 to support delivery of the Serious Violence Duty in London.
Following a surrender scheme, the manufacture, supply, sale and possession of zombie-style knives and machetes that are designed to look intimidating but have no practical purpose will be outlawed from 24 September 2024.
Additionally, through the Criminal Justice Bill, we are providing more powers for police to seize knives held in private that they believe will be used for unlawful violence, increasing the maximum penalty for the offences of selling prohibited weapons and selling knives to under 18s and creating a new offence of possessing an article with blade or point or an offensive weapon with intent to commit unlawful violence.
We are also providing £3.5 million into the research, development, and evaluation of new technologies to reduce knife crime, including knife detection technologies. The Metropolitan Police has been given £547,863 for further live facial recognition mobile units to be deployed across their 75 London hotspots.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will take steps to cease the transfer of (a) weapons and (b) ammunition to countries that support Hamas (i) diplomatically and (ii) financially.
Answered by Alan Mak - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade) (jointly with the Cabinet Office)
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an estimate of the average earnings received by junior doctors in addition to basic pay in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The following table shows the estimated annual basic pay, total earnings, and non-basic pay per person for doctors at Junior Doctor level, each year from 2018/19 to 2022/23, the latest year for which data is available:
| 2018/19 | 2019/20 | 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 |
Mean annual earnings per person | £52,062 | £52,616 | £54,569 | £55,422 | £56,661 |
Mean annual basic pay per person | £37,237 | £38,128 | £39,255 | £40,669 | £41,876 |
Mean annual non-basic pay per person | £14,825 | £14,489 | £15,314 | £14,753 | £14,785 |
Source: estimates are based on published figures from the NHS Staff Earnings Estimates and reweighted using headcount data from the NHS Workforce Statistics, both of which are available respectively at the following links:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of the proposal from Planetary Technologies and South West Water to perform a carbon sequestration trial by adding magnesium hydroxide into treated wastewater outlet pipes.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies are technologies that seek to remove carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Technologies such as Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) are currently being considered under this category. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change now considers GGR technologies to be essential in limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. The Government has an ambition to reach 5MtCO2/year of removals by 2030, potentially rising to 23MtCO2/year by 2035.
Reaching Net Zero and achieving good environmental status in the seas is a priority for Defra. Trials which advance GGR technologies, such as the proposed trial by Planetary Technologies and South West Water, could bring us closer to being able to deploy these technologies at a large scale. Reaching Net Zero will have benefits for ocean health and ecosystems. GGR technologies such as OAE may also benefit ocean health in other ways, for example, they may temporarily help combat local ocean acidification and the related negative impacts on species and ecosystems, such as calcium carbonate dissolution of calcifying species.
Planetary Technologies have informed the Environment Agency that they wish to delay their formal application for their proposed trial for a period of approximately 6 to 12 months. A new application will be considered as and when it is received.
Asked by: Matthew Offord (Conservative - Hendon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of trends in the number of looked-after children in the London Borough of Barnet.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The latest information on the number of looked after children at 31 March 2023 for the last five years by local authority, region and for England can be found in table LAA1 in the statistical release ‘Children Looked After in England: Including Adoption: 2022 to 2023’ at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2022-to-2023.
Additional information on the numbers of looked after children can be found in the local authority interactive tool on GOV.UK. This shows rates of children looked after in Barnet are consistently below those of comparator areas and have remained broadly static in rate per 10,000.