Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many full-time equivalent roles there are in her Department relating to equality, diversity and inclusion; and how many of those roles are unfilled but budgeted for.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Home Office)
In 2023, the previous government commissioned an audit of spending in this area, which provided a figure of 16.6 FTE Home Office staff working in central Human Resources roles relating to implementation of statutory functions arising from the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED).
On 22 May 2024, as part of the response to that audit, the previous government required all departments to consolidate any standalone PSED-related roles from individual work areas into their wider Human Resources functions, which increased the number of central PSED roles to 21.35 FTE.
Those numbers have not increased since the current Government came to office, and there are no plans to increase them.
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many officials in his Department are working on issues related to the Chagos Islands.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
There are a number of officials from across the Ministry of Defence who contribute to the work in this area in partnership with the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. This includes policy, legal, financial and military teams.
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will list all civil service roles that have been (a) internally and (b) externally-advertised between 4 July 2024 and 11 February 2025.
Answered by Abena Oppong-Asare - Parliamentary Secretary (Cabinet Office)
Between 4 July 2024 and 11 February 2025, approximately 8,000 vacancies were advertised through the Civil Service Jobs website. To note, an advertised vacancy may contain a number of posts, hence the variance between the number of vacancies and the number of roles in the table below. Listing all of these roles individually could only be done at disproportionate cost.
However, aggregate data is provided. Any recruitment conducted outside the Civil Service Jobs portal will not be included in these figures.
Approach | Number of vacancies | % of total | Number of roles | % of total |
External | 3749 | 47.47% | 15002 | 68.76% |
Internal/across government | 4149 | 52.53% | 6815 | 31.24% |
Total | 7898 |
| 21,817 |
|
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps she is taking to increase the transparency of charges levied on residents of new estates where freehold estate management fees apply.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
I refer the Rt hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement made on 21 November 2024 (HCWS244).
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to help protect (a) the Cambridgeshire Fens and (b) the UK from Chinese mitten crabs.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Government takes invasive species seriously and has legislated to prevent the further introduction and spread of Chinese mitten crab. As a ‘Species of Special Concern’ it is subject to the Invasive Alien Species (Enforcement and Permitting) Order 2019, which means that it cannot be brought into Great Britain, kept, bred, transported, sold, used or exchanged, allowed to reproduce, grown or cultivated, or released into the environment. Defra funds the Fish Heath Inspectorate to carry out work to prevent the illegal sale and spread of this species.
Defra and the Environment Agency will continue to look for ways to manage this species but are currently not aware of any cost-effective or proven control methods, and there is limited scientific evidence on potential management approaches and its impacts.
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many appeals against administrative removal decisions have sought to rely on rights under the ECHR in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The requested information is not held in a reportable format. To provide this information would require a manual review of case records and to do so for the purpose of answering this question would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) appeals and (b) challenges against deportation orders have have sought to rely on rights under the ECHR in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
The requested information is not held in a reportable format. To provide this information would require a manual review of case records and to do so for the purpose of answering this question would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the oral contribution of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care during the debate on New Hospitals of 25 May 2023, Official Report, column 477, whether a further assessment (a) of the end date of safe operation of the seven most RAAC-affected hospitals been conducted and (b) will be required before construction of new hospitals can begin.
Answered by Karin Smyth - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Following the General Election in July 2024, the Government inherited a programme to deliver new hospitals that was unfunded beyond March 2025 and was repeatedly delayed. We now have a plan to deliver the New Hospital Programme which is realistic and affordable.
My Rt. Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, commissioned a comprehensive report into the seven reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) schemes being delivered through the New Hospital Programme, as the last report was undertaken in autumn 2022 and covered the five hospitals not at the time within the New Hospital Programme.
Part of the objectives of this report is to form an assessment of RAAC condition and other structural elements, backlog maintenance risks, as well as planned and current mitigations, and the remaining expected life of affected sites. The site-by-site report on RAAC hospitals will help inform individual development plans, which continue to progress at pace. We will expedite the delivery of schemes to replace hospitals built wholly or primarily from RAAC by focussing on the most affected buildings and services first.
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
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 his Department's press release entitled Government to crack down on waste incinerators with stricter standards for new builds, published on 30 December 2024, whether he plans to review environmental permits granted to schemes where construction has not started including the MVV Wisbech incinerator.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The statement and analysis issued by my department sets out that any new waste incineration facilities should demonstrate a clearly defined domestic residual waste treatment capacity need, to facilitate the diversion of residual waste away from landfill or enable the replacement of older, less-efficient facilities. These matters are considered through the planning, rather than permitting process. It is worth noting that the analysis published identified that of the seven local authorities that sent more than 40% of collected residual waste to landfill in 2022-23 (the most recent data available), four are located in the East of England and East Midlands.
My department also set out that new facilities will have to maximise efficiency and support the delivery of economic growth, net zero and the move to a circular economy. To maintain confidence in the UK’s regulatory system, as well as support investment in UK infrastructure to support economic growth, it is important that modifications are not retrospectively imposed to environmental permits that have been granted in line with the established regulatory framework. However, those developing energy recovery facilities (at all stages in the process) are encouraged to consider forecast changes to future capacity, demand, and the Government's circular economy opportunities in light of the evidence we have published.
Asked by: Steve Barclay (Conservative - North East Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will publish all relevant reports submitted to the Environment Agency in 2024 by the operator of the Peterborough Stanground Thistle Drive Pumping Station in compliance with their obligations under the The Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) Regulations 2016.
Answered by Emma Hardy - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Relevant reports will be published in due course.
The permit (AWCNF428/10348) requires various information and data to be submitted to the Environment Agency as follows: