Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions (a) Ministers, (b) special advisers and (c) senior officials of her Department have had with representatives from the National Baccalaureate Trust since May 2015.
Answered by Nick Gibb
I am not aware of any discussions that have taken place with representatives from the National Baccalaureate Trust.
The Department recently consulted on the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) asking for views on how schools will manage the challenges associated with implementing the commitment that the EBacc becomes the default position for all mainstream secondary pupils. The consultation closed on 29 January and we received 2,755 responses.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what official foreign visits she has undertaken since 1 October 2015; and what the cost to the public purse was of those visits.
Answered by Nick Gibb
Details of the Secretary of State’s international travel, including cost to the public purse, is published on a quarterly basis. International travel that has taken place since October 2015 will be published in due course.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much and what proportion of National Infrastructure Pipeline spending has been allocated to projects in (a) Stoke-on-Trent local authority, (b) Cheshire East local authority, (c) the West Midlands region, (d) the South East region and (e) London.
Answered by Greg Hands
The information requested can be obtained from “National Infrastructure Pipeline”, published in July 2015 and is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-infrastructure-pipeline-july-2015
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much infrastructure investment was allocated to projects in (a) Stoke-on-Trent local authority, (b) Cheshire East local authority, (c) the West Midlands region, (d) the South East region and (e) London.
Answered by Greg Hands
The information requested can be obtained from “National Infrastructure Pipeline”, published in July 2015 and is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-infrastructure-pipeline-july-2015
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what proportion of national infrastructure investment has been allocated to projects in (a) Stoke-on-Trent local authority, (b) Cheshire East local authority, (c) the West Midlands region, (d) the South East region and (e) London in each year since 2010.
Answered by Greg Hands
The information requested can be obtained from “National Infrastructure Pipeline”, published in July 2015 and is available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-infrastructure-pipeline-july-2015
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential contribution of community land trusts to increasing the supply of affordable housing in the UK.
Answered by Brandon Lewis
The Department does not assess the potential contribution that individual classes of organisation, including Community Land Trusts, can make to the delivery of affordable housing. However, we recognise the role they can play in delivering locally led and innovative housing development and we are confident they will make a valuable contribution to the 400,000 affordable housing starts we have committed to deliver by 2021.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to restart work related to his Department's pre-consultation on moving the May Bank Holiday, published in 2011.
Answered by David Evennett
The Government looked at the current pattern of all bank and public holidays as part of the Tourism strategy published in 2011, which concluded there is no overall consensus for change. There are no plans to make another consultation on this subject.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on (a) new IT equipment, (b) new furniture, (c) new artwork, (d) catering and events, (e) renovating its buildings and facilities, (f) new plants and shrubs and (g) special advisers' travel expenses since May 2015.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Department for Education has spent the amounts shown in the table below on the following list of categories from 1 May 2015 to 31 January 2016.
a) New IT equipment | £868,312 |
b) New furniture | £11,861 |
c) New artwork | No Expenditure |
d) Catering and events | £326,575 |
e) Renovating buildings and facilities [1] | £9,862,679 |
f) New plants and shrubs | No Expenditure |
g) Special Advisers’ travel expenses (including rail journeys) | £1,555 |
[1] The figure for renovating buildings and facilities is for DfE and its Agencies and does not include expenditure on school buildings.
The figures are for the Department, its Agencies and Non-Departmental Public Bodies, Government Equalities Office, Equality and Human Rights Commission and Office of the Children’s Commissioner.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and which local authorities have notified her Department about plans to dispose of grant-funded assets through the (a) sale, (b) transfer and (c) change of use of children's centres under the requirements of the Sure Start Early Years and Childcare Grant.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Where local authorities dispose of or change the use of buildings or other assets funded wholly or partly through Sure Start capital grants, they must repay the money through the claw-back process.
The Department for Education has a thorough set of monitoring arrangements in place regarding claw-back rules. Local authorities are required to notify the department of each and every proposed change of services and provide details about the level of early years services that are to continue. The department then considers if the local authority has continued to offer a sufficient level of early years services for children and their families from the building in question to meet the original aims of the grant.
If the department is satisfied that the funding for the asset will continue to be used for purposes consistent with the grant, the department may defer claw-back. Deferring claw-back means that we accept the change of usage at that time, however, the department retains its interest in the asset and if in the future the asset has its usage changed, is transferred or otherwise disposed of, and does not continue to meet the purposes of the grant the local authority must inform the department and we will claw-back the funding. The department’s interest in an asset funded by Sure Start capital grants is 25 years from designation of the building. If the grant was used to purchase capital items or re-furbish an existing asset, the length of time and value of any claw-back depends on the depreciation value of the items, according to local authority depreciation rules.
Asked by: Tristram Hunt (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent Central)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria her Department uses to assess whether a local authority should be subject to a Sure Start claw-back.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
Where local authorities dispose of or change the use of buildings or other assets funded wholly or partly through Sure Start capital grants, they must repay the money through the claw-back process.
The Department for Education has a thorough set of monitoring arrangements in place regarding claw-back rules. Local authorities are required to notify the department of each and every proposed change of services and provide details about the level of early years services that are to continue. The department then considers if the local authority has continued to offer a sufficient level of early years services for children and their families from the building in question to meet the original aims of the grant.
If the department is satisfied that the funding for the asset will continue to be used for purposes consistent with the grant, the department may defer claw-back. Deferring claw-back means that we accept the change of usage at that time, however, the department retains its interest in the asset and if in the future the asset has its usage changed, is transferred or otherwise disposed of, and does not continue to meet the purposes of the grant the local authority must inform the department and we will claw-back the funding. The department’s interest in an asset funded by Sure Start capital grants is 25 years from designation of the building. If the grant was used to purchase capital items or re-furbish an existing asset, the length of time and value of any claw-back depends on the depreciation value of the items, according to local authority depreciation rules.