Asked by: John Healey (Labour - Wentworth and Dearne)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many (a) bilateral and (b) multilateral military exercises have taken place with India since 2010.
Answered by James Heappey
The following exercises have taken place since 2010:
Asked by: Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to develop wind farms in the Irish Sea.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Three large offshore windfarms, totalling 3.48GW, are currently being developed in the Irish Sea. BP and EnBW are developing the Morgan (1.5GW) and Mona (1.5GW) projects. Cobra and Flotation Energy are developing the Morecambe (0.48GW) project.
Asked by: Grahame Morris (Labour - Easington)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, on what dates the Government held COBRA meetings in respect of Storm Arwen.
Answered by Michael Ellis
As a matter of policy, the Government does not comment on matters related to COBR.
However, we can confirm that Ministers and officials from across government took several measures in response to Storm Arwen.
The Defence Secretary oversaw the deployment of 297 military personnel to support civil authorities in the response. These personnel helped two Local Resilience Forums in the provision of welfare in northeast England, and assisted the Scottish Government in their response in the Grampian region.
The Prime Minister spoke to the chief executive of Northern Powergrid to discuss the ongoing work to restore power in the affected areas. He also spoke with local community leaders in Northumbria, Durham and Darlington, and Lt Col Mark Steed, who coordinated the military involvement in the response in northeast England.
Further to this, The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy gave a statement to Parliament at the time and The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change responded to an Urgent Question on 6 December.
Last week, the Government published an interim report on Storm Arwen review: Government publishes interim report on Storm Arwen review - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, if he will publish the attendee lists from the last three COBRA meetings.
Answered by Michael Ellis
As a matter of policy, the Government does not comment on the details of COBR meetings.
Asked by: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many Cobra meetings have been held in response to the build-up of Russian forces on the Ukraine border.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
As a matter of policy, the Government does not comment on COBR meetings.
Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, whether COBRA has met since 16 September 2021 to discuss fuel supply shortages.
Answered by Michael Ellis
As a matter of policy, the government does not comment on COBR meetings.
With respect to the fuel crisis more generally, the Government acted swiftly to respond to the rapid increase in demand for fuel (observed from 24 September 2021) which caused shortages at forecourts around the UK. Regular ministerial and senior officials' meetings were convened, both before and after the peak in demand. These meetings were all supported by data feeds collated by departments that informed Government of consumer demand, forecourt stock levels, fuel delivery capabilities and other key metrics.
The government has tried and tested plans in place to manage fuel supply. The Government implemented a range of timely measures to resolve the situation, including deployment of military drivers to staff the Reserve Tanker Fleet, the activation of the Downstream Oil Protocol, the relaxation of drivers’ hours regulations and the roll out of short-term visas so that haulier firms could source trained drivers from overseas.
Asked by: Lord Campbell-Savours (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have entered into any contracts with (1) Oxford Biomedica, (2) Cobra, and (3) Halix, in relation to the production of COVID-19 vaccines; and, if so, what plans they have to make the terms of these contracts available to the public.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government has not entered into a contract with any of the named companies.
Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many COBRA meetings regarding the Covid-19 pandemic he attended.
Answered by Ben Wallace
It is a long-established precedent that information about the discussions that have taken place in Cabinet and its Committees, and how often they have met, is not normally shared publicly.
Asked by: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, when the COBRA Civil Contingencies Committee last met to discuss covid-19; and how many times that Committee has met each month in 2020.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by Chloe Smith MP to PQ 66203 on 2 July 2020.
Asked by: Rosie Cooper (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make it his policy to give local authorities timely access to (a) SAGE and COBRA planning assumptions and (b) the NHSX covid-19 data warehouse to enable authorities to coordinate effectively their covid-19 response.
Answered by Nadine Dorries
The Government is working closely with local communities to undertake contingency planning so we can ensure the public are kept safe, and any tragic loss of life is handled with the utmost respect and care. As the Government continue to learn more about the outbreak, and potential future measures that may be needed, we will set out those plans to local resilience forums.
The planning assumptions critically depend on the response the Government takes to mitigate the effect of the outbreak, and we are working with the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and others to develop assumptions that reflect those actions and that those assumptions are shared with the local level as soon as possible.
The National Health Service COVID-19 Data Store securely assimilates and protects all of the accurate, real-time information in England necessary to inform strategic and operational decisions in response to the current pandemic. It is available to use for SAGE planning, and the information feeds into relevant COBRA dashboards. Furthermore, there have already been a number of NHS Data Store COVID-19 requests from local authorities submitted and approved for public health responses.