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1138615

registered interest
date	12/07/2019
answering body	Department for Transport
answering dept id	27
answering dept short name	Transport
answering dept sort name	Transport
hansard heading	High Speed Two: Freedom of Information
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of freedom of information requests received by HS2 Limited were resolvable requests withheld in full for (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017, (d) 2018 and (e) the first quarter of 2019.
tabling member constituency	Hemsworth
tabling member printed	Jon Trickett
uin	276515
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>From 2015 up to the end of first quarter of 2019, HS2 Ltd received 1,224 Freedom of Information (FOI) and Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) requests. Where an exemption (FOI) or an exception (EIR) applied, all of the requested information was withheld on 239 occasions. The proportion of resolvable requests withheld in full for each period is as follows: (a) 2015, 12% (b) 2016, 19% (c) 2017, 25% (d) 2018, 19% and (e) first quarter of 2019, 24%.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wealden answering member printed Ms Nusrat Ghani question first answered 17/07/2019 13:18:11 answering member 4460 label Biography information for Ms Nusrat Ghani
tabling member	410 label Biography information for Jon Trickett

1138693

registered interest
date	12/07/2019
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Fraud
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent steps he is taking to tackle universal credit fraud.
tabling member constituency	Coventry South
tabling member printed	Mr Jim Cunningham
uin	276511
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>The Department takes its obligation to prevent, detect and investigate fraud very seriously and will investigate all claims where fraud may have been committed. We have recently set up a dedicated team to investigate a specific type of emergent fraud, and we are also committed to the use of penalties such as prosecutions and tough financial penalties to discourage fraudulent behaviour.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has also recently been working to further improve knowledge and awareness of Universal Credit (UC) fraud amongst Jobcentre and Service Centre staff. Guidance has also been issued to ensure that all staff are aware how to quickly refer cases of suspected fraud to the Department’s Counter-fraud team.</p><p> </p><p>Most welfare losses, across Government, arise from claimants failing to report changes of circumstances. UC provides a single, digital interface through which claimants can more easily report these changes. UC also allows us to adjust benefit entitlement in line with changing circumstances in real time. Internal and external data matches are increasingly helping to inform benefit payments and alerting staff to check for any undeclared changes in people’s circumstances. Once UC is fully rolled out, we expect cross-welfare losses to fraud, error and overpayments to be reduced by around £1 billion per year</p><p> </p><p>As of June 2019, potential fraudulent advance claims equate to less than 1 per cent of all Universal Credit claims.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 12:58:00 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
tabling member	308 label Biography information for Mr Jim Cunningham

1138694

registered interest
date	12/07/2019
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Universal Credit: Proof of Identity
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure accurate verification of universal credit claimants who request an advance.
tabling member constituency	Coventry South
tabling member printed	Mr Jim Cunningham
uin	276512
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2019 answer text <p>As of June 2019, potential fraudulent advance claims equate to less than 1 per cent of all Universal Credit claims.</p><p> </p><p>The Department has been working to improve knowledge and awareness of advances fraud amongst Jobcentre and Service Centre staff. Guidance has also been issued to ensure that staff are aware how to refer cases of suspected fraud to the Department’s Counter-fraud team.</p><p> </p><p>We are developing our service iteratively and improving any areas in the service that may currently be presenting issues, to minimise the risk of fraud while ensuring that we can continue to provide financial support to those claimants who need it.</p><p>We cannot share advance detail of the specific security improvements we are making but this includes improving our process for verifying a claimant’s circumstances.</p> answering member constituency Reading West answering member printed Alok Sharma question first answered 17/07/2019 12:46:01 answering member 4014 label Biography information for Sir Alok Sharma
tabling member	308 label Biography information for Mr Jim Cunningham

1136759

registered interest
date	03/07/2019
answering body	Cabinet Office
answering dept id	53
answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
hansard heading	Government Departments: Bain and Company
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government how many consultancy contracts they have with Bain & Company, broken down by each government department.
tabling member printed	Lord Hain
uin	HL16909
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>In order to enable government departments to quickly secure resource for critical work on preparations and implementation of EU exit at pace, the Cabinet Office have put in place a set of contracts for all government departments to access. This includes a contract with Bain and Co. The contracts have been published on contracts finder and spend under this arrangement is published monthly on GOV.UK titled ‘Central EU Exit Consultancy’.</p> answering member printed Lord Young of Cookham grouped question UIN HL16910 question first answered 15/07/2019 14:53:31 answering member 57 label Biography information for Lord Young of Cookham
tabling member	567 label Biography information for Lord Hain

1136760

registered interest
date	03/07/2019
answering body	Cabinet Office
answering dept id	53
answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
hansard heading	Government Departments: Bain and Company
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any government department has used Bain & Company for any consultancy or advisory work since 2010.
tabling member printed	Lord Hain
uin	HL16910
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>In order to enable government departments to quickly secure resource for critical work on preparations and implementation of EU exit at pace, the Cabinet Office have put in place a set of contracts for all government departments to access. This includes a contract with Bain and Co. The contracts have been published on contracts finder and spend under this arrangement is published monthly on GOV.UK titled ‘Central EU Exit Consultancy’.</p> answering member printed Lord Young of Cookham grouped question UIN HL16909 question first answered 15/07/2019 14:53:31 answering member 57 label Biography information for Lord Young of Cookham
tabling member	567 label Biography information for Lord Hain

1136761

registered interest
date	03/07/2019
answering body	Cabinet Office
answering dept id	53
answering dept short name	Cabinet Office
answering dept sort name	Cabinet Office
hansard heading	Government Departments: Bain and Company
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what consideration, if any, they have given to the probity and quality of Bain & Company's consultancy work for the South African Revenue Service in regard to any work by that consultancy for government departments.
tabling member printed	Lord Hain
uin	HL16911
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>The Government is aware of this situation and is monitoring it. Assessments on the probity and quality of work on individual UK Government contracts are undertaken on a department by department basis.</p><p>A UK Government department seeking bids for contracts covered by the Public Contracts Regulations would need to follow the rules on exclusions as defined within Regulation 57.</p> answering member printed Lord Young of Cookham question first answered 15/07/2019 14:54:50 answering member 57 label Biography information for Lord Young of Cookham
tabling member	567 label Biography information for Lord Hain

1136762

registered interest
date	03/07/2019
answering body	Foreign and Commonwealth Office
answering dept id	16
answering dept short name	Foreign and Commonwealth Office
answering dept sort name	Foreign and Commonwealth Office
hansard heading	South African Revenue Service: Bain and Company
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have plans to instruct Her Majesty's High Commissioner to South Africa to compile a report to the Prime Minister on the probity and quality of Bain & Company’s consultancy work for the South African Revenue Service; and if so, whether they will place a copy of any such report in the Library of the House of Lords.
tabling member printed	Lord Hain
uin	HL16912
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>​We have no plans to instruct the High Commissioner to South Africa to compile a report on Bain &amp; Company. This is a matter for the South African Government and we note the various Commissions appointed to investigate this and related issues.</p> answering member printed Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon question first answered 15/07/2019 15:12:02 answering member 4210 label Biography information for Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
tabling member	567 label Biography information for Lord Hain

1136765

registered interest
date	03/07/2019
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Agriculture: Seasonal Workers
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the assistance that seasonal farm workers from the Ukraine could provide in meeting the UK’s agricultural requirements; and what barriers, if any, there are to their entry.
tabling member printed	Lord Patten
uin	HL16915
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/07/2019 answer text <p>The Government has introduced a new immigration pilot scheme for 2019 and 2020 enabling up to 2,500 non-European Economic Area migrant workers, including seasonal workers from Ukraine, to come to the UK to undertake seasonal employment in the edible horticultural sector.</p><p> </p><p>This pilot will test the effectiveness of our immigration system at alleviating seasonal labour shortages during peak production periods, whilst reducing immigration to sustainable levels and continuing to welcome those who make an invaluable contribution.</p><p> </p><p>This pilot is not designed to meet the full labour needs of the horticultural sector. Rather we are seeking to evaluate the immigration pilot’s ability to assist in alleviating labour shortages during peak production periods.</p><p> </p><p>Defra and the Home Office will work closely to monitor the pilot, and review its performance against the stated objectives. This pilot will help inform our understanding of how such immigration routes perform in a modern global context, and support the design of our new immigration system laid out in the recent White Paper. Defra is working to improve the official evidence based on temporary worker supply and demand, through a new quarterly survey of growers, the results of which we will consider carefully. We are also working closely with industry to understand trends in labour demand and supply.</p><p> </p><p>Immigration issues are reserved and remain the policy responsibility of the Home Office. After we leave the EU, we must ensure that we have an immigration system that works in the best interest of the whole of the UK.</p><p> </p><p>Defra is working closely with the Home Office to ensure that there is a long term strategy for agricultural labour as part of the future immigration strategy. The Home Office has launched a 12-month engagement programme with sectors across the UK to enable businesses and other stakeholders to shape the development of the future skills based immigration system.</p><p> </p><p>As such, there are no plans to expand this pilot at this time. We wish to fully assess this pilot and the results will help to inform the design of the new immigration system from January 2021.</p> answering member printed Lord Gardiner of Kimble question first answered 16/07/2019 14:24:07 answering member 4161 label Biography information for Lord Gardiner of Kimble
tabling member	1137 label Biography information for Lord Patten

1136770

registered interest
date	03/07/2019
answering body	Department for Transport
answering dept id	27
answering dept short name	Transport
answering dept sort name	Transport
hansard heading	Roads: Accidents
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what statistics they have on accidents caused by litter or debris on roads in the UK.
tabling member printed	Baroness Randerson
uin	HL16920
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>The department does not collect data specifically on litter and debris causing road accidents. The department collects data on personal injury road accidents reported to the police, including contributory factors which the police select when they attend the scene. This does not assign blame for the accident but gives an indication of factors the attending officer thought contributed to the accident. This includes the contributory factors of ‘Deposit on road’ and ‘Animal or object in carriageway’, which might be used to record litter and debris.</p><p> </p><p>‘Deposit on road’ includes any deposit arising from human (or animal) activity which has made sections of the road surface slippery or which has caused traction control problems for a vehicle. ‘Animal or object in carriageway’ includes any object which the driver would not expect to find in the carriageway (e.g. dislodged vehicle load, fallen tree) and which caused or contributed to the accident.</p><p> </p><p>There were 1,058 road accidents with a contributory factor of ‘Deposit on road’ and 802 road accidents with a contributory factor of ‘Animal or object in carriageway’ in Great Britain in 2017.</p><p> </p><p>Statistics on the number and proportion of accidents by contributory factor reported are available online in table RAS50001. All published tables on contributory factors are available in the RAS50 series on gov.uk.</p><p> </p><p>The data we hold only covers reported personal injury road accidents in Great Britain, we do not have data for Northern Ireland.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member printed Baroness Vere of Norbiton question first answered 15/07/2019 10:58:09 answering member 4580 label Biography information for Baroness Vere of Norbiton
tabling member	4230 label Biography information for Baroness Randerson

1136775

registered interest
date	03/07/2019
answering body	Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
answering dept id	7
answering dept short name	Housing, Communities and Local Government
answering dept sort name	Housing, Communities and Local Government
hansard heading	Housing
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase growth in the UK housing market after Brexit.
tabling member printed	Lord Taylor of Warwick
uin	HL16925
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/07/2019 answer text <p>We are committed to delivering safe, secure and affordable housing to people across the country, and Brexit will not change this. After we leave the EU, as now, we will work closely with industry and all levels of government and take end-to-end action across the housing market to deliver the right homes in the right places and achieve our ambition of delivering 300,000 homes a year by the mid 2020s.</p><p>We set out our plan for long-term reform to make the housing market work better in our Housing White Paper, and have since built on this with further measures, including planning reforms, lifting Housing Revenue Account borrowing caps, and progressively increasing the Government’s 2016-21 Affordable Homes Programme in England to more than £9 billion, as well as more than doubling the Housing Infrastructure Fund to £5.5 billion to unlock up to 650,000 homes. We’ve committed over £22 billion Help to Buy Equity Loan funding to 2021, and announced at last year’s Autumn Budget a new scheme with £7.2 billion funding to 2023. The measures we have announced will boost the delivery of housing and use funds flexibly to unblock the barriers to more housebuilding.</p><p> </p> answering member printed Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth question first answered 15/07/2019 14:50:49 answering member 4282 label Biography information for Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
tabling member	1796 label Biography information for Lord Taylor of Warwick