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348261

registered interest
date	03/06/2015
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	Parliament: Asbestos
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Mole Valley representing the House of Commons Commission, what recent progress has been made on the operation of Parliament's Asbestos Management Plan; and if he will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Scunthorpe
tabling member printed	Nic Dakin
uin	1032
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/06/2015 answer text <p>Owing to its historic nature, asbestos deposits are present within the Palace of Westminster. The Parliamentary Estates Directorate operates an Asbestos Management Plan which it uses to safely manage asbestos across the whole of the parliamentary estate, in full compliance with the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.<br><br>During the successful installation of new, modern equipment in the plant room that supplies the Chamber and adjacent offices, a series of asbestos reassurance tests have been carried out. Traces of asbestos were recently found in the ventilation trunking, but extensive sampling at the vents has provided very high confidence that it is not becoming airborne.<br><br>Professor R J Willey, Managing Director of ACS Physical Risk Control Ltd has undertaken an urgent review of the evidence, and concluded: “It is my considered Opinion that, after the discovery, proper procedures were timeously followed. Detailed investigation of the results of air tests taken, over a considerable period following the discovery, show quite conclusively that there was negligible risk to any persons supplied with air from the duct system. Providing current conditions are maintained, there will be negligible risk to any persons supplied with air in the future from the duct system.”<br><br>The Commission and the House authorities regard the safety of Members, staff and the visiting public as their highest priority. Steps have therefore been taken to ensure that the ventilation system is not disturbed in any way. Steps will also be taken to eradicate the asbestos in the trunking by the end of 2015, but in the meantime we are content with this authoritative advice that there is no reason to stop using the Chamber, or the adjacent offices and spaces.</p> answering member constituency Mole Valley answering member printed Sir Paul Beresford question first answered 09/06/2015 12:44:37 answering member 103 label Biography information for Sir Paul Beresford
tabling member	4056 label Biography information for Nic Dakin

227310

registered interest
date	13/03/2015
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	ICT
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, what discussions the Commission has had with (a) Apple and (b) providers of other devices and platforms in advance of the decision to offer iPads free of charge to all hon. Members.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	227500
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/03/2015 answer text <p>No direct discussions were held with (a) Apple and (b) the providers of other devices and platforms in advance of the decision to offer iPads.</p><p>An independent assessment of the tablet marketplace was completed by Parliamentary ICT (PICT), including cost, but also technical capabilities, such as the ability to deliver committee papers securely, and the training effort required for both Members and their staff to move to a different device and/or platform.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso question first answered 18/03/2015 16:19:19 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

227311

registered interest
date	13/03/2015
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	ICT
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, what assessment the Commission has made of the suitability of the iPad for the open source, open standards and open data approach to digital services promoted by the Government Digital Service.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	227499
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/03/2015 answer text <p>The suitability of various tablets for open source, open standards and open data was not part of the assessment in the selection of the iPad. The selection of tablet does not have a direct impact on the use of open source, open standards and open data. Parliament is actively using open standards to deliver services that will work across any device through the use of HTML5. In addition new services are being developed that take advantage of Parliament’s open data platform, such as data.parliament.</p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso question first answered 18/03/2015 16:18:41 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

227312

registered interest
date	13/03/2015
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	ICT
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, what comparative assessment the Commission has made of the costs of offering iPads and equivalent Android devices free of charge to all hon. Members.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	227498
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/03/2015 answer text <p>In 2013 the House of Commons Commission agreed to a recommendation in the Administration Committee’s report, <em>First weeks at Westminster: induction arrangements for new MPs in 2015,</em> that:</p><p>“…a tablet and a laptop should be the first pieces of equipment offered to all Members after the 2015 election. The tablet should be in addition to the current allowance and should come with a SIM card. This provision of a tablet would replace any tablets available as part of the current select committee pilot. The laptop would come from the IT equipment allowance for Members provided by PICT.”</p><p>The gross cost was estimated to be around £200,000 per annum (including the cost of SIM cards) averaged over the life of the parliament but is linked to a programme to reduce hard copy printing in favour of online publication that is already delivering savings in excess of £3 million per year. These savings are expected to grow further in the new parliament.</p><p>An independent assessment was completed by Parliamentary ICT (PICT) in January 2015, covering comparative tablet costs, the costs associated with the re-working of existing services and infrastructure (where required), and any costs for training Members, Members’ staff and ICT support teams.</p><p>Having been in use across Parliament since 2012, iPads are integrated with current business processes (eg committee paper circulation) and infrastructure (eg mobile device management). A move away from the Apple operating system (iOS) at this time would incur costs to change these processes.</p><p>Given the established nature of iOS in the Houses’ IT service offering, access to parliamentary digital services on iPads is mature, offering greater access than on other mobile devices. Members are able to access the intranet and intranet hosted services via their iPads, they are able to access and annotate committee papers and can download a number of Office apps to access any content held within Office 365. In addition, PICT are able to remotely manage their security in the case of loss. While all of these services could be provided on other devices and operating systems, currently this would incur further costs in order to deliver them.</p><p>There would be a significant change to move existing Members to a different tablet operating system. There are at present 209 iPads supplied centrally to Members; PICT are experienced at supporting these. Any departure from iOS would require re-training for the current Members using iOS and new training to be developed for the remaining 441 Members and all relevant PICT support staff.</p><p>The assessment of the current marketplace revealed a wide range of prices, from entry level tablets starting at under £100, through to high-end tablets at approximately £600. Across this range, specifications and capabilities vary a great deal. Our requirements are for a secure, SIM-enabled tablet with a good life expectancy and capable of supporting future upgrades. The Apple iPad Air 2 meets these requirements and is competitively priced when compared with similar models.</p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso grouped question UIN 227725 question first answered 18/03/2015 16:17:37 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

171194

registered interest
date	17/12/2014
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	House of Commons: Bookshops
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, pursuant to the Answer to Question 218201, how many book titles in total are on sale in the House of Commons Book Shop; what proportion of such books are by women; and what proportion of such books which do not have the words woman, women or sexism in their title are by women.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	219283
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 05/01/2015 answer text <p>We do not hold information regarding the gender of authors or editors on our stock control systems. Without considerable research it would not be possible to assign a gender to each author as names are not always easily assigned.</p><p>In addition, we stock a significant number of titles for which there is no author or editor named on our system. Such titles include <em>The London Diplomatic List, the Civil Service Yearbook, Vacher’s Quarterly </em>and a number of similar reference titles<em>.</em> The stock changes on a regular basis as many titles are written about current issues and do not stay in the range for long so that titles are added and deleted from the range each month.</p><p>As previously stated, we are committed to the inclusion of women authors within our range, and aim to represent women’s role in British politics wherever possible. This is an essential part of our objective to stock titles that shed light on British politics, Parliament and democracy.</p><p>If the hon. Member would like to discuss the matter further, the Senior Retail Operations Manager would be more than happy to meet her.</p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso question first answered 05/01/2015 11:05:50 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

170493

registered interest
date	15/12/2014
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	Written Questions
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, what estimate he has made of the savings to the House of Commons Commission from the Q&A system in (a) the present financial year and (b) the next five financial years.
tabling member constituency	Newcastle upon Tyne Central
tabling member printed	Chi Onwurah
uin	218805
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/12/2014 answer text <p>Identified savings to the House of Commons Commission, in reduced printing, publishing and administration costs, from the Questions and Answers (Q&amp;A) system are estimated to be £443,000 in 2014/15, £785,000 in 2015/16 and £795,000 every year from 2016/17.</p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso question first answered 19/12/2014 13:57:02 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	4124 label Biography information for Chi Onwurah

91503

registered interest
date	10/09/2014
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	Palace of Westminster
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, when is it intended that the front exterior of St Stephen's Entrance will be restored to its former state; and if he will make a statement.
tabling member constituency	Walsall North
tabling member printed	Mr David Winnick
uin	208914
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/10/2014 answer text <p>The temporary marquee positioned outside St Stephen’s Entrance is housing temporary search lanes while essential work is undertaken on the Cromwell Green Entrance search facilities. This work is scheduled to be completed by 19 October and the Cromwell Green Entrance will then reopen. The temporary marquee will be removed following a short period of commissioning and testing of the new facility before returning the exterior of St Stephen’s Entrance to its previous arrangement. It is anticipated that this period will be minimal.</p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso question first answered 13/10/2014 12:20:48 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	316 label Biography information for Mr David Winnick

90340

registered interest
date	02/09/2014
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	Data Protection: Internet
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, what reassessment has been made of the security of files and emails containing sensitive material relating to constituents being stored by PICT in a cloud system in the light of the recent security breach of the iCloud system.
tabling member constituency	East Yorkshire
tabling member printed	Sir Greg Knight
uin	207888
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/09/2014 answer text <p>It is not the practice of the Commission to comment on security matters in any detail.</p><p>However, Parliamentary ICT does not use the iCloud System and was not impacted by recent reported security breaches of this system.</p><p>We use a Government accredited Cloud service for emails and files.</p><p>Parliamentary ICT took advice from Legal Services and the Director of Parliamentary Security, scrutinising the agreement with the Cloud service supplier to confirm that safeguards are in place to protect the security of data when it entered into these arrangements.</p><p>Further advice and guidance for Members can be found on the ICT security pages on the Parliamentary Intranet.</p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso question first answered 08/09/2014 11:45:17 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	1200 label Biography information for Sir Greg Knight

90346

registered interest
date	02/09/2014
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	Clerk of the House
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, whether expressions of interest were invited for persons to serve on the appointment advisory panel for Clerk and Chief Executive of the House; how the membership of that panel was chosen; and if the Commission will publish a list of names of those considered for membership of that panel.
tabling member constituency	Lichfield
tabling member printed	Michael Fabricant
uin	207922
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/09/2014 answer text <p>Expressions of interest were not invited for persons to serve on the selection panel. The members of the panel were chosen by Mr Speaker to ensure political and gender balance and the need for external input. The panel composition was considered by the House of Commons Commission on 16 June. It would be inappropriate to publish a list of those considered and rejected for panel membership.</p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso question first answered 10/09/2014 16:07:58 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	280 label Biography information for Michael Fabricant

90347

registered interest
date	02/09/2014
answering body	House of Commons Commission
answering dept id	18
answering dept short name	House of Commons Commission
answering dept sort name	House of Commons Commission
hansard heading	Clerk of the House
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, whether each member of the appointment advisory panel for the Clerk and Chief Executive of the House was required to declare previous contacts with external candidates.
tabling member constituency	Lichfield
tabling member printed	Michael Fabricant
uin	207921
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/09/2014 answer text <p>Panel members were not formally asked to declare previous contacts. However, during the interview process and as part of the panel discussion a number of panel members did declare their prior knowledge of external candidates.</p> answering member constituency Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross answering member printed John Thurso question first answered 10/09/2014 16:07:16 answering member 1399 label Biography information for Viscount Thurso
tabling member	280 label Biography information for Michael Fabricant