CAROLINE LUCAS: Hens have been bred to lay over 300 eggs a year.
JOHN TRICKETT: There are 3,500 bankers working in our country who made more than €1 million – £880,000 – in a single year. Seven out of 10 of all the bankers who made more than €1 million in the whole of Europe are located in the United Kingdom meanwhile 27 bankers in the UK were paid more than €10 million in a year. Two UK-based asset managers receive between €38 million and €39 million in a year. At the top of the pops, one merchant banker was paid €64.8 million in a single year and almost all of that was in bonus.
KHAN REVIEW: A packet of cigarettes in Australia costs £22.
ANDREW SHARPE: In 2021-22 there were 709 homicides. In 2020-21, obviously Covid-affected, there were 568 homicides.
HC22: The UK exports around 60% of its packaging waste.
HC44: Benefit fraud and error remains at a historic high and is yet to show any sign of falling back to pre-pandemic levels. The estimated overpayment rate, excluding the State pension, was 7.6% compared with 4.7% before the pandemic. In money terms that is £8.5 billion from £4.4 billion in 2019-20.
ROBERT JENRICK: We have put in place a significant financial package of about £52,000 a year per foster carer per child (i.e. unaccompanied migrant child) plus a £6,000 up-front payment to the local authority to help accommodate that.
HELEN HAYES: My recent written parliamentary question revealed that 220 children have gone missing from Home Office procured accommodation.
MICHAEL GOVE: We are ensuring that the cap on fines under which the (Housing) regulator hitherto operated – just £5,000 – is lifted so that unlimited fines can be levied.
ANDREW STUNNELL: There are 600,000 unused planning permissions for homes already in existence.
JUDITH WILCOX: There were fewer than 7,000 social homes built in England last year.
BRUCE GROCOTT: Ref bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians – Some 48,000 vacancies in the construction industry were recorded between April and October last year. And 35% of the workforce are over 50. Only 20% are below 30.
DAVID RUTLEY: There are no plans to move the British Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv.
LEO DOCHERTY: We disbursed £286 million-worth of aid to Afghanistan this year alone.
MEL STRIDE: The pandemic contracted our economy by a greater level than at any time since 1709 – the year of the great frost.
GARY SAMBROOK: There are 800,000 people who could claim pension credit but who do not.
SARAH OLNEY: Data from the Civil Aviation Authority shows that night-time noise events from Heathrow affected 974,000 people in 2018 – that is 140,000 more than in 2006.
TIM FARRON: In Cumbria, a recent survey found a lack of job applicants is an issue for 78% of employers
DANIEL MOYLAN: The Housing Building Federation report set out 12 critical additional burdens on the housebuilding sector which would cumulatively add £20,000 to the build cost of every new home.
RACHAEL MASKELL: We have around 40,000 students across York.
ANNE McLAUGHLIN: The chief executive of UKHospitality pointed out that one in five workers has not returned after furlough, giving the sector a 10% vacancy rate.
STEPHEN KINNOCK: The number of Labour market inspectors has reduced to one inspector for 20,000 workers when the International Labour Organisation recommends one for every 10,000.
ROBERT JENRICK: Over the last year or so we have had tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Afghan citizens. In fact, well over 100,000 are now living in the United Kingdom.
JEFF SMITH: Some 2.3 million people in the UK apparently own cryptocurrency or cyptoassets.
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE: When we examined the Department of Work and Pensions accounts 2019-20 we concluded that while the Department claimed it was making savings across the benefit system, it was unable to explain how these would reduce the amount of fraud and error.
THE RIGHTS OF COHABITING PARTNERS, HC766: The Government agrees it is a concern that so many people believe there is such a thing as a ‘common law marriage’.
UNRELIABLE STATISTICS
SARAH OLNEY: One study found that for each additional 10dB of night-time aircraft noise that communities are exposed to, there is an increase of between 14% and 69% in their risk of high blood pressure, increasing the risk of strokes and heart attacks . . . risk of obesity and depression.
GUARDIAN HEADLINE: World’s biggest carmakers to build 400m more vehicles than 1.5C climate target will allow
ERRORS
LORD SCRIVEN: (On a budget cut of 20%) Does the Government not understand that decimating public health budgets means more heart disease and premature deaths?
