A miscellany of facts, assertions, questions and questionable assertions from the factualité of the Palace of Westminster, last week.

• Again, none of this is perfect. Minister Paul Scully, presenting the Online Safety Bill
• In the past five years, 12,000 people reported to the revenge porn helpline almost 200,000 pieces of content that fell into that category. Maria Miller
• We secured 23.2 billion items of PPE. Steve Barclay
• Prof Clare McGlynn said in an evidence session that 75% of children aged 16 and 17 used or knew how to use a VPN which means they can avoid internet age controls. Sarah Champion
• A lot of quad bikes have ignition systems so basic that in some cases people do not need a key. They can start them with a screwdriver. Ben Everitt
• In 2021 there was a charge rate of suspects of 6.89% in rural areas compared with 8.55% in urban areas. Holly Lynch
• Only 3% of pupils at grammar schools are eligible for free school meals as opposed to 18% to 20% entitlement at non-selective schools. Christine Blower
• Michael Byng, a quantity surveyor, believes the true cost of HS2 should be £158 billion not £102 billion and that the true costs are being withheld from parliament for fear of cancellation of the project. Tony Gueterbock (Lord Berkeley)
• More than 2 million emergency food parcels were handed out last year. Alison McGovern
• Fifty-nine per cent of private renters on universal credit – 844,000 households – have rents above the maximum that local authorities will cover. Karen Buck
• We have recently announced two tranches of additional investment totaling £900 million to prevent more than £1 billion-worth of fraud. Mel Stride
• Twenty-one per cent of those aged between 16 and 64 are currently not in work or seeking work, at a time when the British Chambers of Commerce estimates there are 1.2 million unfilled jobs in the economy. Gareth Bacon

• Each day in the UK, there are around 300 rapes, of which around 190 are reported. Of those, only three rapists will see the inside of a courtroom. Kate Osborne
• In the year ending March 2022, almost 120,000 stalking offences were reported to the police, but less than 6,000 of those reports resulted in a charge. Emily Thornberry
• In 1979 there were two Ministers in the Department of Transport; there are now five. In 1979, there were five Ministers in the DHSS. That department has now been split into two and there are six Ministers in each. George Young
• In the 2022-23 academic year there were just 444 trainee physics teachers across the whole of England and some 400 schools in England do not have a teacher for physics A-level. Jenny Chapman
• It is exactly 50 years since I was a booking clerk at Macclesfield. The first class return fare from Macclesfield to London was £7.50. If the Minister and I took a train these days from Macclesfield to London at 8am, the return first class fare would be £360.20; that has not gone up with inflation, it has flown through the roof. Peter Snape
• The National Grid is unable to give a guarantee to connect offshore wind to the main transmissions until 2030. Michael Morris
• The Government have capped domestic use at 34p per kWh, but for my constituents in park homes, the rate is an eye-watering 78p per unit for electricity. Anne McLaughlin
• In 2019, there were 54 women waiting more than a year to see a gynaecologist. That number is now more than 40,000. Caroline Johnson
• Absentee Sinn Fein MPs have received £10 million in various allowances over the last 10 years alone.  Gregory Campbell
• I want to raise the case of my constituent Mr Simpson whose wife died last Tuesday after waiting 16 hours for an ambulance. Emma Hardy
• Across north-east London, our population is set to grow by the the total of the population of Dover in the next five years. Lyn Brown
• That GP surgery serves up to 35,000 people in my constituency, of whom 80% do not have English as a first language. Paul Bristow (Peterborough)

FIVE QUESTIONS

1. When someone is released at 3pm on a Friday from Wormwood Scrubs and then has to see their parole officer in Cambridge that same day, what chance do they have of make that appointment before 5pm? Simon Fell
2. Given that 12 EU countries do not allow any asylum applications from Albania on the grounds that Albania is a democratic country, why do we not do the same? Henry Bellingham
3. Will the Minister acknowledge that the European Social Charter is an instrument of the Council of Europe and not the Euriopean Union so still applies in this country?  Bryn Davies
4. Can the Minister point to any empirical evidence or analysis that demonstrates that the doubling of the prison population in the last 40 years has made this country more law-abiding and less violent? Alex Carlile
5. Where are they on both sides of the House? Given that the NHS is the No.1 priority of the Opposition, where are they? Steve Brine

AND THREE QUESTIONABLE ASSERTIONS

1. Scotland has everything it takes to be a hugely successful, self-governing, self-sustaining nation. Yet Westminster control has held us back while comparable countries go on to prosper. Steven Bonnar
2. We forego about £3.2 billion in revenue from non-doms every year. Peter Dowd
3. Theft figures have fallen 46% since March 2010 from 4.99 million theft offenses to 2.69 million. Police minister Chris Philp