Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to support people in Hitchin and Harpenden constituency with the price of (a) heating oil and (b) gas for private homes.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government recognises that heating oil prices have risen steeply over the past year and sympathises with consumers who rely on this fuel for everyday use.
The Government has announced a new energy price guarantee to reduce bills for households on gas and electricity by an average of £1,000 for the typical household. For households who do not use gas for domestic heating, the Government has committed to provide an additional payment of £100 to compensate for the rising costs of other fuels such as heating oil.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps his Department has taken to help support businesses with rising energy costs.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government announced a new six-month scheme – the Energy Price Guarantee for Businesses (EPGB) – to protect all businesses and other non-domestic energy users from soaring energy costs. The scheme will offer comparable support to that being provided for consumers and we expect the scheme to be available in the autumn. After this initial six-month scheme the Government will provide focused support for vulnerable sectors, targeted to make sure those most in need get support.
The Government is also providing a 50% business rates relief for businesses across the UK and reducing employer’s national insurance. This is in addition to the billions in grants and loans offered throughout the pandemic.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to help mitigate the impact of new onshore renewable energy projects on local communities.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government recognises that renewable energy projects can have local impacts. There are established routes in the planning system that require local impacts to be measured and controlled (such as through Environmental Impact Assessments), that enable communities to raise concerns about renewable energy developments in their area, and that ensure the adverse impacts of these developments are addressed satisfactorily prior to consent being granted.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to support the roll out of (a) nuclear energy, (b) onshore renewable energy and (c) offshore renewable energy schemes.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government published the British Energy Security Strategy in April, which sets out the UK’s ambitions for deployment of low-carbon energy, including nuclear and renewables.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans his Department has to engage with local communities on the building of renewable energy projects, such as onshore wind farms.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Government wants to encourage renewable energy developers to continue to engage with local communities as the Government increased deployment to reach net zero.
The Government recognises there are ranges of views on onshore wind and the Government wants to put communities in control of hosting onshore sites. In the British Energy Security Strategy, the Government committed to develop onshore wind partnerships in England. This will enable supportive communities to host new onshore wind infrastructure and enjoy the benefits of doing so, through developers supporting local energy discounts and new community infrastructure projects.
The Government will consult on the partnerships scheme later this year.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure full checks are carried out to corroborate applicants are the occupiers at an address before utilities' contracts are transferred to a new account holder; and if he will take steps to help tackle incidents of fraudulent misrepresentation of utility contract holders.
Answered by Greg Hands
Gas and electricity supply licences enforced by the independent regulator, Ofgem, require energy suppliers to take all reasonable steps to ensure they have a valid contract with the customer before making a transfer request to switch their energy supply to avoid erroneous transfers.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans his Department has for the future funding of Local Enterprise Partnerships.
Answered by Paul Scully
Decisions around the future funding of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) beyond this financial year will be communicated in due course.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to support small- and medium-sized enterprises to transition to net zero.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Department is taking many steps to encourage SMEs to transition to Net Zero and to support SMEs through the barriers which prevent the transition.
Ahead of COP26, BEIS has launched the Together for Our Planet Business Climate Leaders’ campaign, which has encouraged over 1,900 small and micro businesses across the UK to join the Race to Zero by making the SME Climate Commitment.
In order to help SMEs overcome barriers to investing in energy efficiency BEIS launched the Boosting Access for SMEs to Energy Efficiency innovation competition. The competition offered up to £6m to fund the development of new, innovative market solutions that can provide businesses with tailored energy efficiency advice, as well as simplifying the energy efficiency investment processes through the creation of one-stop-shop platforms.
I have recently given the British Business Bank a new mission to drive sustainable growth and prosperity across the UK, and to enable the transition to a net zero economy, by supporting access to finance for smaller businesses. Between 2014 and the third quarter of 2020 a total of £160m has been invested into clean technology businesses by equity funds backed by the British Business Bank.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate his Department has made of the (a) level of demand for electricity and (b) electricity generation capacity there will be in the UK in the next five years.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
As part of the annual Capacity Market process National Grid: Electricity System Operator (NG:ESO) produce an Electricity Capacity Report (ECR), which makes a 5-year ahead assessment of peak demand for electricity.
This is publicly available information and can be found here: https://www.emrdeliverybody.com/Capacity%20Markets%20Document%20Library/Electricity%20Capacity%20Report%202019.pdf.
Asked by: Bim Afolami (Conservative - Hitchin and Harpenden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government has taken in response to the findings of the National Audit Office report entitled Protecting consumers from scams, unfair trading and unsafe goods, published in December 2016.
Answered by Margot James
The Government has carefully considered the findings of the National Audit Office’s December 2016 report. As recommended in the report, the Consumer Protection Partnership is taking action to further improve the Partnership’s assessment of consumer detriment, including through the Consumer Detriment Survey, and taking action to improve the sharing of intelligence both within and outside the Partnership.
The forthcoming Consumer Green Paper will also closely examine markets which are not working fairly for consumers.