Asked by: Cat Smith (Labour - Lancaster and Wyre)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what length of time it takes to process payments under the Energy Bill Support Scheme Alternative Funding once an application has been submitted.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The exact date that an eligible household will receive support will depend on when the application is made and when the payment can be processed by the relevant local authority. The online application portal and accompanying contact centre helpline for those who do not have online access will be open by 27 February.
Asked by: Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party - North Ayrshire and Arran)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether park home residents who pay for their energy usage through an intermediary such as a park home owner will be eligible for the Energy Bills Support Scheme discount where the intermediary has benefited from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Energy Bill Support Scheme Alternative Funding (EBSS AF) will provide £400 support to those households who do not have a direct relationship with a domestic electricity supplier in England, Scotland, and Wales, with the application portal due to open by 27 February. Park home residents, where the park home owner procures their electricity through a commercial contract and is therefore eligible for the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, are likely to be eligible for the EBSS AF.
Asked by: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the proportion of invoices his Department paid to small and medium-sized enterprises within five days in the 2021-2022 financial year.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
BEIS publishes quarterly information on the overall percentage of all invoices (including SME invoices) paid within 5 to 30 days on GOV.UK. The BEIS payment performance for the financial year 2021-22 is that 87.24% of invoices were paid within 5 days.
The Procurement Bill currently progressing through the Commons contains a Clause (68) that will require all contracting authorities to publish specified information relating to invoice payments. BEIS will ensure that it continues to publish payment information and will comply with the new requirements once they are implemented.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department holds data on the number of public rights of way footpaths that have been removed from Ordnance Survey maps since 2015.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Ordnance Survey (OS) does not hold data which records the number of public rights of way footpaths that have been removed from OS maps since 2015.
From the 1 April 2015 to 31 January 2023 OS received 5,585 Orders for changes to the cartographic depiction of public rights of way from the relevant order-making authority, typically a Local Authority. 353 of these Orders included an instruction to make a deletion. It is possible that some of these orders for deletions were accompanied by an instruction to add a public right of way.
Asked by: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the process is for requesting that Ordnance Survey includes a lost public right of way in future map editions.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Applications for edits to the Definitive Map of public rights of way (including the addition of lost public rights of way) are made to the relevant order-making authority, typically a Local Authority. If accepted, the edits are made to the Definitive Map by the relevant order-making authority, whereby public rights of way are added and/or removed. The order-making authority should then notify Ordnance Survey (OS) of the edit and on receipt of the notification, OS will cartographically record the changes required and include in future map editions.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to create a Single Enforcement Body for Employment Rights.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
This Government remains committed to workers’ rights and enforcement. We need to be realistic with what we can achieve and the limits of parliamentary time. We are reviewing what this means for the creation of the Single Enforcement Body which would be a significant organisational change . In the meantime, we continue to invest significantly in the existing labour market enforcement bodies and are working with the Director of Labour Market Enforcement to ensure that they are supported to work together as effectively as possible.
Asked by: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many employers were named under the National Minimum Wage Naming Scheme between 1 January and 31 December 2022.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
To date, we have named around 2,500 employers, covering around £20.8 million in arrears and £24.1 million in penalties. The Government last named 208 employers on 8 December 2021, including some of the UK’s biggest household names.
Publicly naming employers who do not comply with the rules remains an important part of our enforcement and compliance toolkit. It clearly demonstrates that it is never acceptable to underpay workers and that employers who do will be held responsible.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask His Majesty's Government what protections they have in place to prevent energy firms from leaving households without power in their homes; and what penalties are imposed on energy firms that do not take sufficient care of vulnerable customers or which wrongly disconnect customers.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Ofgem rules include an Ability to Pay Principle that requires suppliers to provide appropriate support for those struggling to pay their bills. Support may include setting up appropriate repayment plans based on a customer’s ability to pay, and by directing the customer to further support services.
Ofgem is responsible for ensuring licensed energy suppliers are complying with their licence conditions. Ofgem publishes details of its compliance and enforcement action on its website.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to reforming the way in which Ofgem manages the energy price cap.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
There are no plans to do this.
As the expert independent regulator, Ofgem is responsible for operating the price cap. Ofgem remains the sole decision-maker over how it is calculated and has consulted extensively on its methodology for determining the cap level. The Government has confidence in Ofgem to set the cap at a level that reflects the underlying efficient costs of supplying energy.
The price cap was never intended to be a permanent feature of the market. As announced in the Autumn Statement, we are developing a new approach to protecting consumers’ energy prices from April 2024.
Asked by: Baroness Altmann (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask His Majesty's Government what instructions they have given to Ofgem on ensuring that the costs of failed energy firms do not fall more heavily on vulnerable customers and single person households.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Shadow Minister (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The costs of failed energy firms have contributed to an increase in standing charges. The energy regulator, Ofgem, reviewed whether the existing fixed charge was appropriate or whether a usage-based (volumetric) alternative would be more suitable.
Ofgem concluded that while some low consuming users, some of whom may be vulnerable, might benefit from change, there are a number of higher consuming users including vulnerable users that would pay more.
Ofgem’s current methodology protects users with greater energy needs, such as disabled users and users with electric heating in areas off the gas grid.