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Written Question
Wind Power: Seas and Oceans
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the planned fivefold increase in the target for offshore wind power production by 2030, what plans they have to amend the criteria for assessing the related cumulative impact.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

Ensuring environmental protections are maintained is a key component of work being undertaken by Government to facilitate the acceleration of offshore wind. The Energy Bill makes provisions to deliver the Offshore Wind Environmental Improvement Package (OWEIP), which was announced in the British Energy Security Strategy.

The OWEIP will streamline Habitat Regulation Assessments, develop and implement Offshore Wind Environmental Standards, and create a Marine Recovery Fund to enable environmental compensation to be undertaken at a strategic level. This ensures developments are located where there are lower environmental sensitivities, and/or where impacts can be avoided, reduced, mitigated, or if required, compensated.


Written Question
Electricity Generation: Offshore Industry
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment has been made of the suitability of the use of Modular Offshore grids in the North Sea corridor to transport power closer to demand; and what assessment they have made of the implementation of Belgium’s offshore grid in this regard.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Electricity System Operator has undertaken consideration of the best approach to coordinate offshore transmission infrastructure to deliver greater efficiencies, reductions in planned infrastructure and accelerate the offshore wind delivery. Belgium’s Modular Offshore Grid connects several wind farms via a single cable. The UK’s Holistic Network Design delivers a similar outcome at greater scale, covering 21GW of offshore generation in its first round and 23GW in its second. Our approach will utilise shared connection points for multiple generators and aims to use multipurpose interconnectors to transmit energy from generators to consumers; reducing costs and impacts for developers, communities, and bill-payers.


Written Question
Wind Power: East Anglia
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government why, in contrast to other regions, the Holistic Network Design impact criteria are not being used to assess the suitability of sites for offshore wind power infrastructure in East Anglia.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Holistic Network Design (HND) was published in July 2022. For offshore wind projects that do not yet have firm connection contracts, the HND recommends network solutions that deliver coordination, cost and efficiency benefits and an overall reduction in new infrastructure. However it cannot mandate changes to projects with pre-existing connection contracts, including many in East Anglia. For these, the Government has launched the £100m capital grant scheme to support the development of voluntary coordination options.


Written Question
Wind Power: Greater London
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government why the Offshore Transmission Network Review did not involve a comparative assessment of alternative brownfield sites closer to London for offshore wind power connections to the grid than sites in East Anglia.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Offshore Transmission Network Review seeks address the uncoordinated growth of offshore transmission assets and develop a more coordinated approach to the design and delivery of transmission for offshore wind in Great Britain. For projects that already had firm connection contracts, limited changes could be made without breaking those commercial contracts, which is something the government has no power to do. For these projects, the Government has launched a £100m funding scheme to support developers to develop options for voluntary coordination. This could include reconsideration of some cable routes to reduce landing zones and use brownfield sites.


Written Question
Local Government: Carbon Emissions
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to support local authorities to de-risk net zero projects.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government’s Local Net Zero Hubs Programme supports local authorities with their capability and capacity to meet net zero. We have also funded work to develop business models to increase private sector investment in local net zero.


Written Question
Vacancies
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to address labour shortages in the (1) road haulage, (2) tourism, and (3) hospitality, sectors in the (a) short term, and (b) long term.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

The Government is working to alleviate labour shortages in all sectors and is removing employment barriers by boosting wages via the National Living Wage, and furthering workers’ rights, which is particularly important for lower-paid sectors. The Government is also reforming the skills system to ensure an appropriately-skilled workforce.

To address haulage shortages, the Government took over 30 actions, including investing £34m in Skills Bootcamps to train over 11,000 people to become HGV drivers in England.

The newly-created Hospitality & Tourism Skills Board will focus on the medium-to-long term objectives of increasing recruitment, enhancing retention, and building an appropriately-skilled tourism workforce.


Written Question
Energy: Meters
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Conservative - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Callanan on 30 January (HL4760), what assessment they have made of the case for restricting the imposition of prepayment meters on energy consumers.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

Prepayment meters allow customers to control and budget for the amount they spend on energy and help to mitigate the risk of going into or exacerbating existing debt. A restriction on installation of prepayment meters as a last resort would leave court enforcement as the only recourse in cases of non-payment and large debt. Ofgem has stringent rules on force-fitting prepayment meters. The Government has no plans to restrict this option.


Written Question
Housing: Solar Power
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of on-site solar generation on reducing energy bills for households.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

On-site solar generation enables households to reduce their energy bills with savings being dependent on the output from the device, the demand profile for the property and the tariff if exporting to the grid.


Written Question
Renewable Energy: Finance
Wednesday 8th February 2023

Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support (1) community energy, and (2) local energy development; and what funds they make available for such schemes.

Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)

Through government funding to local authorities, including the Local Government Finance Settlement, UK-wide growth funding schemes and other grant programmes, the Government is enabling local areas to tackle net zero goals in ways that best suit their needs.

The Government also funds five Local Net Zero Hubs to support local authorities to develop net zero projects and attract commercial investment. As of January 2023, the Local Net Zero Hubs are working on a pipeline of projects with a projected total capital value of over £4billion.

Ofgem also supports community energy projects and is now welcoming applications from community interest groups, co-operative societies, and community benefit societies to the Industry Voluntary Redress Scheme.


Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Contracts
Tuesday 7th February 2023

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 the average number of months' notice given for new tender opportunities through the BEIS Commercial Pipeline was in each calendar year since 2019.

Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

This information is not held centrally and can only be provided at disproportionate cost. However, BEIS has published a Bi-Annual copy of its pipeline on Gov.uk for the past two years, which provides at least an 18 month forward look of potential procurements.