Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Sharma and Seema Malhotra

Monday 4th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. I can tell her that my Department is working very closely with the financial sector to ensure that businesses across the whole UK, including in Derbyshire Dales, are getting the support they need. As a result of the schemes we have announced, through the British Business Bank, businesses can now access Government-backed loans worth anywhere from £2,000 up to £50 million.

[Seema Malhotra [V]]

It is estimated that 50% of social enterprises could run out of cash by June without further support, raising concerns that the CBIL scheme is not working for social enterprises. Some of those will be in aviation, which is coming under huge strain. The UK aviation industry could lose around £21 billion-worth of revenue, putting at risk over 600,000 jobs, with 12,000 job cuts likely at British Airways alone, which will hit Feltham and Heston and the surrounding constituencies very hard. When will the Secretary of State bring forward specific support packages for the sectors that are worst hit by covid-19, such as aviation?

[Alok Sharma]

The hon. Lady’s question was in two parts. The first related to social enterprises. CBILS is open to all social enterprises, so long as they make at least 50% of their income from trading, which we believe covers the majority of social enterprises. She raised a wider question about larger companies. As she knows, we have a range of schemes in place, with the bounce-back loan scheme at one end and the corporate finance facility at the other. Where an individual business is not able to access any of those particular schemes, they can come to us, and we will consider the case that they make.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Sharma and Seema Malhotra

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What steps he is taking to support UK-based low-carbon industries.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Alok Sharma)]

Supporting low-carbon industries is central to my Department’s mission to deliver our net zero target. We are backing our ambition with action. Since 2012, coal use on the grid has fallen from 40% to less than 3% in 2019, and renewable electricity generation has quadrupled since 2010, with low-carbon electricity providing more than 50% of our total energy needs.

[Seema Malhotra]

In 2018, investment in acquisitions in the UK’s solar dropped to just £0.3 billion, from £1.6 billion in 2015. Should the Government not be doing more to support renewable power, in the light of the net zero target—which the Secretary of State mentioned—and the closure of the feed-in tariff, especially given that German, Italian and Spanish companies are now investing over six times more than UK companies in low-carbon technologies?

[Alok Sharma]

I am delighted that the hon. Lady has raised the issue of solar power, because, as she will know, solar photovoltaics is a UK success story. There has been rapid deployment over the past eight years, and more than 99% of the UK’s solar PV capacity has been deployed since May 2010. The latest figures indicate that we now have more than 1 million solar installations, or 13.4 GW, of capacity installed.