Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to support small businesses in light of the Office for National Statistics release Producer price inflation, UK: May 2022, published on 22 June, showing that in the last year factory gate prices rose by 15.7 per cent and producer input prices rose by 22.1 per cent.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Small businesses will benefit from the £15 billion of targeted government support to help with the rising cost of living. This brings the total cost of living support measures announced to £37 billion this year. Government has cut fuel duty for 12 months, raised the Employment Allowance to £5,000, and is zero-rating VAT on energy-saving materials. This builds on existing support, including business rates relief worth £7 billion over five years.
Additionally, Help to Grow programmes will enable eligible SMEs to mitigate the effects of rising costs by providing financial discounts on approved digital technologies up to a value of £5000 and improving SME leadership and management skills though subsidised courses.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that gas and electricity suppliers are not increasing customer direct debits more than is necessary as a result of the increasing cost of energy.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government expects all energy suppliers to treat their customers fairly. Ofgem, as the independent regulator, has recently launched a consultation to strengthen the existing requirements on the level of direct debits licensed energy suppliers can charge customers, according to the best and most current information available to them, to ensure credit balances do not become excessive.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to assist households who not have a mains gas supply and are dependent on heating oil, as the cost of oil increases.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government understands that fuel prices are an important component of UK household and business expenditures and understands the negative impact of domestic fuel costs on UK consumers.
The main drivers of changes in heating oil prices are the international traded prices of crude oils and refined products. BEIS continues to monitor the market closely and to work with the industry to mitigate any supply risks to ensure that prices stay as low as possible.
The Government recently announced a £15 billion package to support households with the cost of living, in addition to over £22 billion that had already been committed.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that repayment of debts on prepay energy cards is proportionate and does not lead to increasing debt for customers using prepay (1) meters, and (2) cards.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Prepayment meter consumers who are repaying a debt, repay a set amount each time they top up the credit on the meter for their current use. Energy suppliers are required under the terms of the supply licence to set repayment rates based on a consumer’s ability to pay.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that when estimating bills, energy suppliers estimate historic usage only from the property being billed and not from (1) surrounding, or (2) similar, properties.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Ofgem’s licence conditions stipulate that, when estimating bills, suppliers must ensure that each customer is provided with relevant billing information.
Suppliers must also ensure customers receive regular and accurate bills and take all reasonable steps to obtain meter readings at least annually and make a bill or statement available at least twice per year. They must also take reasonable steps to reflect meter readings in bills that have been provided by a customer.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, given that the energy price cap does not apply to businesses, and that the spot price of natural gas has increased from 47 pence per therm in March 2021 to 296.89 pence per therm in March 2022, what support they intend to provide to businesses, particularly those with high energy use.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government recognises this continues to be a worrying time for businesses facing pressures due to the significant increases in global gas prices.
My Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State has met representatives of the UK’s high energy-using sectors in recent months in order to better understand the impact of energy costs on their businesses, and extensive engagement with industry continues across government at both ministerial and official levels. A Government priority is to ensure that supplies of energy are maintained.
In order to help our industry to remain strong and competitive, between 2013 and 2020, total relief to energy intensive industries for electricity policy costs of over £2 billion was provided. This has so far helped over 270 businesses across the UK. In 2020 alone, the Government provided relief to Energy Intensive Industries (EII) for electricity policy costs worth over £470million.
It was announced on 7 April 2022 in the Energy Security Strategy that the EII Compensation Scheme will be extended for a further three years to protect manufacturing sectors from high electricity costs.
The Government is increasing the level of aid intensity for the scheme from 75% to up to 100% to reduce the electricity price burden for eligible businesses.
This represents more than doubling of the current budget to support energy intensive industries.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much of the £683 million Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund has been paid to claimants; how many claimants have been paid; and what is the mode average amount paid to each claimant.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Since the start of the pandemic, the Government has delivered an unprecedented package of support for business. Nearly £27 billion has been allocated to Local Authorities for the provision of grants for businesses in England. In response to the Omicron variant, BEIS used the latest business property data from the Valuation Office Agency to make available £635 million for Local Authorities to support the hospitality, leisure and accommodation sectors, via the Omicron Hospitality and Leisure Grant (OHLG)
Local Authorities received OHLG funds by the second week of January 2022, and have so far reported to Government that 22,952 payments have been made by 30 January 2022. (This does not indicate the number of businesses but the number of premises.) Local Authorities report to Government that £79 million has been paid out so far in OHLG grants. Government does not publish individual payment details but the mean average payment is £3,457
Regarding the Small Business Grant Fund (SBGF) and the Retail Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund (RHLGF), Local Authorities reported to Government that they had distributed £11.1 billion to businesses. As recorded by 30 September 2020, 906,673 business premises (not the number of unique businesses) in all English Local Authorities had received grants across the two schemes. The mean average payment as reported by Local Authorities was £12,268 for the RHLGF and SBGF schemes combined. This is the average for each payment as reported, not necessarily the average each claimant received if some claimants received more than one payment. The SBGF and RHLGF schemes closed in August 2020.
A full breakdown of grant funding allocated to, and distributed by, each Local Authority, is available on Gov.UK.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they intend to publish their plan to spread research and development funding across all nations and regions of the UK; whether that plan will seek to address the imbalance of research and development spending between London and the South East and other regions and nations; and how that plan will link with other Government policies aimed at supporting the levelling up agenda.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The 2021 Spending Review set out the government’s plan to increase public R&D spending from £14.9bn in 2021/22 to £20 billion per annum by 2024/25. The substantial uplift to research and science funding will not only allow the UK to build on our core strengths but will also provide opportunities to grow research and innovation investment across the entire country as part of the Government’s approach to levelling up the UK economy. Further details of how this funding will be allocated will be announced in due course.
The Government’s Innovation Strategy, published in July, outlined our thinking on how to grow innovation clusters and ensure that research and innovation benefits the economy and society across the UK. The forthcoming Levelling Up White Paper will take a comprehensive place-based approach to economic growth and will set out more detail on how Government will support levelling up through R&D.
The Government is taking steps to increase the transparency of how places benefit from R&D funding. UKRI are publishing detailed breakdowns of their funding data at a regional level annually – the latest available data is on UKRI's website.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Callanan on 6 August 2020 (HL7418), (1) whether they are on track to increase public spending on research and development to £22 billion per year by 2024/25; and if not (2) why not, and (3) how they intend to increase spending on research and development to reach the OECD average for gross domestic expenditure on research and development by 2027.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
At the Spending Review 2021 (SR21), my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer set out the Government’s plan to cement the UK as a global science and technology superpower, with public spending on R&D rising to £20 billion in 2024/25, an increase of around a quarter in real terms over the SR period. This settlement will make significant progress towards the government’s ambition to increase R&D spending to £22 billion by 2026-27, and drive economy-wide R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP in 2027, with over £5 billion of additional annual investment per year by 2024/25.
This settlement represents a significant uplift against one of the most challenging fiscal positions of the last century and provides certainty to our R&D partners of government plans for the next three years. This will help the whole R&D sector plan ahead, which will be particularly welcome given recent fiscal challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Private investment forms over two-thirds of current R&D activity, so it is only by working with innovative businesses and funders from the private sector that we will reach our goal. The Innovation Strategy sets out how we will use enablers such as procurement, regulation, and the identification of key technologies to create the conditions for private sector investment in innovation across the country.
Asked by: Lord Allen of Kensington (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of national gas storage capacity as a percentage of annual national domestic demand; whether they consider current capacty to be sufficient; and what plans they have, if any, to increase gas storage capacity.
Answered by Lord Callanan - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
A strength of the UK is that the Government have a diverse gas supply which prevents over-reliance on natural gas storage which instead plays an important role in providing system flexibility.
Its exposure to global gas prices underscores the importance of its plan to build a strong, home-grown renewable energy sector to reduce further its reliance on fossil fuels. This is why the Government outlined measures to transition to more nuclear and renewable electricity for the future whilst acknowledging the role gas will play in the future for essential security of supply.