Asked by: Alyn Smith (Scottish National Party - Stirling)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether (a) he or (b) any other ministers in his Department have met with any Russian-based companies since 24 February 2022.
Answered by Jane Hunt
Ministers regularly meet with external stakeholders. Details of ministerial meetings with external organisations are published quarterly and can be found on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/beis-ministerial-gifts-hospitality-travel-and-meetings.
Data for January to March 2022 will be published shortly.
Asked by: Alyn Smith (Scottish National Party - Stirling)
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 has taken to ensure the UK has a strong disaster risk disclosure for UK licenced companies that work internationally.
Answered by Paul Scully
The UK has responded to the growing demand for non-financial information in UK corporate reporting, by introducing measures to increase and improve the public disclosures entities make. In 2013, the UK introduced the requirement for certain entities to produce a strategic report, an ambitious change which required directors and boards to take a broad range of issues into account in the running of their company, including on social and environmental matters.
These requirements were expanded in 2016, through the introduction of additional disclosure requirements for all large Public Interest Entities (PIEs), to require a description of the principal risks relating to social and environmental matters. In addition to this, and where relevant, the entity must also include a description of the business relationships, products and services which are likely to cause adverse impacts on risks relating to social and environmental matters, and provide a description of how the entity manages those risks.
More recently, in 2022, the UK became the first country in the G20 to mandate large public and private businesses to report their climate-related financial disclosures in line with the framework set out by the Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosure, including their exposures to climate change-based risks.
Asked by: Alyn Smith (Scottish National Party - Stirling)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many communications staff are employed (a) full time (b) part time and (c) with flexible working arrangements in his Department.
Answered by George Freeman
The number of staff working in BEIS to deliver the communications functions currently is 104. Eighty seven are employed on full time contracts, 14 are employed on part time. 3 have flexible working arrangements.
Asked by: Alyn Smith (Scottish National Party - Stirling)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much his Department spends on the employment of communications staff annually.
Answered by George Freeman
The pay cost of communications staff for the financial year 2021 to 2022 is £6.86m. This covers all areas of the Communications team – Press Office, Strategic Comms, External Affairs, Digital Comms, Marketing, Internal Comms, administrative support and the BEIS public enquiry contact centre.
Asked by: Alyn Smith (Scottish National Party - Stirling)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the role of HMRC reference numbers was in the delivery of coronavirus Bounce Back Loans.
Answered by Paul Scully
Working with government, the British Business Bank introduced a turnover check for the Bounce Back Loan Scheme which used HMRC data to enable lenders to voluntarily verify whether turnovers provided by businesses on BBLS application forms were accurate. This was put in place from December 2020 and was one of a number of additional checks introduced after the launch of the scheme.