Andrea Jenkyns

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have, therefore, asked the Authority to respond.

The Government has committed to relocating 22,000 roles from London across the UK, ensuring the Civil Service is representative of the communities it serves, bringing more diversity of thought into policy-making.

The Places for Growth Programme is at the heart of delivering this agenda by providing economic boost to small cities and towns across the UK through the relocation of civil service roles.

A number of department announcements have taken place with plans to increase civil service presence in the Leeds region. The Department for Transport will establish a northern hub in Leeds, The Department for Work and Pensions are also committed to continuing to expand their presence in the city with a ministerial office and The Department for Health & Social Care will have a regular ministerial presence in its existing second HQ.

The abuse and intimidation of those engaging in political campaigning is completely unacceptable. The Government takes the security and integrity of elections, and those participating in elections, very seriously. We have coordinated structures in place to support the secure delivery of democratic events. The police lead on local security incidents, and reported incidents will be addressed by the relevant authorities as appropriate.

There is a range of security advice provided on GOV.UK to support the safety of those participating in elections. In a Written Ministerial Statement (HCWS833) on 9 March I set out a number of actions the Government is taking to tackle intimidation in public life. Amongst those actions, the Elections Bill will introduce a new electoral sanction which bans someone convicted of intimidating a political campaigner from standing for and holding elected office for five years.

Regulations that place COVID-secure requirements on businesses, including table service, and distancing between tables, will be lifted. ‘Working Safely’ guidance will be updated to provide examples of sensible precautions that employers can take to reduce risk in their workplaces. Employers should take account of this guidance in preparing the risk assessments they are already required to make under pre-pandemic health and safety rules.

The Government recognises the vital role that industry has played in helping to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak and in leading the recovery from the pandemic.

We have recently published our Green Paper setting out proposals and demonstrating the possibilities for public procurement rules reform. Our proposals are wide-ranging and are designed to better meet national needs by cutting red tape, reducing bureaucracy and helping to unleash wider social benefits from public money spent on procurement whilst respecting our international obligations.

Along with the above, we want British business to be in the best competitive position to win international contracts. To this end, our membership of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement gives British businesses access to £1.3 trillion in public procurement opportunities overseas.

The timetable for the compensation study will be finalised after the terms of reference have been agreed, but we expect the study to be completed and published before the Inquiry concludes its work.

The independent reviewer will be selected from a shortlist of candidates with the professional standing, skills, and expertise to undertake the study. The shortlist of candidates will be proposed by the Civil Service. The name of the reviewer will be announced shortly.

The timetable for the compensation study will be finalised after the terms of reference have been agreed, but we expect the study to be completed and published before the Inquiry concludes its work.

The independent reviewer will be selected from a shortlist of candidates with the professional standing, skills, and expertise to undertake the study. The shortlist of candidates will be proposed by the Civil Service. The name of the reviewer will be announced shortly.

I hold meetings with other leaders regularly in order to further the UK’s foreign policy interests. Information about these meetings is in the public domain and can be found on the gov.uk website and in Hansard.

I refer the Honourable Member to my Written Ministerial Statement of 3 November, in which I commit to making a further statement on the running of the inquiry before the end of this year.

The Government has granted time-limited exemptions for offshore wind farms in the Contracts for Difference scheme to sell their transmission assets. The exemptions were decided on a case-by-case basis and were subject to public consultation. They are as follows:

- Walney Extension was granted a nine-month exemption to June 2020;

- Hornsea 1 was granted a six-month exemption to July 2021;

- Beatrice was granted a 12-month exemption to October 2021;

- East Anglia One was granted two exemptions of three and 10 months to April 2023;

- Triton Knoll was granted a 9-month exemption to July 2023; and

- Moray East was granted a 6-month exemption to March 2024.

When the UK has reached net zero in 2050, around a quarter of the UK's energy needs will come from oil and gas. This figure is calculated using data published by the Climate Change Committee in its Sixth Carbon Budget advice. By 2050 oil use will become increasingly concentrated in aviation and gas will be used with carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) to generate electricity and hydrogen. Global outlooks also point to the need for continued, but declining, oil and gas use, highlighting the importance of CCUS.

The Government has invested over £300 million to secure and scale-up the UK’s manufacturing capabilities to be able to respond to this pandemic, as well as any future pandemics. This includes:

a) Facilities that have come online:

• £65.5 million for the early manufacture of the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine;
• £8.75 million for the set-up of the rapid deployment facility at Oxford Biomedica in Oxfordshire;
• £8.6 million to the Centre of Process Innovation to develop GMP-ready mRNA manufacturing capability;
• £4.7 million for skills training through the Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network, which will be delivered through both virtual and physical centres; and
• Funding for fill and finish through a contract with Wockhardt in Wrexham, North Wales, which is currently providing fill and finish capabilities to the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

b) Facilities that will come online later this year, to help provide longer-term UK capacity:

• £140.6 million to accelerate the completion and expanded role of the Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Oxfordshire;
• £127 million for the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in Braintree, Essex; and
• Funding for the expansion of the Valneva factory in Livingston, Scotland.

The Government recognises the importance of critical raw minerals for the development of zero emission vehicles. We are committed to building an agile, innovative and cost-competitive supply chain for these vehicles in the UK to support our commitment to end the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030.

Batteries for electric vehicles require a range of critical materials, including lithium. Government has supported a number of initiatives to find and use lithium in the UK, including work in Cornwall to develop lithium extraction plants.

The Government is also investing £318m in the Faraday Battery Challenge to put the UK at the global forefront of the design, development, manufacturing, and recycling of electric batteries. In addition, the Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF) aims to develop and embed at pace the next generation of cutting-edge zero emission automotive technologies in the UK. £500m of funding for the ATF will be made available in the next four years for businesses across the UK to fund investments across the whole supply chain.

The Government has invested over £300 million to secure and scale up the UK’s manufacturing capabilities to be able to respond to the pandemic, including:

a) Facilities that have come online:

• £4.7 million for skills training through the Advanced Therapies Skills Training Network, which will be delivered through both virtual and physical centres;
• £8.75 million for the set-up of the rapid deployment facility at Oxford Biomedica in Oxfordshire;
• £65.5 million for the early manufacture of the University of Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine; and
• Funding for fill and finish capability through a contract with Wockhardt in Wrexham, North Wales. The Government have recently extended Wockhardt’s contract from 18 to 24 months, to ensure that we have uninterrupted fill and finish capability into 2022.

b) Facilities that will come online later this year, to help provide longer term UK capacity:

• £93 million to accelerate the completion and expanded role of the Vaccines Manufacturing Innovation Centre in Oxfordshire; and
• £127 million for the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult in Braintree, Essex.

In addition to the above, we have also funded the expansion of the Valneva factory in Livingston, Scotland.

The Government aims to make the United Kingdom the best place to start, grow and run a business. The Government provides a wide range of support and information for small businesses. The main source of information is the GOV.UK website, with support also available via the Business Support Helpline on FREEPHONE 0800 998 1098 and via the network of 38 local Growth Hubs in England.

The Government understands that accessing finance can be a barrier to small and medium businesses (SMEs) starting out. This is why we established the Start Up Loans programme in 2012. For those starting a new business or for businesses which have been trading for up to 24 months, the Start Up Loans Company provides loans of between £500 to £25,000 at a competitive rate of 6%. In addition to finance, every loan recipient is offered a dedicated mentoring service and access to a free expert business mentor for 12 months to help them with every aspect of setting up a business. The Start Up Loans programme, operated by the British Business Bank, has delivered almost 77,000 loans overall in the UK, supporting nearly £650 million of funding since the programme’s launch in 2012 to the end of September 2020.

In summer 2018, the British Business Bank also launched a website that offers independent and impartial information on different finance options for scale-up, high growth and potential high growth businesses. The site features infographics and checklists to help businesses get ‘investor ready’ as well as articles and guides from finance providers on how smaller businesses can identify and access finance suited to their growth ambitions. At its heart is the Finance Hub’s Finance Finder, a simple six-step tool that enables smaller business to explore and identify finance options suited to their needs. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the Finance Hub has been updated to clearly signpost the financial support options available for businesses during this period of economic uncertainty.

Further initiatives include the BEIS-led Small Business Leadership Programme and Peer-to-Peer networks, to help businesses build resilience and grow. The Young Innovators Programme was also launched by Innovate UK and the Prince’s Trust to support young entrepreneurs with tailored mentoring and access to £5,000 funding.

The Office for National Statistics has published information on business closures up to September 2020, but this is at a regional level and is not broken down to a constituency level. Information at a regional level for quarter 2 2020 (April to June 2020) and quarter 3 2020 (July to September 2020) on business closures forms part of ‘Business demography, quarterly experimental statistics, UK: July to September 2020.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/activitysizeandlocation/bulletins/businessdemographyquarterlyexperimentalstatisticsuk/julytoseptember2020

Just over £66 million has been provided to businesses in Wakefield via the Small Business Grant Fund and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund in the Financial Year 2020/21 Leeds City Region Growth Hub has been allocated £780k to engage and support businesses, including in Wakefield.

The Government has made clear that where businesses are required to close as part of localised restrictions being put in place to manage the spread of covid-19, further financial support will be made available.

Just over £155 million has been provided to businesses in Leeds via the Small Business Grant Fund and the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Fund and in the Financial Year 2020/21 Leeds City Region Growth Hub has been allocated £780k to engage with businesses in this area.

The Government has made clear that where businesses are required to close as part of localised restrictions being put in place to manage the spread of covid-19, further financial support will be made available.

Our approach is clinically led, based on the expert advice of the UK’s Chief Medical Officer for England, the NHS and Public Health England. Putting the safety of all workers at the forefront of this guidance. We are led by the evolving science in this work and as the scientific and medical advice changes, the guidance will be updated to reflect this.

Businesses will want to do all they can to keep their staff and customers safe. They must conduct thorough risk assessments on how best to do that and ensure they can keep their business going. Guidance for businesses can be found at www.gov.uk/workingsafely.

We have now provided other close contact services like beauty salons in England, except Leicester, with the certainty they need to reopen from Monday 13 July, subject to them following the COVID-secure guidelines.

We need to be confident services are able to reopen in a COVID-secure way for the staff and customers. Our approach is guided by the scientific and medical advice, and our guidance has been developed with input from firms, unions, industry bodies and the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and in consultation with Public Health England (PHE) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

The UK’s greenhouse gas emissions data are compiled and published according to international requirements. We will be publishing provisional estimates of 2020 emissions in March 2021 based on provisional energy use data, and final estimates of 2020 emissions in February 2022. The greenhouse gas emission statistics we publish are available from the following webpage: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-statistics.

The Department has however published data on energy use [link] during 2020 which shows for example that petrol and diesel sales in the seven weeks after 23 March 2020 were 39% the average levels of the prior eight weeks. The Committee on Climate Change’s 2020 Progress Report estimates that the UK’s daily CO2 emissions were around 30% lower than mean 2019 levels during the peak of the lockdown in April and May 2020 [link].

The offer made by Anglo-American to acquire Sirius Minerals is a commercial matter between the companies and their shareholders; therefore, it would not be appropriate for me to comment.

The Government is closely monitoring developments of COVID-19 in relation to potential economic impacts on UK businesses, supply chains, and the wider economy.

Legislation prohibits traders from using misleading or aggressive selling practices towards consumers. Preventing consumer rips offs like these is a key priority for the Government, and we will consult early this year on strengthening consumer enforcement arrangements further. Consumers who believe they have been a victim of pressure selling should report the matter through the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 (www.citizensadvice.org.uk). Consumers living in Scotland should report the matter through Advice Direct Scotland on 0808 164 6000 (www.consumeradvice.scot/).

We are committed to looking at alternative funding models that could improve the value for money of new nuclear projects. We have consulted on a Regulated Asset Base funding model as an option that could attract private sector capital at a lower cost to consumers. The consultation closed on 14 October 2019 and we are currently considering the feedback.

Indigenous oil production was equivalent to around 70 percent of the UK’s oil demand in 2018 and plays an important role in meeting our energy needs. The UK also benefits from diverse sources of supply through access to a global market for crude oil and refined oil products. Growth in global oil demand is expected to be lower than originally forecast for 2019, helping to ensure there are healthy levels of global oil stocks and resilience to global oil supply disruptions.

The Government’s continued commitment to the Northern Powerhouse, and the North’s vital role in improving the country’s productivity, is reflected in my rt. hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s recent decision to make the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse and Local Growth a joint appointment between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and and Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. This builds on the commitment at Autumn Budget 2018 to refresh the Northern Powerhouse Strategy.

The Strategy will be developed across government and in partnership with external stakeholders, including mayoral combined authorities, Local Enterprise Partnerships and civic and business leaders, to ensure the whole of the North of England benefits from government investment with a clear plan for improved productivity and prosperity. It will also reflect the development of Local Industrial Strategies across the North, the first of which was published last month by Greater Manchester with government.

The refreshed Northern Powerhouse Strategy will be published in due course.

The Department’s agency, the Intellectual Property Office, has regular discussions with a range of music collecting societies. Collecting societies are private, commercial organisations and, although the Government regulates them in some respects, it plays no role in setting their licence tariffs. Businesses that are dissatisfied may have recourse to the Copyright Tribunal, an independent judicial body which adjudicates on the price and terms of copyright licences.

Decisions regarding payments to subcontractors and suppliers to Carillion are the responsibility of the court-appointed Official Receiver. In his role as liquidator, the Official Receiver is an officer of the court and independent of Government.

The Government has also taken swift action to put in place support to those affected by this insolvency event. The Banks have made provision for nearly £1 billion of support to those affected and the British Business Bank will provide support of up to £100 million of lending to small businesses through its Enterprise Finance Guarantee programme. HMRC will provide practical advice and guidance to those who were contracted to Carillion and are now concerned about their ability to pay tax.

In its response to the Insolvency and Corporate Governance consultation on 26 August 2018, the Government announced that it will increase the current £600,000 cap on the proportion of funds that can be ring-fenced and paid over to unsecured creditors, including small and medium-sized enterprises, ahead of the usual order of priority in an insolvency. The increase will be in line with the impact of inflation on the current cap since it came into effect in 2003, increasing the cap to approximately £800,000.

The amounts allocated by year for each operational programme for the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF) in the UK for the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework is set out in table 1.6 of the United Kingdom’s Partnership Agreement with the European Commission which can be found on GOV.UK at ‘European Structural and Investment Funds: UK Partnership Agreement’. The table is attached. Each annual allocation needs to be spent within three years.