Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of the draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2024 on the incomes of farmers.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
As part of our transition away from Direct Payments, the draft Agriculture (Delinked Payments) (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2024 will apply reductions to delinked payments in 2024. However, this money is not being lost to the sector. The overall farming budget in England is being maintained at an average of £2.4 billion per year across this Parliament. The money released from the reductions is being reinvested in our other schemes for farmers and land managers. This means farmers can access funding which will help reduce costs and improve productivity and resilience, as well as benefitting the environment.
Analysis of the impacts of removing Direct Payments was included in the Government’s 2019 farming evidence compendium and 2021 and 2022 Agriculture in the UK Evidence Packs.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have died while attempting to cross the English Channel to the UK illegally in each year since 2020.
Answered by Michael Tomlinson - Minister of State (Minister for Illegal Migration)
The Home Office is aware of a total of 69 persons known to have died while attempting to cross the English Channel in small boats since 2020:
2020: 6 deaths reported
2021: 34 deaths reported
2022: 4 deaths reported
2023: 12 deaths reported
2024: 13 deaths reported (as at 30 April 2024)
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what his policy is on open finance.
Answered by Bim Afolami - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The financial services sector is currently at the forefront of Smart Data, through a combination of Open Banking and the HM Treasury-funded Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), which recently published recommendations for driving Open Finance forward in the UK.
HM Treasury has worked closely with the Department for Business and Trade as it developed its Smart Data roadmap, which sets out the government’s ambition for future Smart Data scheme development across seven different sectors, including finance, and is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-smart-data-roadmap-action-the-government-is-taking-in-2024-to-2025.
As set out in the roadmap, HM Treasury will carefully consider CFIT’s recommendations for Open Finance, alongside wider industry engagement, as it develops its strategy for Open Finance.
In April 2024, HM Treasury also announced the launch of an industry-led taskforce, which will identify and prioritise Open Finance use cases and data-sets that could be unlocked to improve SME access to credit.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to reform the Boiler Upgrade Scheme to support off-gas properties.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government published its response to the consultation on amendments to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) in March. We will be making a series of changes including: removing insulation requirements; increasing the capacity limit for shared ground loops from 45kW to 300kW; expanding the definition of biomass boilers to include those with a cooking function and introducing flexibility to allow for the potential future differentiation of grant levels for off grid properties.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to help support British heat pump manufacturers.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government is supporting heat pump manufacturers through the Heat Pump Investment Accelerator Competition, which will provide up to £30m in grant funding for manufacturers to create new, or expand or repurpose existing, factories to produce heat pumps and key components. The Competition is expected to create capacity for up to 270,000 heat pumps a year and support up to 1,000 jobs.
Heat pump manufacturers can also take advantage of other incentives offered by Government for industry as a whole, such as investment zones which can provide direct and indirect support such as a range of tax reliefs.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of the Green Heat Network fund in supporting shared ground loop deployment in rural off-gas grid areas.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
I refer my hon Friend to the answer I gave on 21 March 2024 to my hon Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) to Question UIN 18922.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to help support the deployment of shared ground loops in rural areas.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme provides grants of £7,500 to support the installation of air source, ground source and water source heat pumps including plants installed as part of a shared ground loop. We are increasing the shared ground loops system capacity limit in May from 45kW to 300kW to address the concerns that groundworks for ground source heat pumps are a significant barrier to deployment.
Shared ground loop installations which satisfy the eligibility criteria for the Green Heat Network Fund can apply to the scheme for support. To be eligible, applicants must demonstrate that their networks can deliver a minimum of 2GWh per year of heat.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what steps her Department is taking to support clean heat installations in rural areas.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government ‘help to heat’ schemes supports deployment of low carbon heating in rural areas through ECO, Wave 2 of SHDF and HUG2.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme also provides grants of £7,500 towards upfront cost and installation of air and ground source heat pumps. Up to the end of February 2024, 57% of grants paid out were for clean heat installations in rural areas
Through the Heat Network Transformation Programme, the Government is working with industry and local authorities to develop new heat networks and improve existing ones, including investing £500 million half a billion pounds in funds.
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what his planned timetable is for publication of the report on improving sampling and analysis of microplastics in surface waters and sediments.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The report has been published. It can be accessed via Defra’s Science Search web site - Measurement and Characterisation of Microplastics in English River Catchment Waters and Sediments - WT15135 (defra.gov.uk).
Asked by: Bill Wiggin (Conservative - North Herefordshire)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants in removing microplastics from waste water.
Answered by Robbie Moore - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
A recent UK water industry project investigated the quantities and types of microplastics entering a range of wastewater treatment works. The Department reviewed the findings from the work and agrees with the conclusion that conventional wastewater treatment is effective in removing microplastics from wastewater. The evidenced showed treatment processes can take out an average of 99% of microplastics (by-number of microplastics) and 99.5% by-mass from wastewater arriving at the works.