Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, whether she will issue guidance to planning authorities on the cumulative impact of carbon emissions from infrastructure projects on the Government’s carbon reduction targets.
Answered by Matthew Pennycook - Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
The government’s Planning Practice Guidance on Climate Change, its National Design Guide and National Model Design Code provide general guidance on how carbon impacts can be taken into account in the town and country planning process.
For Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects, National Policy Statements set out not only the need case for the infrastructure, but also the principles and types of impact against which they will be assessed (including air quality and carbon impacts).
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will take steps to oppose any (a) forcible displacement and (b) ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
Answered by Hamish Falconer - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Government's objective remans a negotiated two-state solution, with a sovereign Palestinian state, which includes the West Bank and Gaza, alongside a safe and secure Israel. In order to deliver this, it is clear that Palestinian civilians must be permitted to return to their communities in Gaza and rebuild and that there can be no forcible transfer of Gazans from or within Gaza, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip. The new US administration played an integral role in negotiating the ceasefire agreement, alongside Qatar and Egypt. The UK will continue to work closely with the US to sustain the fragile ceasefire, ensure that all the hostages are released, increase the supply of aid, and break the ongoing cycle of violence in pursuit of a permanent, sustainable peace.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing the value of the Bereavement Support payment.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Bereavement Support Payment is intended to help people through the immediate period following a bereavement. It is not a cost-of-living benefit like Universal Credit, which is generally increased in line with inflation. The rate of Bereavement Support Payment is reviewed on a discretionary basis as part of the annual uprating process, but there is no legal requirement to uprate it.
Whilst we have no plans to uprate BSP from April, the Government keeps all benefits including Bereavement Support Payments, under review.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make it her policy to uprate Bereavement Support Payments annually in line with inflation.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Bereavement Support Payment is intended to help people through the immediate period following a bereavement. It is not a cost-of-living benefit like Universal Credit, which is generally increased in line with inflation. The rate of Bereavement Support Payment is reviewed on a discretionary basis as part of the annual uprating process, but there is no legal requirement to uprate it.
Whilst we have no plans to uprate BSP from April, the Government keeps all benefits including Bereavement Support Payments, under review.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether it is his policy to stop issuing development consents for all new oil and gas fields.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government has committed that it will not revoke existing licences and will partner with business and workers to manage our existing fields for the entirety of their lifespan.
We have already consulted on revised environmental guidance for development consents to take into account emissions from burning extracted oil and gas to provide stability for industry.
This consultation closed in January, and we are working to have guidance in place as soon as possible.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what the cost to the public purse was of legal services used by the Government in relation to potential Rosebank oil and gas field development since 4 July 2024; and whether further legal costs have been accounted for in his Department’s (a) current and (b) future budgets.
Answered by Michael Shanks - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Department has paid a total of £26,773 in legal fees relating to the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields since 4 July 2024.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate her Department has made of the potential impact of new UK oil and gas extraction on (a) GDP and (b) tax receipts in each of the next five years.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
It is a long-standing convention that the government does not discuss individual taxpayers, and so the government cannot discuss the amount of tax relief available to individual companies in relation to the oil and gas fields they may have a commercial interest in.
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) most recent forecast of tax revenues from the oil and gas sector was published at Autumn Budget 2024 in the Economic and Fiscal Outlook October 2024 (https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-october-2024/), which also includes other economic projections. The OBR’s tax revenue forecast does not give a breakdown by field or company to protect taxpayer confidentiality but takes into account the impact of relevant, available tax reliefs.
Where data is available, estimates of the cost of tax reliefs available to oil and gas companies are published on gov.uk (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tax-relief-statistics). This publication contains non-disclosive estimates of the number of claimants for each relief.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether her Department has budgeted for any (a) investment tax credit and (b) ringfenced expenditure supplement to be paid to (i) Equinor and (ii) Ithaca in connection to Rosebank oil field development after February 2025.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
It is a long-standing convention that the government does not discuss individual taxpayers, and so the government cannot discuss the amount of tax relief available to individual companies in relation to the oil and gas fields they may have a commercial interest in.
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) most recent forecast of tax revenues from the oil and gas sector was published at Autumn Budget 2024 in the Economic and Fiscal Outlook October 2024 (https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-october-2024/), which also includes other economic projections. The OBR’s tax revenue forecast does not give a breakdown by field or company to protect taxpayer confidentiality but takes into account the impact of relevant, available tax reliefs.
Where data is available, estimates of the cost of tax reliefs available to oil and gas companies are published on gov.uk (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tax-relief-statistics). This publication contains non-disclosive estimates of the number of claimants for each relief.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether (a) Equinor and (b) Ithaca have received (i) investment tax credit and (ii) ringfence expenditure supplement in connection to Rosebank oil field development in the period leading up to January 2025.
Answered by James Murray - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
It is a long-standing convention that the government does not discuss individual taxpayers, and so the government cannot discuss the amount of tax relief available to individual companies in relation to the oil and gas fields they may have a commercial interest in.
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) most recent forecast of tax revenues from the oil and gas sector was published at Autumn Budget 2024 in the Economic and Fiscal Outlook October 2024 (https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-october-2024/), which also includes other economic projections. The OBR’s tax revenue forecast does not give a breakdown by field or company to protect taxpayer confidentiality but takes into account the impact of relevant, available tax reliefs.
Where data is available, estimates of the cost of tax reliefs available to oil and gas companies are published on gov.uk (https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tax-relief-statistics). This publication contains non-disclosive estimates of the number of claimants for each relief.
Asked by: Carla Denyer (Green Party - Bristol Central)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2025 to Question 902576 on Employment: Asylum, what the gender balance of dependents of asylum seekers is; what assessment she has made of the impact of the rules that do not allow those dependants to work on the Government’s (a) aim to deliver an asylum process that is gender sensitive and (b) wider strategy to tackle violence against women and girls.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Home Office)
We are committed to delivering an asylum process that is gender sensitive, building on the Government’s wider strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. All decision-makers receive mandatory training on considering asylum claims and must follow published Home Office policy guidance, including guidance on gender issues, which covers specific forms of gender-based persecution.
The Home Office also continues to invest in a programme of transformation to speed up decision making and therefore reduce the time people spend in the asylum system. This approach will ensure that genuine asylum seekers can be accepted quickly and gain access to the labour market, and those who are not can be removed to their home country.
The Home Office publishes data on asylum in the ‘Immigration System Statistics Quarterly Release’. Data on asylum claims by applicant type and sex is published in table Asy_D01 of the ‘Asylum applications, initial decisions and resettlement detailed datasets’. The latest data relates to the year ending September 2024.