Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 is taking to prevent energy companies from breaching licence agreements by forcing customers in vulnerable customers in Newcastle Central constituency onto prepayment meters.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
My Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State has written to Ofgem to ask that they do more to make sure suppliers protect vulnerable consumers. This includes revisiting their approach to enforcing supplier compliance, as well as the urgent publication of recent investigations outcomes into vulnerable customers. I also spoke to Ofgem this morning.
Ofgem is conducting a review that will focus specifically on self-disconnections, remote switching and forced installations and, the checks and balances companies have around any decision to put a customer on a pre-payment meter. If Ofgem find that suppliers have not taken due care in this process, they will take further legal action against the suppliers.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 30 January 2023 to Question 132388 on Government Office for Technology Transfer: Innovation, how many full-time equivalent staff are employed at the Government Office for Technology Transfer.
Answered by George Freeman
The Government Office for Technology Transfer (GOTT) is a Directorate of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). As of the end of January 2023,19.4 full-time equivalent BEIS staff currently work in GOTT.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2023 to Question 122137 on Innovation and Research, if he will set out a timetable for publishing the report and interactive tool on clusters of R&D strength.
Answered by George Freeman
BEIS has received bids for the research to identify clusters of firms performing R&D and innovation in the UK, using innovative methods to collect and analyse granular data on the activities and potential of clusters. The work will start in February and BEIS will aim to publish the findings via a report and digital interactive cluster data mapping tool with an initial version in May 2023.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent discussions his Department has had with Ofgem regarding energy suppliers’ compliance with existing rules on prepayment meters and vulnerable energy customers.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
I met with Ofgem and energy suppliers on 25th January to discuss matters related to energy customers on prepayment meters.
As the independent regulator, Ofgem is responsible for ensuring licensed energy suppliers are complying with their licence conditions. Ofgem publishes details of its compliance and enforcement action on its website at: www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-policy-and-regulation/compliance-and-enforcement.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 17 January 2023 to Question 118994 on Innovation: Public Expenditure, what specific (a) remit, (b) funding and (c) legislative powers the Office for Technology Transfer has to directly lead innovation and cross-governmental research and development.
Answered by George Freeman
The Government Office for Technology Transfer does not possess a mandate, funding, or specific legislative powers to directly lead innovation or cross-government research and development. Its role is to support public sector organisations to identify, protect and exploit their knowledge assets to deliver financial, social, and economic benefits for the UK economy and the UK taxpayer.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reasons publicly-funded research in research institutions such as the National Oceanography Centre is not fully funded by Government.
Answered by George Freeman
The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) delivers world-class science and innovation working in close partnership with UKRI’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The NOC receives funding from NERC’s non-competitive funding and the wider community to pursue science that is nationally and internationally important.
The NOC was part of NERC. From 1 November 2019, NOC operates as an independent research institute, a charitable company limited by guarantee. This new structure ensures that NOC is more agile, financially more resilient with more freedoms and flexibilities. Independent research institutes are funded to deliver their missions collaborating with a greater range of external partners including business and other funders.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential of New Approach Methodologies to progress research into (a) Alzheimer’s disease and (b) Parkinson’s disease.
Answered by George Freeman
The Government actively supports and funds the development and dissemination of non-animal technologies. This is achieved primarily through funding from UKRI for the National Centre for the 3Rs (NC3Rs), which works nationally and internationally to drive the uptake of approaches that replace, reduce and refine the use of animals in research.
Since the NC3Rs was launched in 2004 it has committed £49.2M for research and innovation in non-animal technologies. This includes a recent £4.7M commitment to accelerate the use of non-animal technologies, with £3.7M invested through a joint UKRI-BBSRC and NC3Rs call and an additional £1M committed by UKRI for the development of non-animal technologies to support ageing research.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 is taking to increase and improve R&D collaborations with Indian (a) companies and (b) universities.
Answered by George Freeman
BEIS is planning to host the next biennial UK-India Science and Innovation Council (SIC) in 2023. The SIC will ensure our relationship with India remains ambitious, strategic, outcome-focused and in line with the UK-India 2030 roadmap. It will also provide a platform to formally agree our shared research and innovation priorities and announce new joint programme activities creating links between our research and innovation communities; and celebrate the successes of our existing joint research and innovation programmes delivered through the Newton Bhabha Fund, which has had a transformational effect on our R&I relationship with India.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 12 January 2023 to Question 118995 on Help to Grow Schemes: North East, whether data on Help To Grow schemes will be published by March 2023.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Data on the Help to Grow Schemes will be released in Spring 2023 after Help to Grow: Digital has closed.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the keynote speech made by the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation at Onward UK on 11 January 2023, when he plans to establish a unit in his Department to monitor the success of the UK’s clusters of innovation; and what its (a) name, (b) budget and (c) remit will be.
Answered by George Freeman
BEIS analysts are using their expertise to map the UK’s innovation clusters and understand trends, barriers and opportunities within them. Monitoring and evaluation are at the heart of good policy making, so we are also ensuring this is in place for all initiatives that help to support the UK’s clusters to realise their potential. For example, we are establishing a monitoring and evaluation framework to assess the impact of Innovation Accelerators, which is a new pilot programme supporting Glasgow, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands to become major, globally competitive centres for research and innovation.