Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
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 has spent on headhunters in each of the last three years.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
This information is not held centrally and can only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
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 impact of Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision on the UK's video games industry, including on independent video game developers.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Under competition law, responsibility for investigating the impact of mergers and acquisitions on competition falls to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s independent competition authority. The Government has ensured that the CMA has significant powers and expertise to investigate the benefits and risks of mergers in relation to competition.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with the Competition and Markets Authority on the potential merits of maintaining competition in the video games industry in the context of assessing Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Under competition law, responsibility for investigating the impact of mergers and acquisitions on competition falls to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the UK’s independent competition authority. The Government has ensured that the CMA has significant powers and expertise to investigate the benefits and risks of mergers in relation to competition.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the cost to the public purse has been of Ministerial severance pay in his Department in each year since 1 January 2016.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
Under the Ministerial and Other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991, eligible Ministers who leave office are entitled to a one-off payment equivalent to one quarter of their annual salary at the point at which they leave Government.
This applies only where a Minister is under 65 and is not appointed to a ministerial office within three weeks of leaving government.
Individuals may waive the payment to which they are entitled. That is a matter for their personal discretion, but this approach has been taken in the past.
Details of such payments are published in departmental annual reports and accounts, and ministerial salaries are published on GOV.UK.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
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 help small and medium-sized enterprises manage the impact of high inflation.
Answered by Dean Russell
The Government has reversed the National Insurance rise, which will save small businesses approximately £4,200, cut fuel duty for 12 months and brought in the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, to protect small business’ high energy bills over the winter.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
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 he has had with the Insolvency Service regarding the status of its investigation into Flight Reclaim.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Insolvency Service has undertaken an investigation into the conduct of the director of Flight Reclaim Limited.
Contact with those directors is ongoing so it is not appropriate for any further comment to be made at this time. Doing so may affect any resulting court proceedings, either by the Insolvency Service or any other party.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he is taking steps to ensure that online travel operators will meet ABTA's 31 July 2020 deadline to issue cash refunds to customers for cancelled holidays; and what steps he plans to take to ensure compliance with the package holiday travel regulations by operators that do not issue cash refunds.
Answered by Paul Scully
Consumers are entitled to a full refund if a package holiday is cancelled due to unavoidable and extraordinary circumstances, which should be issued within 14 days. The Government is clear that these refunds must be paid when asked for by the consumer.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has issued guidance to explain to consumers and business the circumstances when refunds are due as a consequence of the disruption caused by the Covid-19 outbreak. The CMA has a programme of work to ensure refunds arising from the Covid-19 outbreak are paid. If the CMA finds evidence that companies are failing to comply with the law, the CMA will take appropriate enforcement action, which could include taking a firm to court if it does not address its concerns. The CMA has also set up a Covid-19 taskforce for consumers to register complaints, available through: https://www.coronavirus-business-complaint.service.gov.uk/.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment she has made of the effect of the Freedom of Establishment and Free Movement of Services (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 on the right to deliver services of EU and EEA business owners resident and operating in the UK.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Freedom of Establishment and Free Movement of Services (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 will not have any impact on the ability of EU and EEA business owners resident and operating in the UK to deliver their services on exit.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on planned future VAT increases on solar panel installations.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Solar PV is a UK success story, with rapid deployment over the last 8 years, over 99% of the UK’s solar PV capacity has been deployed since May 2010. We are already exceeding our 2020 projections today, with over 13GW of solar capacity installed in the UK, enough to power over 3 million homes.
I regularly discuss a range of issues with my rt. hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer. HM Treasury’s proposed changes reflect the strong result we negotiated on behalf of industry; solar installations should be largely unaffected where material costs make up less than 60% of total installation costs.
Asked by: Christine Jardine (Liberal Democrat - Edinburgh West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure the growth of wind power is responsibly managed and taxpayer funded constraint payments to that sector are reduced.
Answered by Claire Perry
The taxpayer does not fund constraint payments. These payments are made by National Grid Electricity System Operator through competitive market arrangements as part of ensuring the secure and efficient operation of the electricity system. These arrangements predate the connection of wind farms to the transmission network by many years, and payments are made to various types of generation.