Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the maximum period is that a Post Office can be closed temporarily without the need for any pubic consultation.
Answered by Margot James
The Government requires Post Office to meet national access criteria to ensure proximity to customers. Within that criteria, the provision and location of post offices is the operational responsibility of Post Office Limited.
There are two other Post Office branches located 1 mile away (Purewell Cross Post Office and Stourvale Post Office) from which customers can access a wide range of services until a suitable solution is found. Both branches offer extended opening hours with the Stourvale branch being open from 6am to 11pm, 7 days a week.
The Post Office regrets instances where a post office is forced to close temporarily, however a temporary closure is normally the result of a situation beyond the control of the Post Office. There is no maximum time set to resolve a temporary closure and the time this can take will vary depending on the individual local circumstances in each case. The Post Office continues investigate and explore solutions which will enable it to restore the provision of services to the Christchurch community as soon as possible.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will take steps to require the Post Office to reinstate post office services in Christchurch town centre.
Answered by Margot James
The Government requires Post Office to meet national access criteria to ensure proximity to customers. Within that criteria, the provision and location of post offices is the operational responsibility of Post Office Limited.
There are two other Post Office branches located 1 mile away (Purewell Cross Post Office and Stourvale Post Office) from which customers can access a wide range of services until a suitable solution is found. Both branches offer extended opening hours with the Stourvale branch being open from 6am to 11pm, 7 days a week.
The Post Office regrets instances where a post office is forced to close temporarily, however a temporary closure is normally the result of a situation beyond the control of the Post Office. There is no maximum time set to resolve a temporary closure and the time this can take will vary depending on the individual local circumstances in each case. The Post Office continues investigate and explore solutions which will enable it to restore the provision of services to the Christchurch community as soon as possible.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to enable smart meters to be read by all energy suppliers and not exclusively by the company installing the smart meter; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jesse Norman
Energy suppliers will be able to read meters (‘SMETS2’ meters) installed onto the new smart metering national data and communications infrastructure, when a consumer switches supplier. This is up and running in the majority of the country and will be available across the country in the next few weeks.
Work by both the Data and Communications Company and SMETS1 communications service providers is underway on ways to make SMETS1 meters interoperable. Once this is complete, consumers with SMETS1 meters will also be able to retain smart services on switching energy supplier.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will instruct Student Finance England to respond to student number 03530036915 at the University of the West of England on the submission of that student's 2015-16 declaration form.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Student Finance England has confirmed that it has recently been in contact with the relevant student, and that their 2015-16 declaration form has been processed.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if she will make it the policy of the Government that electricity customers across the UK should pay the same for electricity transportation.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Electricity network charges vary by region and reflect the costs of running the network in that area and the number of consumers that those costs are spread over. The Government does not plan to move to national network charging, as the current cost reflective approach helps to ensure efficient use of the network and keeps overall costs down for bill payers across Great Britain. In contrast, national pricing risks an overall increase in network costs by weakening each network company’s local accountability to its customers, as well as making charges less transparent. On 23 October 2015, Ofgem published a report on the regional differences in network charges, which found no compelling case from a regulatory perspective to move to a national network charge. The report is available at:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/regional-differences-network-charges.
The Government will continue to consider any evidence that is presented.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what the cost per kilowatt hour is of electricity transportation charged to consumers in (a) Orkney, (b) the north of Scotland and (c) the south of Scotland.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Ofgem published an analysis of regional differences in network charges on 23 October 2015 which is available at:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/ofgem-report-regional-differences-network-charges.
Based on data contained in this report, the typical cost of electricity transmission and distribution in 2015/16 for a standard domestic tariff in the north of Scotland was 4.6 pence per kilowatt hour, and 3.7 pence per kilowatt hour for the south of Scotland (excluding VAT). There is no difference in electricity transmission and distribution charges between consumers in Orkney and the rest of the north of Scotland.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what (a) evidence her Department holds and (b) research her Department has undertaken on the effect of smart meters on people with electromagnetic hypersensitivity.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
DECC takes its advice on matters related to public health from Public Health England.
Public Health England has conducted and reviewed research on the effects of smart meters and has stated that the radio waves produced by smart meters do not pose a risk to health, including to those who identify themselves as electromagnetically sensitive. More information can be found at:
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to page 15 of the Government's publication, The Process of withdrawing from the European Union, CM 9216, for what reason the rights and obligations which the UK currently has with other non-EU WTO members would not subsist when the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Anna Soubry
As set out in Cm 9216, in the event that we leave the EU, we would need to update the terms of our WTO membership where the commitments taken have previously applied to the EU as a whole. This would not be a straightforward process as, if we leave the EU, then we would need all other WTO Members to agree how the UK will take on the rights and obligations which we have formerly taken as part of the EU. This would mean submitting UK schedules and, until this process was completed, there could be questions surrounding our rights to access WTO members’ markets, and our ability to enforce those rights. These issues are also addressed in the Government publication, Alternatives to Membership: possible models for the United Kingdom outside the European Union.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 4 March 2016 to Question 28521, on holiday leave: pay, when work on the formal assessment of the financial impact began; and what the target date is for completion of that assessment.
Answered by Nick Boles
Our formal assessment of the financial impacts of the Court of Justice of the EU’s judgment in Lock v British Gas is based on the latest 2015 Labour Force Survey (LFS) micro data which was released on 17 February 2016. We are going through the final stages of quality assurance and hope to make the assessment available on the BIS website within the next few weeks.
Asked by: Christopher Chope (Conservative - Christchurch)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what automatic access (a) the UK would have to the markets of other WTO members and (b) other WTO members would have to the markets of the UK if the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The paper published on 2nd March entitled “Alternatives to membership: possible models for the United Kingdom outside the European Union” makes clear that if the UK were to leave the EU, then unless we were able to negotiate a preferential trade deal under WTO rules neither the UK nor the EU could offer each other better market access than that offered to all other WTO members. Furthermore, our privileged access to 53 markets outside the EU through the EU’s Free Trade Agreements would be terminated. We could seek to negotiate new agreements, but this would take many years. It would be difficult to replicate the terms that we currently enjoy.
A WTO-only arrangement would create a particularly difficult dilemma for the UK over trade tariffs. We could extend the tariffs that the EU currently applies to all WTO members to UK imports from the EU, but this would make those imports more expensive. Conversely, lowering UK tariffs would make imports cheaper, but there is no guarantee that this would be reciprocated. In addition, our guaranteed access to global services markets, including within the EU, would revert to the basic level of access that WTO members offer through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).