Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 effect of the covid-19 outbreak on trends in the number of people moving from full-time to part-time working.
Answered by Paul Scully
ONS data shows fewer people working part time (7.9 million, 24% of all in employment) in the three months to January 2021, than in the three months to February 2020 (8.6 million, 26% of all in employment), prior to the covid-19 outbreak. Further information on full-time and part-time working can be found on the ONS website:
ONS note: Rates published from the LFS remain robust; however, levels and changes in levels should be used with caution. This will particularly affect estimates for country of birth, nationality, ethnicity and disability.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 support micro-enterprises in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub offers one-to-one advice and ongoing support to businesses with ambitions to grow, and is open to businesses of any size or sector. Since its launch in 2014, the Coventry and Warwickshire Growth Hub has successfully helped thousands of businesses across the region to access funding, tap into supply chains, increase production, and reach their full potential, and has supported the creation of over 5,000 jobs. Through the Local Growth Fund and European funds, LEPs in the West Midlands have supported projects aimed at supporting SME incubation and growth.
In order to protect the livelihoods of those hardest hit, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will be extended to September and the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) will continue with a fourth and a fifth grant. My Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that a further 600,000 people, many of whom became self-employed in 2019-20, may now be able to claim direct cash grants under SEISS.
Additional support is also available through Covid-19 Business Grants. Businesses that are required by law to close can access grants of up to the equivalent of £4,500 per 6-week period via the Local Restrictions Support Grant (Closed). This support is available until 31st March 2021.
Businesses that were required to close at the beginning of national restrictions on 5th Jan will also be eligible for a one-off payment of up to £9,000 to help them through the difficult Spring period, via the Closed Businesses Lockdown Payment.
The Chancellor announced in the Budget that from 1st April, one-off Restart Grants of up to £6,000 for non-essential retail, and up £18,000 for hospitality, leisure, personal care and accommodation businesses, will be available to support them to reopen as Covid-19 restrictions are relaxed.
The Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) continues to enable Local Authorities to put in place discretionary business support. Local Authorities are free to provide support that suits their local area best, including to support those businesses not required to close but which have had their trade severely affected by the restrictions. The Chancellor has announced an additional £425m will be made available to the ARG that more than £2bn has been made available to Local Authorities since November 2020.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the factors that have contributed to young workers being disproportionately affected by the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
Throughout this crisis, the Government has sought to protect people’s jobs and livelihoods whilst supporting businesses and public services across the UK. We recognise that unfortunately it has not been possible to protect every business and every job, and our thoughts are with those who have been impacted by this virus.
While the pandemic has had a significant impact across the whole labour market, certain groups have been more affected than others. Young people have been some of the hardest hit by the pandemic and unemployment can have longstanding implications for their future jobs and wages. The plans announced at Budget 2021 seek to address this and will help promote opportunity for the young.
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is specifically designed to protect jobs, and it has been used by 1.3m employers to support 11.2m jobs. This includes supporting young people, with preliminary data showing 855,200 16-24-year-olds were furloughed at the end of January.
VAT reductions and extending business rates relief for businesses in the hospitality sector will continue to protect both the UK economy and the livelihoods of people across the country. In particular, this will benefit, BAME employees, under-25s and women, who make up a higher percentage of employees in hospitality relative to other sectors.
The Budget 2021 also announced an extension of the traineeships programme until the end of the next academic year, benefiting 16–24-year-olds. We are also extending incentives for apprentices, and our £2 billion Kickstart scheme is already creating thousands of new jobs for 16-24-year-olds on Universal Credit at risk of long-term unemployment.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has to support the development of the renewable energy sector.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Achieving our 2050 net zero target will require significant increases in renewable electricity generation, and we will continue to encourage deployment and support the UK sector.
The Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme has been very successful in delivering large-scale renewable generation whilst reducing costs through competitive allocation rounds. The next round will open in late 2021 and aims to deliver up to double the renewable capacity of last year’s successful round, potentially providing enough clean energy for up to 10 million homes. The Smart Export Guarantee, which was introduced in January 2020, gives small-scale generators, such as homes with solar panels, the right to be paid for the renewable electricity they export to the grid.
The UK is a major global market for renewables, and we want to harness the wider benefits of this market-leading position in terms of jobs and investment. As well as supporting the creation of new offshore wind port hub infrastructure, the Government is also eager to strengthen how supply chain plans operate, as signalled in my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s announcement on 6 October. The Government is consulting on new proposals for a revised Supply Chain Plan questionnaire for CfD Applicants to complete. This will form the basis for assessment before an allocation round and ongoing monitoring, review and assessment after CfD signature. This consultation closes on 11 March 2021. The public consultation on proposals to strengthen Supply Chain Plan policy and on changes to the CfD contract has now closed. A government response will be published shortly.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 Chancellor of the Exchequer on increasing support to businesses in (a) Coventry North East constituency and (b) Coventry affected by the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
There are regular Ministerial discussions within government regarding the unprecedented business support offer that has been put in place to help tackle Covid-19 and save lives. My Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer will set out any further support measures in his Budget statement.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 increase the financial support available for small businesses in (a) Coventry North East constituency and (b) Coventry during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government has introduced an unprecedented package of support for businesses that are required to close or which are severely affected by the restrictions put in place to tackle Covid-19 and save lives.
The measures introduced – including four Government-backed loan schemes, local authority grant funding, tax deferrals and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) – have been designed to be accessible to businesses in most sectors and across the UK.
For business who have been mandated to close during the current national restrictions grants of up to the equivalent of £4,500 per 6 weeks of closure have been made available through the Local Restrictions Support Grant (Closed). Further one-off grants of up to £9,000 can also be accessed via the Closed Business lockdown Payment.
Local Authorities have been allocated a further £500m in discretionary funding via the Additional Restrictions Grant to support businesses that are significantly impacted by the restrictions even though not required to close, this is in addition to £1.1bn already allocated in November 2020.
The CJRS will remain open until the end of April 2021, with employees receiving 80% of their current salary for hours not worked, up to a maximum of £2,500.
We have also extended the application deadline for the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS), the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS), and the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) until the end of March 2021, ensuring there is further support in place for firms who need it during this ongoing period of difficulty.
Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership are utilising their close working relationships with the public, private and education sectors in the area to develop and implement a newly-focused Strategic Framework, to address local economic needs and ensure economic resilience during and after the pandemic.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the number of small businesses that have closed in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry and (c) England in each of the last five years.
Answered by Paul Scully
The latest business closure figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for Coventry, and England, are available for 2014-2018 . To note, the business closure figures were published as a special ONS request for Coventry and England but not the Coventry North East Constituency. 2019 estimates may be available from the ONS upon request.
Business closures
| Coventry | England |
2018 | 1,450 | 297,895 |
2017 | 1,510 | 325,660 |
2016 | 1,185 | 248,655 |
2015 | 1,200 | 249,955 |
2014 | 1,045 | 217,640 |
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 trends in the level of employment in (a) Coventry North East constituency and (b) Coventry; and what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on employment in those areas.
Answered by Paul Scully
From March to September 2020, the ONS employment rate in Coventry North East constituency fell by 1.7 percentage points (ppts) (71.7 to 70.0%). In the Coventry local authority, it fell by 0.6 ppts (72.0 to 71.4%).
Both areas had similar decreases in employment rate over six-month periods in 2019. Due to this, and the sampling variation in small geographies, whether the recent decreases in employment rate can be predominantly attributed to Covid-19 is inconclusive.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
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 effect of the covid-19 outbreak on levels of fuel poverty in (a) Coventry North East constituency and (b) Coventry.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Fuel Poverty Strategy published on 11 February 2021 confirmed a new metric for fuel poverty of Low Income Low Energy Efficiency (LILEE). The first statistics on this basis will be published on 4 March for 2019.
We have gathered new evidence through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Household Resilience survey about the impact of Covid-19 on incomes, housing costs and households occupancy patterns and will use this to publish a projection of fuel poverty in England for 2020 in April. We will also then provide the first statistics for LILEE on a sub-national basis for 2019.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he has made an assessment of the (a) economic and (b) other effects of the covid-19 outbreak on businesses in (i) Coventry North East constituency, (ii) Coventry and (iii) the West Midlands, by sector.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government continues to engage closely with partners on the ground across the country to understand the economic impact of Covid-19 and to support businesses.
Through the Growth Hubs programme, we are reaching thousands of businesses to provide free and impartial advice and support regardless of size and sector. The Coventry and Warwickshire LEP self-reported that between 1st April and 31st October 2020 their Growth Hub engaged with more than 50,000 businesses with advice and support.
Where businesses are required to close due to Covid-19 restrictions they can receive grants of up to £4,500 per 6 week period of closure as well as a one off payment of up to £9,000. Local Authorities have been allocated an additional £1.6bn in Additional Restrictions Grant to provide other businesses with support in their area.