Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
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 exclusion of Northern Ireland from the Warm Home Discount Scheme on (a) the environment, (b) fuel poverty and (c) pensioner health and well-being.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The Warm Home Discount scheme does not apply in Northern Ireland as the primary legislation for the scheme only extends to Great Britain.
Fuel poverty is a devolved matter and therefore it is for the Northern Ireland Executive to decide its own fuel poverty objectives and policies.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will take steps to tackle the lower expected offer rate to Asian, Black, Mixed and Other ethnic groups higher education applicants.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set a goal of increasing by 20% the number of BME students in higher education by 2020. Entry rates for 18 year olds in each ethnic group increased in 2015, reaching the highest recorded values for each group. Between 2009 and 2015, the entry rate for young people in the Black ethnic group increased by over 40 percent proportionally. The Government has introduced a number of policies, including those set out below, to achieve my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s goal.
We recently announced that universities would be required to publish admissions and retention rate by gender, ethnic background and disadvantage. Greater transparency will expose where offer rates for students from the poorest and black and minority backgrounds are particularly low and help to encourage universities to take further action.
In addition, UCAS are consulting on making applications to university name-blind from 2017 to make sure that everyone, no matter what their background, is treated equally.
I have asked Universities UK to establish an expert advisory group on social mobility to provide further advice in this area.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent discussions he has had with universities on the wide implementation of the Race Equality Charter Mark.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) is a higher education sector body that supports equality and diversity for staff and students across the UK. They developed and launched the Race Equality Charter (REC) in January 2016, with the aim of improving the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff and students within higher education. Institutions can apply for a Bronze or Silver REC award, depending on their level of progress.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set a goal of increasing by 20% the number of BME students in higher education by 2020. In guidance to the Director of Fair Access, which we published on 11 February, we ask him to maximise the contribution of Access Agreements towards this ambition.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what total annual payments were made for renewable heat under the renewable heat incentive (RHI) in (a) 2012-13, (b) 2013-14, (c) 2014-15 and (d) 2015-16 to date; and how such payments compared to the RHI budget estimates for each such year.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Figures for payments made under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) are published in our annual accounts, which are available through DECC’s website at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/decc-annual-reports-and-accounts.
Available figures for the years requested are attached.
Payment figures for 2015/16 are not available yet; but we will publish these in our 2015/16 accounts, which we expect to publish in July this year. The budget figure for 2015/16 is £430m.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will make an assessment of the variation in the number of teaching hours provided to and fees paid by university students.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
No such assessment currently exists. However, in our Green Paper: “Fulfilling our potential: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice,” we proposed that the new Teaching Excellence Framework could consider information about levels of teaching intensity and contact hours. We will be setting out our response to the Green Paper in due course.
Asked by: Danny Kinahan (Ulster Unionist Party - South Antrim)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment she has made of the impact of the Energy Bill on Northern Ireland's ability to contribute to the achievement of the UK's international climate change obligations.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The Government is committed to delivering on our domestic, EU and international climate change targets. We are confident of meeting our ambition of 30% of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2020.
Northern Ireland continues to play its part, with electricity generation from renewables increasing from 19.5% in 2013 to 22.2% in 2014.