Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps he has taken to support small businesses in (a) Yorkshire and the Humber and (b) Haltemprice and Howden constituency.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government is committed to supporting all entrepreneurs to start and grow a business. Through our ambitious Industrial Strategy, we want to make the UK the best place to start and grow a business, to create jobs and spread prosperity.
In addition to accessing national support available such as the Business Support Helpline (0300 456 3565) and advice given on www.gov.uk, small and medium sized enterprises in Yorkshire and the Humber can access business advice through their local Growth Hubs. Led and governed by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), Growth Hubs provide a free, impartial, ‘single point of contact’ to help businesses in the area identify and access the right support for them at the right time no matter their size or sector. The LEPs which cover Yorkshire and the Humber have self-reported that in FY2017-2018 their Growth Hubs supported over 12,000 businesses and helped over 900 individuals start a business.
The Humber LEP area is being supported with up to £83.4m of investment through the Regional Growth Fund, which includes £30m awarded to the Humber LEP for a business support programme. The Growing Places Fund is supporting business growth investment across the Humber with funding worth £8.8m. The Humber LEP’s ‘Growing the Humber’ business investment programme has supported the creation of over 2,800 jobs to date.
The Government-backed British Business Bank’s Start-Up Loans programme provides loans to entrepreneurs seeking to start and grow their own businesses. Since 2012, 5,482 loans have been issued in the Yorkshire and the Humber region, totalling over £45m, and with an average loan amount of £8,249. In the Haltemprice and Howden constituency, 103 loans have been issued, totalling £926,277 (as at end-June 2019).
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
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 progress on the carbon capture and storage project announced in November 2018.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Government believes that carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) has the potential to play an important role in meeting the UK’s climate targets. CCUS can add value to the economy and help tackle hard to decarbonise sectors.
The Government published its CCUS Action Plan in November 2018, designed to progress CCUS in the UK, including enabling the UK’s first CCUS facility to be operational from the mid-2020s. We have also announced £50m of innovation funding to drive down the cost of CCUS.
I welcome the progress being made on the range of CCUS projects in the UK, including those that were announced in November 2018. Officials from the Department are engaging with these and all other CCUS projects in the UK.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
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 recent trends in the use of share buybacks.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Department has noted several significant share buyback announcements in recent months. These can be undertaken for a variety of reasons such as providing a flexible tool for returning excess cash to shareholders and offsetting dilution arising from the issue of new shares such as those issued to employees under employee share ownership schemes. Buyback activity tends to fluctuate, responding to company-specific and wider economic conditions such as the interest rate environment.
The Department commissioned research to further its understanding of longer-term trends in share buybacks, how and why companies make use of them and whether they are being misused to hit performance targets and inflate executive pay. The Department is currently considering this research and will be making an announcement in due course.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress has been made on the research into share buybacks initiated in January 2018.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Department has noted several significant share buyback announcements in recent months. These can be undertaken for a variety of reasons such as providing a flexible tool for returning excess cash to shareholders and offsetting dilution arising from the issue of new shares such as those issued to employees under employee share ownership schemes. Buyback activity tends to fluctuate, responding to company-specific and wider economic conditions such as the interest rate environment.
The Department commissioned research to further its understanding of longer-term trends in share buybacks, how and why companies make use of them and whether they are being misused to hit performance targets and inflate executive pay. The Department is currently considering this research and will be making an announcement in due course.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps he has taken to support research into advanced computing and artificial intelligence.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
Research and development is fundamental to improving future living standards, as well as tackling some of the greatest challenges and opportunities, such as those identified in our Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges, which includes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data. Through the Industrial Strategy, we have committed to reaching the target of 2.4% of GDP investment in R&D by 2027 and 3% in the longer term, placing us in the top quartile of OECD countries.
In April 2018, we announced a Sector Deal between government and industry that will put the UK at the forefront of the AI industry. As part of this, UKRI announced £100m investment in February 2019 in PhDs in AI at 16 new Centres for Doctoral Training based at 14 UK universities. UKRI has also announced four regional workshops to seek input to the current UKRI Review of AI.
In advanced computing, my rt. hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £79 million funding for the next national supercomputer, ARCHER2, in the recent Spring Statement. The supercomputer will be hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than a traditional desktop computer and will be used to run massive research simulations. This new resource will be housed at the University of Edinburgh's Advanced Computing Facility at Easter Bush, and will be integral in aiding discoveries in many areas of research including Materials Science, Engineering, Physics and Chemistry and Climate science.
Asked by: David Davis (Conservative - Haltemprice and Howden)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps his Department has taken to help businesses create more highly skilled jobs in Yorkshire and the Humber.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Industrial Strategy is our long-term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create high-quality, well paid jobs throughout the United Kingdom, with investment in skills, industries and infrastructure. The Government has to date awarded over £50m to support businesses in Yorkshire and the Humber through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF), which brings together world-class UK research with business investment to develop the technologies that will transform existing industries and create entirely new ones. For example, we are investing in ITM Power (Trading) Ltd in Sheffield to demonstrate the feasibility of a hydrogen economy in remote areas.
Also, since its launch in 2012, the Start-Up Loans programme, part of the British Business Bank, has delivered more than 5,200 loans, totalling £42.690m in Yorkshire and the Humber.
The Government is also investing over £1.3 billion through Yorkshire and Humber Local Enterprise Partnership Growth Deals and has established Enterprise Zones across the region, which are both supporting the creation of higher skilled jobs such as Siemens’ offshore wind blade factory in Hull and at the Humber Enterprise Park in Brough.