Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
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 political implications for its policies of the findings of the Learning Disability Voices report on the effect of the application of the National Living Wage on sleep-in shifts.
Answered by Margot James
The Government believes that workers should be paid NMW if what they are doing amounts to work under the contract. In cases where the workers must be present at their place of work, and are in effect working even if their boss allows them to sleep rather than carry out other activities, the workers should get paid the NMW.
The Government has published guidance to help employers meet national minimum wage legislation. The calculating the minimum wage document sets out on page 29 the guidance relating to National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) and sleeping time.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
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 plans to take to help ensure that start-up companies who receive funding from EU institutions continue to have access to similar levels of funding after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Margot James
The UK Government is committed to ensuring the UK continues to be a world leader in international research and innovation. My right hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer has committed that HM Treasury will underwrite all competitively bid for EU research funding that is applied for before departure. Future access to EU collaborative research will be subject to the negotiation.
The UK already has a wide number of measures in place to help start-ups. Start-up loans provide both finance and business advice with over £250 million loans drawn down to date. Advice on starting and growing businesses is available from the 39 growth hubs around the country and the national Business Support Helpline.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department is taken to encourage the use of solar power in new building developments in England.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Solar power is a good option for developers looking to improve the efficiency and sustainability of their building stock. We encourage such installations by allowing solar power on new building developments to qualify for the Feed-in-Tariff scheme, and through Building Regulations that set demanding energy performance targets for new buildings.
The Regulations were strengthened most recently in April 2014, to a level that means builders increasingly have to consider the use of renewable technologies in their designs. These could be solar panels, or they could be other types of renewables, which might be more appropriate depending on the location.
As the costs of panels continue to fall, we expect developers will increasingly see the value of installing solar power on new buildings.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what recent research her Department has conducted on the potential merits of wave-generated power.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The Scottish Government set up Wave Energy Scotland in December 2014 to take the development of the technology forward. DECC provides assistance as required.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that employers accord degree apprenticeships the same esteem as traditional university degrees.
Answered by Nick Boles
The Government wants young people to have the opportunity to access high quality degree level training, whether through a full-time undergraduate route or a world-class degree apprenticeship.
Both traditional degrees and new degree apprenticeships meet the high quality criteria expected of a higher education qualification. Degree Apprenticeships are designed by groups of employers working with higher education institutions, and provide a valuable route for people to obtain a degree-level qualification alongside training for a career, with the prospect of a job from day one
Degree apprenticeships will feature in the new communications campaign being launched in May, promoting the benefits of apprenticeships to employers and young people.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department has taken to encourage large businesses to switch to carbon neutral energy sources.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The Department has taken significant steps to encourage large businesses to switch to carbon neutral energy sources. With regard to heat, the Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) supports households, businesses, public bodies and charities in transitioning from conventional forms of heating to renewable sources of heat. In November, the Government renewed its commitment to the transition to a low carbon economy by confirming a continued budget for the RHI. The overall budget for the RHI is to rise from £430m in 2015/16 to £1.15bn in 2020/21.
With regard to electricity, our policies secured an estimated £42 billion of investment in low carbon generation between 2010 and 2014 alone, with more in the pipeline for the future.
Large and energy intensive businesses are incentivised to reduce their emissions – including through use of low-carbon energy sources – through the EU Emissions Trading System. The Government is also working with the eight most energy intensive sectors to produce decarbonisation action plans, drawing on a set of roadmaps published last year.
Of course, the lowest carbon energy is the energy that isn’t used and the Department also has a number of initiatives to encourage energy efficiency in business, including the announcements concerning a new carbon and energy reporting regime made by my rt. hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Budget.
With regard to large businesses switching to carbon neutral energy sources for transport, that is ably supported by my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of using energy storage to ensure that intermittent renewable sources of energy can be part of the UK's energy mix.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
Renewable energy technologies have successfully been part of the UK energy mix for many years.
Storage could help maximise the benefits and minimise the costs of low carbon energy. It is one of a number of flexible solutions which could be used, for example, demand-side response, interconnection with other countries and dynamic use of networks.
We are investigating the potential barriers to deployment of these technologies, including energy storage, and possible mitigating actions, focussing in the first instance on removing regulatory and policy barriers. We will be publishing a call for evidence on a smart systems route map, including storage, shortly.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what progress his Department has made in encouraging private companies to create or expand their apprenticeships programmes.
Answered by Nick Boles
There have been over 2.4 million apprenticeship starts over the previous parliament, and 153,100 between August and October 2015, demonstrating the continued expansion of the apprenticeships programme.
We are taking action to support and encourage the growth of apprenticeships in all sectors to meet our commitment to reaching 3 million starts by 2020. The UK-wide levy will be introduced in April 2017 for all employers in public and private sector with a pay bill of £3m or more, to help fund the increase in quantity and quality of apprenticeship training in England. All employers that hire apprentices will benefit from the levy.
Our apprenticeship reforms are giving employers the opportunity to create new apprenticeship standards. More than 1300 employers are involved with 204 new standards published (of which over 60 are Higher and Degree Apprenticeships) and more than 150 are in development. So far there have been over 1,000 starts on the new standards.
We are continuing to support small employers to hire apprentices through the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers (AGE), which provides eligible employers with a £1,500 grant per apprentice (aged 16 to 24) for up to five new apprentices currently. The AGE will continue to operate until the apprenticeships levy is introduced in April 2017. From April 2016, all employers will not be required to pay employer National Insurance contributions for apprentices under age of 25 on earnings up to the upper earnings limit.
Asked by: David Mackintosh (Conservative - Northampton South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether his Department has put incentives in place to encourage uptake of apprenticeship schemes from private companies.
Answered by Nick Boles
There have been over 2.4 million apprenticeship starts over the previous parliament, and 153,100 between August and October 2015, demonstrating the continued expansion of the apprenticeships programme.
We are taking action to support and encourage the growth of apprenticeships in all sectors to meet our commitment to reaching 3 million starts by 2020. The UK-wide levy will be introduced in April 2017 for all employers in public and private sector with a pay bill of £3m or more, to help fund the increase in quantity and quality of apprenticeship training in England. All employers that hire apprentices will benefit from the levy.
Our apprenticeship reforms are giving employers the opportunity to create new apprenticeship standards. More than 1300 employers are involved with 204 new standards published (of which over 60 are Higher and Degree Apprenticeships) and more than 150 are in development. So far there have been over 1,000 starts on the new standards.
We are continuing to support small employers to hire apprentices through the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers (AGE), which provides eligible employers with a £1,500 grant per apprentice (aged 16 to 24) for up to five new apprentices currently. The AGE will continue to operate until the apprenticeships levy is introduced in April 2017. From April 2016, all employers will not be required to pay employer National Insurance contributions for apprentices under age of 25 on earnings up to the upper earnings limit.