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Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: South Tyneside
Thursday 2nd February 2023

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 24 January 2023 to Question 127774, on Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: South Tyneside, where his Department records information on grant money returned from Councils.

Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

BEIS policy relates to each grant scheme being run by its own Senior Responsible Owner who will manage reconciliations and money returned by local authorities to BEIS.


Written Question
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: South Tyneside
Tuesday 24th January 2023

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much money have South Tyneside Council returned to his Department from grants allocated over the last two years as of 19 January 2023.

Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

This information is not held centrally and can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.


Written Question
Local Government Finance: South Tyneside
Thursday 12th January 2023

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much of the money allocated for Covid Business Grants have South Tyneside Council returned to his Department; and for what reasons this money was returned.

Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

Across the COVID-19 business grant schemes South Tyneside Council was allocated £59.8 million. Of this £51.5 million was reported as disbursed to eligible businesses with £8.3 million due to be returned to BEIS at the end of scheme reconciliation.

Initial funding allocations were based on estimates of the eligible local business population, with local authorities required to return unallocated funding to BEIS. Further allocation and spend data for each scheme, including guidance on the methodologies of the initial allocations, can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-grant-funding-local-authority-payments-to-small-and-medium-businesses.


Written Question
Re-employment
Tuesday 22nd February 2022

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

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 bring forward legislative proposals to prevent businesses using fire and rehire tactics.

Answered by Paul Scully

Using threats to ‘fire and rehire’ as a tactic to pressure workers during negotiations is unacceptable. Employers should refer to Acas’ guidance, which sets out that dismissal and re-engagement should only be considered an option of last resort.


Written Question
Energy: Prices
Thursday 18th November 2021

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when the Government plans to implement proposals for households to switch automatically onto the cheapest energy tariffs.

Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)

The Government is committed to a competitive retail energy market, which delivers choice and value for money for customers. When we came to office in 2010 the number of suppliers had fallen to just six, which meant that market competition was seen to be insufficient.

We want to ensure the market can facilitate competition and helping households on more expensive tariffs make energy savings. We will undertake extensive qualitative research and testing to understand how consumers might experience and respond to the intervention.


Written Question
Conditions of Employment
Tuesday 16th November 2021

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

What plans he has to extend employment rights to (a) workers in the gig economy and (b) all workers.

Answered by Paul Scully

The United Kingdom has one of the best records on workers’ rights in the world - going further than the EU in many areas – and we believe the UK’s current three-tiered employment status framework strikes the right balance between the flexibility our economy needs and protections for workers.


Written Question
Space Technology
Wednesday 14th July 2021

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress he has made on the publication of a timetable for the delivery of the national space strategy.

Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury

This Government is committed to making the UK a global science and technology superpower and a meaningful actor in space. This will be achieved through the UK’s first comprehensive national space strategy that unleashes growth and innovation in the UK space sector. The strategy is progressing and will be published in due course.


Written Question
Coronavirus: Vaccination
Thursday 15th April 2021

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has plans to import the plant-based covid-19 vaccine produced by Medicago in Canada; and whether his Department has plans to make a vegan-friendly covid-19 vaccine available in the UK.

Answered by Nadhim Zahawi

The Government continues to take a portfolio-based approach to Covid-19 vaccine procurement, which monitors the landscape of vaccines in development in the UK and internationally. Although we continue to investigate further potential vaccine candidates worldwide, we are currently not able to give any further information on these candidates owing to commercial sensitivity. If we enter into further agreements, we will publish details of those in the usual manner.


Written Question
Additional Restrictions Grant
Monday 1st March 2021

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much has been allocated to local authorities through the Additional Restrictions Grant; how much of that funding has (a) been spent and (b) remains unspent to date; and what the timeframe is for local authorities to be allocated that grant funding.

Answered by Paul Scully

The Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) is a discretionary scheme aimed at supporting businesses, including those that have not been mandated to close but have had their trade adversely affected by the nationalised restrictions. Local Authorities have been allocated a further £500m in discretionary funding via the ARG, in addition to £1.1bn already allocated in November 2020. Local Authorities can use the ARG to support businesses in their local area, as they see fit. We expect Local Authorities to use this additional resource quickly to support businesses in their area. Local Authorities are able to use the Additional Restrictions Grant until the end of the financial year 2021/2022.

This data relates to allocations and grant payments made by Local Authorities to businesses up to 17 January 2021:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-grant-funding-local-authority-payments-to-small-and-medium-businesses.


Written Question
Wind Power
Thursday 10th December 2020

Asked by: Emma Lewell-Buck (Labour - South Shields)

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 is taking to support deployment of infrastructure at ports to facilitate an increase in offshore wind capacity.

Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng

My Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister recently announced on £160 million of new funding towards investment to upgrade ports and infrastructure, to ensure UK ports have the necessary facilities and capabilities to meet the future needs of offshore wind developers.

The expected rapid deployment of offshore wind across the UK, Europe and globally over the next decade, together with the increasing size of turbines, means that there is a need for a major expansion in manufacturing capacity in the coming years.

The ‘Offshore wind manufacturing investment support scheme’ aims to accelerate the development of large-scale manufacturing portside hubs, which could see financial support to strengthen the UK’s offshore wind manufacturing capability, creating employment and investment in both coastal communities and the wider supply chain.

Following the Request for Information in October 2020, the Department has now launched a formal competitive process on a single large coastal manufacturing site for the offshore wind industry. This would generate manufacturing clusters where several large-scale producers can co-locate.