Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to Answer of 23 November 2022 to Question 89687 on District Heating, when he expects people on heat networks to receive the benefits of this financial assistance; and what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that any savings are passed onto the consumer by the administrators of heat networks.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) provides a price reduction to eligible Heat Suppliers on non-domestic tariffs. Energy supplies to communal heat networks use commercial contracts. The prices being charged on non-domestic contracts are already being reduced by the Energy Prices Act and accompanying regulations. The EBRS Pass-through Requirement (Heat Suppliers) Regulations 2022 requires eligible heat suppliers to pass on the benefits of the discount in a just and reasonable way. Heat suppliers should start to receive any EBRS discounts for October energy usage in their November bills and must inform their customers within 30 days of themselves receiving the discount. The regulations appoint the Energy Ombudsman to resolve disputes about the pass-through of these discounts in Great Britain.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
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 provide financial support to people who receive their heat through communal heat networks, in addition to the £400 energy bill discount; and what plans he has to provide further targeted support.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Through the Energy Bill Relief Scheme, the Government is effectively introducing a cap on the price that heat networks buy energy at, which is a much more targeted approach and ensures support gets to customers as quickly as possible.
Energy supplies to communal systems use commercial contracts. These will benefit from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme (EBRS) which will enable the Government to provide financial assistance for all eligible non-domestic customers to ensure they are protected from excessively high energy bills over the winter period.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to reply to the joint letter from the Rt hon. Members for Camberwell and Peckham, and Romsey and Southampton North, sent electronically on 4 February 2021, on a timetable for the Government's proposed Employment Bill.
Answered by Paul Scully
I wrote to the Rt. Hon. Members on 10 March outlining the Government’s position on the Employment Bill, which will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
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 (a) Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and (b) local authority leaders on supporting councils’ programmes for tackling climate change and improving climate resilience.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
My Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy recently met with my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, reiterating the commitment to tackling climate change and agreed for the two departments to continue working together to drive forward the Net Zero Agenda.
The Secretary of State is clear that local places play a key role in tackling Climate Change and meeting the Net Zero target. In September last year, the then Secretary of State, Alok Sharma, met with the Mayoral and Regions Advisory Group with the next meeting taking place this month. This group is made up of Mayors, Devolved Administrations and the LGA with the purpose to engage with communities and emphasize their role in Climate Change, especially in the run up to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) as part of the UK Presidency’s aim to make this inclusive and representative of all of the UK.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to publish the results of the Parental Rights Study 2019.
Answered by Paul Scully
As part of the evaluation of the Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and Pay scheme we have undertaken large, representative, surveys of employers and parents and a qualitative study of parents who have taken SPL.
Alongside this we are assessing responses from the consultation on high-level options for reforming parental leave and pay. Together, all of these will give us a fuller picture of how well the current system of parental leave and pay is working for parents and employers.
We intend to publish the findings of all of the research that we have commissioned – including the “Parental Rights Study” - later this year alongside the evaluation report itself and the Government Response to the consultation.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he plans to publish a response to the consultation on carers' leave.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government is committed to delivering the manifesto commitment to introduce a new right to an additional week of leave for unpaid carers.
The consultation on Carer’s Leave ran from March to August 2020, setting out detailed policy proposals to create a new employment right for one week’s unpaid leave. The consultation received a significant number of responses, demonstrating the importance of this issue.
The Government response to the consultation will be published in due course, setting out the way forward.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate she has made of the number of households living in fuel poverty in (a) Camberwell and Peckham constituency and (b) the London Borough of Southwark.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
Parliamentary constituency data can be found in table 5 of the Fuel Poverty Sub-regional tables at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sub-regional-fuel-poverty-data-2019. Data for Southwark can be found in table 2 of the same set of tables.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps she is taking to end household fuel poverty.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
Improving energy efficiency is the best long-term solution to tackle fuel poverty. The Energy Company Obligation, worth £640m per year, provides energy efficiency upgrades to low income and vulnerable households. Over 2 million households have received measures since the scheme began in 2013.
Tenants living in energy inefficient properties are some of the most at risk of fuel poverty. The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards now require landlords spend up to £3500 improving their properties to energy efficiency Band E before renting them out.
In addition to support to improve energy efficiency the Warm Home Discount provides support to more than 2 million low income and vulnerable households each year through a £140 rebate. Over £2.7 billion has been provided by the scheme over the last nine years.
Our 2020 Fuel Poverty Strategy will set out further detail around our future plans to tackle fuel poverty.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will implement extended shared parental leave to grandparents.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
We are currently evaluating the Shared Parental Leave and Pay schemes. This will look at the take up of leave and pay, barriers to take-up, and how Shared Parental Leave and Pay are being used in practice.
The evaluation will improve the evidence base and inform future policy development in this area.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
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 and encourage aviation companies to research and develop new aircraft and engine technologies to reduce noise emissions.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The Department provides strong support for the UK aerospace sector through the Aerospace Growth Partnership. As part of this we have created a more certain environment to drive increased investment in R&D, through a £1.95billion Government commitment over 13 years to 2026, matched by industry, to fund new R&D projects. This funding, guided by the Aerospace Technology Institute, supports investment in new technologies to reduce aircraft noise.
A large proportion of the 206 projects contracted so far, worth over £1.8billion, are concerned with new technologies to reduce noise from aircraft engines, propellers, rotors, wings and landing gear.
These projects are focused on delivering demanding international noise reduction goals and ensure UK aerospace companies are leading the technological evolution to achieve these.