Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, for what reason it is his Department's policy that intellectual property practitioners who represent businesses before the Intellectual Property Office are not required to be regulated in the UK.
Answered by George Freeman
The Government supports appropriate regulation of intellectual property practitioners where this is necessary to ensure that applicants and rights holders are effectively represented.
We have not seen a need to change the current regulatory framework. The Government continues to welcome evidence from practitioners and consumers if they consider there to be deficiencies in the current system.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
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 provide support to students in higher education who are living away from home for their energy bills.
Answered by Graham Stuart
In private rented accommodation, landlords are required to reflect in the price they charge for energy, the actual costs and any Government support they receive through the Energy Bills Support Scheme and Energy Price Guarantee. This includes, where landlords charge based on usage, making a reasonable estimate of the appropriate unit rate to charge.
Where students live in commercially provided accommodation supplied by a non-domestic contract such as a hall of residence, they may benefit from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme depending on when the commercial provider signed their energy contract. If so, the commercial provider is required to pass on the savings to their student tenants.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his planned timetable is for the online application portal to be available for people without a direct relationship with their energy supplier to apply for a £400 payment through the Energy Bill Support Scheme.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Funding will provide support of £400 for energy bills for around 900,000 households without a domestic electricity supply. Those that are eligible will need to submit a short online form via the Government’s GOV.UK pages, with the application portal due to open in January.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate his Department has made of the total (a) potential amount of renewable electricity that could be generated by wind turbines in the UK and (b) actual amount of renewable electricity generated by wind turbines in the UK that was used by the National Grid in 2021.
Answered by Graham Stuart
BEIS records this information in Chapter 6 of the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) publication: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/renewable-sources-of-energy-chapter-6-digest-of-united-kingdom-energy-statistics-dukes.
Table 6.2 shows that installed UK wind capacity was 25.8GW for 2021, generating 64.7TWh of electricity. The theoretical total generating capacity of these turbines is 226TWh of electricity, though this would imply they were generating 100% of the time. Actual output is heavily influenced by weather conditions. Table 6.3 shows that wind operated at 29% of potential maximum in 2021. Typically, we would expect this percentage to increase over time with newer, more efficient deployment
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
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 take into account the additional energy costs faced by people with Huntington’s Disease in his review of the energy support scheme in April 2023.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government is supporting the most vulnerable UK households with £1,200 of support provided in instalments over this year.
The Treasury-led review of the energy support schemes will consider how to support households with energy bills after April 2023. The objective of the review is to design a new approach that ensures enough support for those in need, that will also cost the taxpayer significantly less than planned.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how tenants in a multi-occupied property who each pay for their energy by putting coins in a meter, which are then collected by the landlord, will receive their £400 energy rebate.
Answered by Graham Stuart
If landlords have domestic contracts with their energy supplier, they are required to charge tenants no more than they paid suppliers for the energy, under Ofgem’s Maximum Resale Price rules. This means that the £400 discount should be passed onto tenants.
If landlords have a commercial contract with their supplier, further funding will be available to provide equivalent support for energy bills for the small percentage of domestic energy consumers not reached by the Energy Bills Support Scheme. The Government will announce further details in the Autumn.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Energy Price Guarantee will support housing associations that have fixed business electricity contracts for multi-occupancy buildings where the costs are billed to tenants alongside their rent.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Energy Bill Relief Scheme will provide a price reduction to ensure all eligible businesses and other non-domestic energy users are protected from excessively high energy bills over the winter period. Housing associations on eligible non-domestic tariffs will be covered by the scheme and will need to make sure the benefits of the scheme are passed onto tenants in a reasonable and proportionate way.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
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 amount of additional electricity demand that will result from (a) heat pumps in residential homes and (b) domestic electric vehicle charging.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Net Zero Strategy sets out how electricity demand is likely to increase by 40-60% by 2035, including increased demand from electric vehicles and heat pumps.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
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 ensure that apartment blocks can receive signals for smart meters so as to allow for the charging of electric vehicles.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Energy suppliers are working on solutions to extend the range of the smart meter Home Area Network, and are already rolling out a “dual band” communications hub which can operate on two different frequencies and therefore serve many previously hard to reach flats and tower blocks.
The Government is working with industry to ensure a technical solution is developed for the small minority of properties that cannot be served by the new “dual band” communications hub.
Asked by: Hilary Benn (Labour - Leeds Central)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he has made an assessment of the impact of the location of electric meters in block of flats on the ability of residents to connect to smart meters and charge electric vehicles.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Energy suppliers are working together on solutions to extend the range of the smart meter Home Area Network. Energy suppliers are now rolling out a new type of communications hub which can operate on different frequencies and therefore serve many previously hard to reach flats and tower blocks.
Legislation came into force on the 15th June 2022 which requires all new homes and buildings in England, including blocks of flats, and those undergoing major renovation, with associated parking to install a charge point. These requirements provide best value for money by avoiding more costly retrofitting in the future.