Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment his Department has made of the value for money of subsidies given for the use of biomass for electricity generation.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government has in place conditions to ensure generators only receive subsidies for biomass that complies with the UK’s strict sustainability criteria. In 2021, biomass made up 12.9% of total electricity generation.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
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 potential impact of biomass used for energy generation on (a) biodiversity and (b) the UK’s overseas land footprint.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The UK sustainability criteria are some of the most stringent in the world and include requirements under the land criteria and GHG (greenhouse gas) criteria. The land criteria take into account a range of social, economic, and environmental issues, including protecting biodiversity and land use rights.
Where biomass is sourced from forests, the land criteria include requirements around regeneration rates and sustainable harvesting in the sourcing regions, requiring that the carbon stock of the forest from which biomass is derived is not decreased.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
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 economic effect of covid-19 on supply chains in the hospitality industry.
Answered by Paul Scully
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic the Government has worked closely with the hospitality sector, including businesses in the supply chain, to understand the impact of the pandemic on their businesses.
Businesses have been able to benefit from Government support, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Government-backed loans.
On 5 January, when the new National Lockdown began, my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extra £4.6bn in business support including a £594 million discretionary fund to support impacted businesses.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
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 support businesses in the hospitality supply chain that have not received financial support from their local authority during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic the Government has worked closely with the hospitality sector, including businesses in the supply chain, to understand the impact of the pandemic on their businesses.
Businesses have been able to benefit from Government support, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Government-backed loans.
On 5 January, when the new National Lockdown began, my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced an extra £4.6bn in business support including a £594 million discretionary fund to support impacted businesses.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether charities conducting medical research will be able to access the funding for research and development announced in the 2020 Spending Review.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government is aware of the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the funding of medical research charities.
The Government already provides significant direct funding to charities’ research through Research England’s Quality Related (QR) charity support funding. This year charity QR will amount to £204m, to support charity funded research in universities in England.
Additionally, the Government supports this research through investments in the necessary infrastructure, through collaborations with UKRI and through the tax system. In 2018-19 over £1.3bn in tax relief on donations was received through Gift Aid benefitting all charities, including those carrying out vital medical research.
BEIS officials have also been meeting regularly with the Association of Medical Research Charities to develop an appropriate approach to supporting the important research that their members fund through the challenges they are currently facing.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
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 support the manufacturing sector in the North Wales Mersey Dee region.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department continues to engage with industry and suppliers to ensure that we can support our?manufacturing sectors?during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Ministers have been leading a series of roundtables, bringing together businesses, business representative groups, and leading academics, including representatives from the Welsh Government, to consider the measures needed to support the UK’s economic recovery.
The Government’s support for the manufacturing sector includes £147 million towards the Made Smarter programme to support digitalisation in UK manufacturing, £1 billion for the Automotive Transformation Fund, and £1.9 billion committed to the Aerospace Technology Institute programme.
In addition, the UK Government is investing £120 million in the North Wales Growth Deal, which includes support for manufacturing. The manufacturing project that the Growth Deal is funding is run by Glyndwr University.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
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 potential volume of (a) offshore wind, (b) onshore wind and (c) solar sites which might bid into Contract for Difference Auction Round 4.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Government considers a range of matters when setting the parameters for Contracts for Difference allocation rounds, including the anticipated pipeline of eligible projects. We will publish allocation round parameters in advance of the next auction in 2021, when assessments of the potential volume of participants can be informed by the most current information on project pipelines.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his policy is on allowing wedding venue viewings to take place during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government’s approach to the road of recovery for the reopening of businesses is a phased approach. Whilst certain businesses are starting to reopen, many businesses including the hospitality sector remain closed and so should not allow physical visits. My Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State regularly engages with businesses across all sectors of the economy.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with representatives of the financial sector on additional financial support that may be made available to SMEs which are ineligible for the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) is part of a comprehensive package of support for SMEs, including business rates relief, grants and support for wage packages. The Government continues to seek to identify new areas for improvement across this support.
The Government held discussions with the banking industry prior to the launch of the CBILS. The Business Secretary continues to hold a regular dialogue with each of the biggest CBILS lenders to address feedback on how the scheme has been working and closely monitor its implementation.
The Business Secretary continues to work with banks and other finance providers to help SMEs access the finance they need and has discussed with these organisations the alternative forms of support for businesses that they are offering. The Government welcomed the statement by UK Finance on behalf of the financial sector which announced that banks, building societies and credit card providers are committed to supporting their business customers in continuing to trade.
Asked by: James Davies (Conservative - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what proportion of new transmission cables have been undergrounded in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Department does not hold this information. However, the Transmission Owners have informed me that:
In England & Wales, the only major new electricity transmission lines built in the last 10 years by National Grid are all in the London Power Tunnels Project. This involved 32km of tunnels and 64 circuit kms installed from 2011 to February 2016. Otherwise, major projects have been asset replacement projects. These have generally been like-for-like, in that overhead line components have replaced older overhead line components, and underground cables have replaced underground cables.
In the north of Scotland, of SHE Transmission’s total new circuits in the last 10 years (1,007km), 171km of these were underground cable (approx. 17%).
In the south of Scotland, of Scottish Power Transmission’s total new circuits in the last 10 years (184km), 107.5km of these were underground cable (approx. 58%).