Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
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 ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises are receiving the correct level of support from the Energy Bill Relief Scheme in Ealing North constituency.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Energy Bill Relief Scheme is set out clearly in legislation so is applied in a uniform way by all licensed suppliers. The regulations include a robust compliance and enforcement regime to ensure requirements are being met. Suppliers are also required to inform customers about the details of support, including the amount of the discount and discounted supply price, in a fair and reasonable manner.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he plans to increase funding for renewable energy sources in Ealing North constituency.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Grant funding for renewable innovation or community-based renewable schemes is open for both local authorities and private investors to bid. The Contracts for Difference scheme, the Government’s main mechanism for supporting low carbon generation, is awarded through a competitive process, ensuring that the most cost-effective projects are supported, regardless of their location.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many SMEs in Ealing North constituency have received Government funding for support during the cost of living crisis.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government recognises the impact rising prices are having on businesses.
Businesses in Ealing North will have benefitted from the Government’s reversal of the National Insurance rise, saving SMEs approximately £4,200 on average, the cut to fuel duty for 12 months and raising the Employment Allowance to £5,000. The Energy Bill Relief and Energy Bill Discount Schemes will protect SMEs from high energy costs over the winter. The Autumn Statement, announced £13.6 billion of support for businesses over the next five years, reducing the burden of business rates for SMEs.
The Government is providing financial support - 206 SMEs in Ealing North have received Start Up loans to the value of £2,203,440, as of December 2022.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
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 help increase the rate of energy efficiency measure installations in homes in Ealing North constituency.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government is committed to improving the energy performance of homes across the country, including in Ealing North.
The Government is already investing £6.6 billion over this parliament on decarbonising heat and energy efficiency measures.
An additional £6 billion of new Government funding, announced in the Autumn Statement, will be made available from 2025 to 2028. This provides long-term funding certainty, supporting the growth of supply chains, and ensuring the Government can scale up delivery over time.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
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 make an estimate of the number of homes that have been retrofitted through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund in Ealing North constituency since the introduction of that fund.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The 2019 Conservative Manifesto committed to a £3.8bn Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) over a 10-year period.
The SHDF Demonstrator and Wave 1 awarded a combined total of around £240m of grant funding to Local Authorities, with data held on local authority-led projects rather than at a constituency level. The SHDF Wave 2.1 competition, which closed in November 2022, will allocate up to £800m of grant funding, with successful projects likely to be notified in March 2023. BEIS will be publishing official statistics on the number of measures installed and households upgraded through SHDF Wave 1 by geographical area on 26th January 2023.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress his Department has made on the Green Finance Strategy following the closure of the call for evidence on that strategy.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government has committed to updating its Green Finance Strategy. In order to support this, on 11th May the Government published a Call for Evidence which was open until 22nd June. Whilst the Call for Evidence was open, BEIS officials met with a range of organisations through a series of stakeholder roundtables. Attendees ranged from central and local Government colleagues, civil society groups, financial institutions and companies. Since the Call for Evidence closed, officials in the Department have been carefully assessing responses and will seek to use evidence gathered to develop policy proposals.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what (a) organisations and (b) individuals his Department has met as part of the development of the Government response to the consultation on the Green Finance Strategy.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government has committed to updating its Green Finance Strategy. In order to support this, on 11th May the Government published a Call for Evidence which was open until 22nd June. Whilst the Call for Evidence was open, BEIS officials met with a range of organisations through a series of stakeholder roundtables. Attendees ranged from central and local Government colleagues, civil society groups, financial institutions and companies. Since the Call for Evidence closed, officials in the Department have been carefully assessing responses and will seek to use evidence gathered to develop policy proposals.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
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 the Green Homes Grant is spent effectively.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We are continually evaluating the Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme against broad policy criteria (including value for money, job creation and carbon savings) and will make improvements to the scheme on an ongoing basis.
The Scheme also has robust measures in place against fraud, as well as requiring installers to be Trustmark registered and carry the appropriate (PAS/MCS) certification, ensuring work is done to a high-quality standard.
There will be an evaluation of the processes and outcomes of the Voucher Scheme. An independent research organisation, Ipsos MORI, was contracted in December 2020 to undertake the evaluation. This will run until 2023, with interim publications released prior to the final evaluation report.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
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 proportion of (a) fuel poor, (b) social rented and (c) private rented homes that will reach EPC Band C by (i) 2025 and (ii) 2030.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
As of the most recent fuel poverty statistics, 10% of fuel poor, 56% of social rented and 33% of private rented homes are EPC Band C or above. As set out in the Clean Growth Strategy, the Government remains committed to fuel poor homes being upgraded to energy efficiency Band C by 2030, and our aspiration is that as many homes as possible are EPC Band C by 2035, where practical, cost effective and affordable.
Asked by: James Murray (Labour (Co-op) - Ealing North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to his Answer to Question 39781 on Construction: Coronavirus, how the Health and Safety Executive will be made aware of whether construction sites have considered introducing staggered start and finish times.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for ensuring that Public Health England (PHE) social distancing guidance is implemented on construction sites. It is not the role of the HSE to seek information about whether sites have considered staggered start times. The Site Operating Procedures recommend that the firms responsible for managing sites should consider staggering start and finish times to reduce pressure on public transport. However, this is not mandated by Government guidance.
The HSE has powers to take enforcement action if a site is not consistently implementing PHE guidance. Individuals can report problems to the HSE via an online form, or by telephone.