Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, when he plans for High Street Rental Auctions to come into effect.
Answered by Dehenna Davison
High Street Rental Auctions policy will come into effect as soon as possible after Royal Assent of the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment his Department has made of the potential financial effect of the £650 million Life Sci for Growth package on (a) the East Midlands, (b) Leicestershire, (c) Loughborough constituency and (d) the Life Sciences Opportunity Zone at Charnwood Campus.
Answered by George Freeman
The call for proposals for the £38m biomanufacturing fund and £250m LIFTS initiative are open UK-wide. Additionally, funding for skills and regulations will benefit companies across the UK and £121 million for clinical trials will support the delivery of clinical trials across England. With 66% of the sector employed outside London and South-East, these UK wide initiatives will benefit all regions. Nottingham has been awarded at least £935k for the Mental Health Mission, including activities at the Midlands Translational Research Centre of Excellence demonstrator site and under the Children and Young People’s Mental Health workstream.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, pursuant to the Answer of 24 April 2023 to Question 180257 on Energy: Business, what steps his Department is taking to support business which do not meet the criteria for the Energy Bills Discount Scheme with their energy bills.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) provides a baseline discount to all eligible businesses and non-domestic customers. The discount is subject to a wholesale price threshold of £107/MWh for gas and £302/MWh for electricity. Businesses experiencing energy costs below this level will not receive support. The EBDS discount is comparably lower than the Energy Bill Relief Scheme discount and reflects the significant fall in energy prices since last September whilst striking the right balance by supporting businesses over the next year, ensuring fiscal responsibility and limiting the taxpayer’s exposure to volatile energy markets.
The Government has extended support comparable to the EBDS to non-domestic energy customers who receive gas or electricity delivered over public networks from non-licensed providers.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to increase the level of financial support available to dairy farmers.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We recognise the challenges facing the dairy sector. The Prime Minister set out new support for farmers to strengthen food security and grow the economy at the Farm to Fork Food Summit on 16 May 2023. This includes the creation of a £1 million programme to help dairy businesses, particularly SMEs, to seize export opportunities.
In addition, the Government has acted to support the agricultural sector, including dairy farmers, in a number of ways.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the time taken to process Access to Work applications; and what steps he is taking to ensure that applications are processed in a timely manner.
Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)
There has been a significant increase in applications for the Access to Work grant scheme over the last year, leading to longer processing times.
Processing times are continually assessed, and the department has reviewed processes to support applications being processed in a timely manner. To deal with the increased demand, we have recruited additional staff and have plans for further recruitment. We are also modernising the Access to Work service through increased digitalisation; this will make the service more efficient, make the application process easier, and improve the time taken from application through to decision.
Customers making a new application for Access to Work and are starting work within the next 4 weeks, or have a current grant award coming to an end requiring a renewal application, are prioritised to ensure they are able to enter and remain in the labour market.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, when he expects University of Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust to receive funding to (a) rebuild at Leicester Royal Infirmary and Glenfield and (b) build new facilities at Leicester General; and if he will take steps to increase funding for building work at these facilities.
Answered by Will Quince
The New Hospital Programme continues to work closely with the Trust on the development of their plans in alignment with our national approach to standardisation for the new hospitals we have committed to build. This ensures value for money is realised in delivering new, cutting-edge facilities for staff and patients. We continue to collaborate with all trusts in the Programme to ensure the funding they receive is reflective of an ongoing assessment of costs.
Up to the end of 2022/23 University Hospitals Leicester NHS Trust scheme received £7.46 million in funding for their new hospital scheme, which includes funding for work to prepare the site for construction of the new hospital. The funding for the full scheme will only be confirmed once its full business case has been reviewed and agreed, including by HM Treasury.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps he is taking to help banks and payment service providers to easily (a) identify and (b) prevent romance scams.
Answered by Andrew Griffith - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government takes the issue of authorised push payment (APP) fraud, of which romance fraud is one form, very seriously, and is dedicated to protecting the public from this devastating crime. Working alongside the regulators, law enforcement, and industry, the Government continues to support numerous fraud-prevention initiatives, including the Payments Systems Regulator’s work to enhance information sharing between payment providers.
Information sharing between firms plays a key role in identifying scammers and preventing scams. As noted in the Home Office’s recent Fraud Strategy, the Government, regulators and industry are working together to identify opportunities for greater information sharing to better tackle fraud ‘up stream’. The PSR has set up an industry working group, including Pay.UK and UK Finance, to agree what data could be shared.
In order to prevent APP fraud, HM Treasury is investigating amending legislation to enable payment service providers such as banks to delay payments beyond the existing legislative timescales in limited, high-risk fraud scenarios. This will allow enhanced customer engagement to take place. This could enable firms to take more of a ‘risk-based’ approach to payments processing.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 2 May 2023 to Question 182475 on Bovine Tuberculosis: Disease Control, if she will make it her policy to change the compensation calculation for farmers in England whose cattle have been culled due to tuberculosis so that each animal is individually valued.
Answered by Mark Spencer - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Until 2006, compensation for TB affected cattle in England was determined using individual valuations. There was however significant evidence of overcompensation so, following a public consultation in 2004, Defra moved to a table-based valuation system. Almost all cases of TB compensation in England are now determined using table valuations. Table valuations are objective and based on real market data. There are no plans to alter this approach.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what recent progress his Department has made on expanding the availability of 12-week transitional accommodation for prison leavers.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
The transitional Community Accommodation Service-Tier 3 (CAS3) was launched in 2021, initially in five probation regions, providing up to 12 weeks' accommodation on release, with support to move on to settled accommodation. Between 1 July 2021 and 17 June 2022, over 2,300 individuals, who would have otherwise been homeless, were accepted on to CAS3.
We expanded the service to cover Wales in June 2022, and are now in the process of extending it to the remaining six probation regions in England, to support the thousands of offenders who leave prison homeless.
Asked by: Jane Hunt (Conservative - Loughborough)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the answer of 23 February 2023 to Question 148528 on Asbestos: Regulation, what the outcome is of the further review by the Health and Safety Executive of its retained EU Law which could impact on the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is not in a position to confirm the outcome of its review of retained EU law at this current time. HSE will communicate its decisions as soon as possible at the appropriate time.