Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 impact of the Rosebank oil field development in the North Sea on the UK’s international climate obligations and commitments.
Answered by Graham Stuart
Supporting domestic oil and gas production is not incompatible with our international climate obligations. Oil field developments under existing licences, including Rosebank, are assessed by the North Sea Transition Authority, who integrate net zero considerations into the development consent process.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 potential impact of the development the Rosebank oil field on decarbonisation targets in the North Sea Transition Deal.
Answered by Graham Stuart
I refer the Hon. Member to the answer I gave the Hon. Member for Norwich South on 1st November 2022 to Question 69713.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has made an assessment of the compatibility of the oil and gas licensing round on the UK's (a) carbon budgets, (b) net zero target and (c) legal obligations and commitments towards international climate targets.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The opening of the most recent licensing round by the North Sea Transition Authority followed the publication of the Climate Compatibility Checkpoint.
The North Sea Transition Deal includes emissions reduction targets consistent with the Government’s Net Zero Strategy, which establishes the UK pathway for carbon budgets and international targets.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 medical research charities.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani
I recognise the important role medical research charities play in saving lives.
We announced £20 million in 2021/22 to support the vital work of medical research charities and develop a pipeline of early career researchers in their areas.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 merits of expanding the definition of de facto directors to include natural person directors of corporate directors.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government plans to make several changes to the rules governing corporate directors, including requirements that corporate directors of limited companies must be entities with legal personality, directors (or equivalents) of corporate director entities must all be natural persons and be subject to ID verification, and that corporate directors must be UK-registered.
Any person is a de facto director if they assume the status and functions of a company director even if they have not been properly appointed. It is not possible to expand the definition of a de facto director, it being a factual rather than a legal status.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 reports of breaches by directors of the Insolvency Act 1986 and Companies Act 2006 were investigated by the Insolvency Service in each of the last five years.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Insolvency Service receives reports on directors’ conduct, in particular of companies entering formal insolvency procedures.
Cases with reports of director misconduct are considered in line with the Insolvency Service’s acceptance criteria. The most serious cases are vetted and where appropriate taken forward for investigation.
Information from Insolvency Service internal management systems shows the number of cases vetted and investigations commenced with a view to director disqualification in the last 5 years. The latter includes a number of cases where the investigation commenced as a result of information from another source.
Companies vetted in any one year may be taken forward for investigation in a later year. The figures in the table relate to the number of companies not the number of directors. An investigation may encompass more than one company.
The first column excludes companies vetted in compulsory liquidation cases prior to January 2020.
| Companies Vetted | Civil investigations started |
2017/18 | 8,528 | 1,669 |
2018/19 | 9,059 | 1,748 |
2019/20 | 9,041 | 1,899 |
2020/21 | 6,284 | 1,484 |
2021/22 | 6,340 | 1,700 |
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 merits of (a) increasing the value of penalties that Companies House levies on companies for filing failures that trigger automatic strike-off routines, and (b) using the funds raised from such penalties to fund Insolvency Service investigations of insolvent companies.
Answered by Paul Scully
The late filing penalty regime was introduced to encourage directors to file their accounts on time. Using it as a source of revenue to fund investigation activity would present difficulties, as it would mean relying on behaviour that we are actively trying to discourage.
We are reviewing funding as part of our wider reforms, and have committed to ensuring that fees remain low by international standards.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 encourage companies to take up innovative technologies to make packaging more accessible to people with sight impairments.
Answered by Lee Rowley
The Government recognises the specific challenges faced by people with sight loss or visual impairment, and that consideration of equality impacts must be integral in all key policy decisions.
UK Research and Innovation have work undertaken to accelerate innovation in assistive technologies, which is set out in the National Institute of Health Research’s report on Research and Development Work Relating to Assistive Technology.
The Royal National Institute for Blind People can support businesses to develop more accessible products and services, and can recommend solutions, technologies and tools to help resolve accessibility issues.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
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 help ensure equitable distribution of funds between the (a) National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research and (b) broader life science and medical-related research sectors.
Answered by George Freeman
The National Centre for the 3Rs (NC3Rs) receives its core funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and since it was launched in 2004, it has committed £100 million through its research, innovation, and early career awards to provide new 3Rs approaches for scientists in academia and industry to use. This funding builds on wider funding by UKRI on development of alternative approaches to the use of animals. UKRI welcomes applications for research into any aspect of human health and is committed to funding excellence.
Between 2015-2019 UKRI’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council spent over £7 million on research grants aimed at developing and applying innovative methodologies to studying human and animal physiology, including in silico approaches, organ-on-a-chip, organoid and other advanced cell culture systems. Additionally, UKRI’s Medical Research Council launched a new Precision Medicine Accelerator to take ideas from discovery science into research using humans, focused on early clinical application. The Experimental Medicine Panel has an annual budget of £10 million.
The recent Spending Review set the total amount of funding available for the next three years. Internal business planning is underway to allocate specific funding for life sciences and broader medical R&D which will be announced soon. As part of this process £95 million of new funding has recently been announced which will support the development and use of the most promising new drugs and technologies, as part of the Government’s commitment to the NHS and making the UK a Science and Technology Superpower.
Asked by: Margaret Ferrier (Independent - Rutherglen and Hamilton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he is taking steps to contribute to the (a) development and (b) validation of human-on-a-chip and organ-on-a-chip technologies.
Answered by George Freeman
The Government actively supports and funds the development and dissemination of techniques that replace, reduce, and refine the use of animals in research (the 3Rs). This is achieved primarily through funding for the National Centre for the 3Rs (NC3Rs), which works nationally and internationally to drive the uptake of 3Rs technologies and ensure that advances in the 3Rs are reflected in policy, practice, and regulations on animal research.
The NC3Rs receives its core funding from UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Medical Research Council, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Since the NC3Rs was launched in 2004, it has committed £100 million in research to develop 3Rs technologies.
In addition to funding the NC3Rs, UKRI also funds a portfolio of research projects involving humans, human materials, animal models, and non-animal technologies. UKRI also encourages grant applicants, including those whose research does not involve animals but could contribute to greater reduction and replacement, to consider further opportunities to advance the 3Rs.
Between 2015-2019, the BBSRC spent over £7 million on research grants aimed at developing and applying innovative methodologies to studying human and animal physiology, including in silico approaches, organ-on-a-chip, organoid and other advanced cell culture systems.