Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 he has made of the potential merits of making daylight saving time permanent.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government believes that the current daylight-saving arrangements represent the optimal use of the available daylight across the UK. We do not believe there is sufficient evidence to support changing the current system of clock changes, including for travel, tourism and energy usage.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 he has made of the potential merits of making daylight saving time permanent.
Answered by Paul Scully
It has not proved possible to respond to the Hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 potential merits of the provision of bereavement leave to (a) mothers and (b) partners who have experienced a (i) miscarriage and (ii) stillbirth.
Answered by Paul Scully
It has not proved possible to respond to the Hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 economic consequences of annual leave entitlement not taken by employees in 2020 as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Paul Scully
In light of the pandemic, the Government introduced the Working Time (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 which allow four weeks of annual leave to be carried into the following two leave years if, due to the effects of coronavirus, it is not reasonably practicable for a worker to take this leave in the year to which it relates. These regulations ensure that workers who are unable to take their holiday due to coronavirus do not risk losing their holiday entitlement.
These regulations relax the obligation on employers to ensure that workers can take holiday in the leave year to which it relates, providing additional flexibility to support both employers and workers. It is a matter for individual employers and their workers to consider whether it is possible to facilitate a worker taking annual leave at a specific time.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 bringing forward legislative proposals to require gig workers to have the same rights as permanent employees.
Answered by Paul Scully
This Government is clear that that everyone deserves to be treated fairly at work and rewarded for their contribution to the economy, both in terms of fair pay and fair working conditions.
An individual’s entitlement to rights at work, including those who work in the gig economy, is determined by their employment status, employee, worker or self-employed. Employees are entitled to all rights (subject to qualifying periods) and have responsibilities towards their employer. So-called Limb (b) workers are only entitled to some rights but have increased flexibility. The self-employed generally have no employment rights but have complete flexibility in their work.
The Government will continue to work closely with stakeholders to ensure that any options to clarify Employment Status are effective, preserving the flexibility of the labour market while making it easier to understand for individuals.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 merits of anonymous recruitment.
Answered by Paul Scully
Employers should treat all job applicants courteously as well as being fair and objective in their selection of successful candidates. Provided they do not discriminate unlawfully, for example on grounds of race, sex or disability, they are free to use the recruitment methods that best suit their business needs.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 is taking steps to protect furloughed jobs from automation.
Answered by Paul Scully
The World Economic Forum has estimated that robotics, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) will displace 75 million jobs globally between 2018 and 2022 but create 133 million new ones – a “net positive” of 58 million jobs.
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government has taken unprecedented steps to protect jobs. The objective of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) is to enable employers to keep people in employment. So far, the CJRS has helped 1.2 million employers to pay the wages of 9.9 million jobs across all sectors of the economy.
Analysis published by HMRC shows that 90 per cent of employees that left the CJRS between April and July were still on their original payroll in August, suggesting they remained working for their original employer. The OBR have also estimated that unemployment would have been higher in the second quarter of 2021 in the absence of the CJRS and other measures.
The Government continues to monitor CJRS take-up, with HMRC's latest official statistics producing analysis of claims split by characteristics including employer size, sector of the economy, geography, age and gender.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many doses of the covid-19 vaccine are produced each day in the UK.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government has invested over £300 million to scale up the UK’s manufacturing capabilities. Vaccines are the way out of this pandemic and vaccine supplies are part of our critical national infrastructure. Vaccines are a precious resource in very high demand across the world; therefore, for security reasons, it is not possible to provide detail about the size of our supplies and exact detail about deliveries.
We remain in close contact with all vaccine suppliers to ensure we can hit our target of offering vaccinations to priority groups 1 to 4, as advised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, by 15 February 2021.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the UK manufacturing capacity is of the covid-19 vaccine.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government has invested over £300 million to secure and scale up the UK’s manufacturing capabilities to be able to respond to the pandemic. This includes:
a) Facilities that have come online:
b) Facilities that will come online later this year, to help provide longer term UK capacity:
In addition to the above, we have also funded the expansion of the Valneva factory in Livingston, Scotland.
Asked by: Mark Hendrick (Labour (Co-op) - Preston)
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 protect workers' rights after the end of the transition period.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government’s ambition is for the UK to be the best place in the world to work and grow a business. The Government has already passed legislation to ensure that employment rights are protected at the end of the transition period. The legislation and the explanatory memorandum for each can be read at the following links: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/535/contents/made and https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/536/contents/made; and for Northern Ireland: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/537/contents/made and https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/538/contents/made.
More information the continuing availability of workplace rights from 1 January 2021 is available online: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/workplace-rights-from-1-january-2021.