Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 UK businesses benefit from the UK leaving the EU.
Answered by Paul Scully
This Government is committed to growing the UK’s economy by making the most of our Brexit freedoms and lightening the regulatory burden to boost UK businesses. The Brexit Freedoms Bill will enable law inherited from the EU to be changed more easily to suit the UK and the Government intends to prioritise areas where reform can deliver the greatest economic gain, aiming to cut £1 billion of business costs from retained EU red tape.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will reform our public procurement regime so that more small and medium-sized businesses benefit and is committed to delivering regulatory reforms proposed by Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform within this parliament.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 UK.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
Manufacturing is a bedrock of our country’s resilience and there is significant work underway to strengthen our industrial base, including substantial funding for projects in important sub-sectors such as aerospace, automotive and life sciences. Furthermore, we have committed over £150 million of taxpayer subsidy for Made Smarter, the national industrial digitalisation programme to help UK manufacturers to capitalise on new digital technologies.
Later this year we will launch the UK’s new manufacturing investment prospectus so we can promote the UK as the destination of choice for investment in manufacturing and help the sector make the most of what support is already available.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 deliver new and advanced nuclear power in the UK.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government intends to take one project to Final Investment Decision (FID) this Parliament and two projects in the next Parliament, subject to value for money, approvals and technology readiness/maturity.
The Government will set up a new flagship body - ‘Great British Nuclear’ - to develop a resilient pipeline of projects. The Government appointed Simon Bowen to lead and help drive forward government proposals for a new Great British Nuclear vehicle.
On the 13th of May 2022, the Government launched the £120million Future Nuclear Enabling Fund, which will provide targeted support to address barriers to entry to the nuclear market, with a Request for Information.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 the generation of offshore wind in the UK.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The British Energy Security Strategy increased the ambition for offshore wind to up to 50GW by 2030 and outlined the Government’s commitment to accelerating deployment, reducing the consenting time for wind farms from up to four years to one year.
Generation of offshore wind is supported through the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. The Fourth CfD Allocation Round is underway, and the Fifth Round will open in March 2023 – the first in a series of annual CfD auctions.
The Government has also announced up to £320 million to support offshore wind ports and factories.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 UK’s oil and gas sector.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The North Sea Transition Deal sets out how the Government is working with the offshore oil and gas industry in partnership to achieve a managed energy transition, which leaves no-one behind.
In April, the Government published the British Energy Security Strategy, setting out plans to support the North Sea as a foundation of our energy security, This includes plans for the North Sea Transition Authority to launch another licensing round in the autumn, taking into account the forthcoming climate compatibility checkpoint and the need for energy security; as well as Gas and Oil New Project Regulatory Accelerators.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 new low carbon technologies.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government articulated its plans for increasing low carbon power generation in the British Energy Security Strategy. The Strategy spans renewables, nuclear and hydrogen and will help drive up to £100 billion of investment by 2030. The Strategy set an ambition for new nuclear power of up to 24GW by 2050, with a ‘Great British Nuclear Vehicle’ established to develop a pipeline of projects. On renewables, the Government is accelerating annual Contracts for Difference auctions from 2023 to support deployment. For offshore wind, the Strategy sets a new 50GW by 2030 ambition, alongside plans to reduce consent time for projects.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 increase research and development spending.
Answered by George Freeman
The Government is providing the fastest ever sustained uplift in R&D funding, reaching £20 billion per annum by the end of the SR period – £5 billion more than 2021/22. We remain committed to the target of UK economy-wide R&D investment reaching 2.4% of GDP by 2027.
As the custodian of the R&D system, BEIS received its largest ever R&D budget at SR21 with £39.8bn over the SR period. We have now set out how funding will be allocated across our partner organisations over the next three years. Details of funding for specific programmes will be agreed by BEIS and partner organisations and set out in due course.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent progress he has made on the UK’s application to associate to Horizon Europe.
Answered by George Freeman
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central on 27 April 2022 to Question 156445.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 financial impact of inflation on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Office for Budget Responsibility, in their March 2022 forecast, expects GDP to grow by 3.8% in 2022. Further details can be found in the OBR’s latest Economic and Fiscal Outlook published in March 2022: https://obr.uk/efo/economic-and-fiscal-outlook-march-2022/.
The Government is providing a range of support to help with the cost of living. As announced on 23 March, the Government is cutting fuel duty for 12 months, doubling the Household Support Fund with an extra £500m, zero-rating VAT on energy-saving materials, and aligning National Insurance and Income Tax starting thresholds from July 2022 so people will be able to earn £12,570 a year without paying any Income Tax or National Insurance.
This builds on existing support, including business rates relief worth £7 billion over five years and the package of support announced on 3 February to help households with rising energy bills worth £9.1 billion in 2022-23.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton South)
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 investment in UK manufacturing.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The UK is one of the largest manufacturing nations, ranked 9th globally by output, and manufacturing contributed £173 billion of GVA to the UK economy in 2020. The sector plays a vital role in the UK economy through innovating (accounting for 61% of all business expenditure for UK research and development), exports (46% of total UK exports) and job creation (supporting 2.6 million jobs).
As such, the Government recognises the importance of UK manufacturing and is committed to its continued development as a strong, vibrant and diverse sector. Although decisions about investments and job creation are ultimately a matter for individual private enterprise, the Government is providing funding for strategically important manufacturing subsectors through the Global Britain Investment Fund: leveraging billions across the renewables supply chain; backing Britain’s automotive sector through new Gigafactories; and onshoring new offshore wind manufacturing to the UK.
Furthermore, we continue to focus on improving the long-term competitiveness and productivity of manufacturing by investing in research & development, skills and support for digital technology through initiatives such as Made Smarter, Help to Grow and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.
In addition, the Government is encouraging companies to invest in productivity-enhancing plant and machinery. Manufacturing businesses can benefit from the super-deduction, which allows companies to claim 130% capital allowances on qualifying plant and machinery investments, as well as the extension to the Annual Investment Allowance to 31 March 2023 at its higher level of £1 million.