Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
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 assessments of projected installed generating capacity for non-domestic solar panel installations in each of the next five years, based on the (a) current rate of £8 per kilowatt and (b) Valuation Office Agency proposal for up to £61 per kilowatt.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
The impact of the proposed changes will be highly sensitive to future ownership models that determine the rateable values to apply; it is therefore not possible to project this impact at present.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many people were employed in the solar energy sector in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b) Barnsley, (c) Yorkshire and the Humber, (d) England and (e) the UK in the latest period for which figures are available.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
In 2014, 9,500 FTE employees were estimated to have been directly employed in the solar photovoltaic sector in the UK, including 9,000 in England. BEIS does not hold data that is broken down by region, and data for the solar thermal sector is not available.
Further detail can be viewed online through the UK Environmental Accounts: UK Solar Photovoltaic Sector 2014, (part of Low carbon and renewable energy economy, final estimates: 2014) at:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/datasets/lcreestimatesdataset.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
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 assessment of the effect of the recent change in the value of the pound on the purchasing power of British steel companies.
Answered by Nick Hurd
My Department regularly reviews the impact of changing economic conditions on business including in specific sectors such as steel. We also talk regularly to companies to understand their view on market conditions including in formal meetings such as sector councils.
Steel companies are impacted differently by exchange rates depending on the balance of raw materials they import from outside the UK and the location of their export markets.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what progress her Department has made on rolling-out smart meters as standard by the end of 2020; and what estimate she has made of the number of homes that will have a smart meter installed by the end of each year to 2020.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The Government is committed to every home and small business being offered smart meters by the end of 2020. The Programme is making good progress. Over 3 million meters have been installed in homes and business across Great Britain in the Foundation stage of the Programme, ahead of the nationwide roll-out.
Suppliers’ annual projections on the number of smart meters installed each year to 2020 can be found on page 28 of the Fourth Annual Report on the Roll-out of Smart Meters:
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department is taking to ensure the data security of smart meters.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The Department has worked with industry and security experts, including GCHQ, to design a smart metering system that has robust end-to-end security. The Department’s Data Access and Privacy Framework puts consumers in control of who has access to their data except where energy suppliers and networks have access for regulated purposes, such as to enable accurate monthly billing. All organisations involved in communicating with smart meters are required to comply with a detailed set of security obligations, with each aspect of the system subject to regular, independent security assurance.
Smart meters will not store data such as a consumer’s name, address or bank details. A key design principle for the system is the maintenance of user privacy. Any transaction of data which could be deemed ‘personal’, including energy consumption data, is encrypted so only the intended recipient can see it.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how many businesses have signed agreements with the Business Growth Service in each local authority area in the UK.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The attached table shows the number of businesses that have signed agreements with the Business Growth Service in each local authority area in the UK since the service launched in December 2014.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what information her Department holds on the number of people employed in the (a) wind and (b) solar energy sector in Yorkshire and the Humber in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills published a report in March 2015 on “The Size and Performance of the UK Low Carbon Economy”. This contains estimates of the number of people employed directly within different sectors of the low carbon economy, and in their supply chains:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/low-carbon-economy-size-and-performance.
The report estimates that for 2013 in Yorkshire and Humber there were 2,900 people employed in the solar photovoltaics sector, with equivalent estimates of 2,100 and 500 for the onshore and offshore wind sectors respectively. These figures include those directly employed by firms in the sector, and resulting jobs within the supply chain.
One thousand new jobs will be created in Hull at Siemens’ offshore wind manufacturing plant which is due to be operational from 2017 and will also create additional jobs in the supply chain.
Asked by: Michael Dugher (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what the level of installed capacity was for (a) wind and (b) solar energy in Yorkshire and the Humber in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom
The level of installed capacity for wind and solar PV in Yorkshire and the Humber, for the ten years to 2014, is given in the attached table. Data for 2015 will be available on 29 September, 2016.