Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate he has made of the proportion of households that have a pre-payment (a) gas and (b) electricity meter in (i) Stockport constituency, (ii) the Borough of Stockport, (iii) Greater Manchester, (iv) the North West and (v) England.
Answered by Greg Hands
Regional data on electricity customers on prepayment tariffs are published as part of the Quarterly Energy Prices statistical series here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/quarterly-energy-prices#2022.
Energy data is not collated at a constituency level.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what additional steps he is taking to help (a) local councils and (b) housing associations with improvement works to insulation on aging housing to help tackle the rising cost of energy.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Local Authority Delivery scheme and the first phase of the Home Upgrade Grant have allocated over £1billion in funding to local authorities across England since 2020 to install energy efficiency measures, including insulation, to low-income households on and off the gas grid. Over £850 million additional funding is available to the Home Upgrade Grant over the next 3 years.
The £3.8 billion Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund is being delivered over a 10-year period to improve the energy performance of social rented homes.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 bring forward legislative proposals to ensure that companies may not make decisions and announcements on mass redundancy without proper consultation with the workforce or trade unions.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 already requires employers proposing to make 20 or more employees redundant from one establishment in a 90-day period to consult employees or their representatives:
The consultation must cover ways to avoid redundancies, reducing the numbers of redundancies, or mitigating their impact. Within the same timescales, the employer must notify the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the proposed collective redundancies. Failure to submit a notification without good cause is a criminal offence and can result in an unlimited fine. The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service provides advice on best practice when managing large scale redundancies.
Employees and/or employee representatives may make a claim to an employment tribunal if they consider the employer has not complied with the consultation requirements for collective redundancies. If the tribunal agrees it may make a protective award of up to 90 days’ remuneration per employee.
Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
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 increase the Warm Homes Discount to reflect the increase in the energy price cap and household energy bills.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Government has committed to expanding the Warm Home Discount spending envelope from the current £350 million to £475 million per year, rising with inflation. This means around 3 million households would receive rebates on their energy bills every winter, representing an increase of a third compared to the current scheme.
The Government consulted last summer on reforms to the scheme, which included a proposal to increase the rebate amount from the current £140 to £150. This increase balances providing meaningful support to as many households as possible while minimising the impact on consumers’ bills.
The Government has announced a new package of support to help households with their energy bills, including a £200 discount on household energy bills this autumn for domestic electricity customers in Great Britain; a £150 non-repayable rebate in Council Tax bills for all households in Council Tax Bands A-D in England; and an additional £144 million of discretionary funding for Local Authorities to support households not eligible for the Council Tax rebate. In addition, support will continue to be offered through established support schemes, such as the Cold Weather Payments and Winter Fuel Payment, which help vulnerable households with their winter energy costs.