Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when his Department plans to announce further details on the Energy Bills Support Scheme Alternative Fund for those without a domestic electricity contract.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government is working urgently with a range of organisations, such as local authorities, as well as Devolved Administrations and across UK Government, to finalise the details and have the process up and running for applications this winter
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when he last discussed national security matters relating to the proposed electricity interconnector and data cabling project proposed by AQUIND with her French counterpart.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The UK works closely with international partners to ensure that investment in energy infrastructure meets the needs of all parties.
The protection of infrastructure and critical services is a key priority for the Department, and any new projects are assessed on a case-by-case basis which may involve a range of stakeholders. Foreign investment in critical national infrastructure undergoes the highest level of scrutiny.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
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 steel (a) procured and (b) ordered as of 9 November 2021 is UK-made for (i) Crossrail, (ii) Thames Tideway, (iii) the new Hinckley nuclear power plant and (iv) HS2.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Department annually collates and publishes information on how much steel is purchased by Government for major infrastructure projects in the previous financial year, including what proportion is UK-produced, where available. Please find the latest publication here:
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
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 tackle the impact of energy prices on energy-intensive users in the steel sector.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Department continues to engage constructively with energy intensive industries to further understand and to assess the possibility of offering help to mitigate the impacts of high global gas prices. Our priority is to ensure that costs are managed and that supplies of energy are maintained.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much UK-produced steel reinforcing bar was procured for Government-funded infrastructure projects in each of the last three years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) collates and publishes annually information on how much steel is purchased for the Government’s major infrastructure projects in the previous financial year, including what proportion is produced in the UK. This year’s data was published on 19 May and can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/steel-public-procurement-2021.
The reported value of UK steel procured in 2019/20 for major public projects was £108m, a 33% increase on the previous year. BEIS will start collating data for 2020/21 in due course.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Answer of 26 January 2021 to Question 141474, how many additional vaccine doses per month the expanded Vaccine Manufacturing Innovation Centre facility can produce as a result of the investment outlined in that Answer; and of which types of vaccine.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
When fully operationally in 2022, the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) will have several Good Manufacturing Process suites that will be able to accommodate a range of production scale capabilities. For pandemic response, the VMIC will be able to make up to 70 million doses of a vaccine within a 6-month timeframe. This is a significant increase to the VMIC’s originally anticipated capacity.
The VMIC has been designed to be a flexible manufacturing facility and will be able to manufacture a range of vaccine types, such as messenger RNA, viral vector, or protein sub-unit.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, when the expansion of the VMIC facility is planned to be completed.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) should be partially open in summer 2021, with the facility fully operational in 2022. The VMIC is working towards having fill-finish capability at the end of 2021. The objective remains to accelerate the readiness of the VMIC by a year and it is on track to achieve this, but it is also important to remember this is a complex project being delivered in unprecedented times.
Asked by: Stephen Doughty (Labour (Co-op) - Cardiff South and Penarth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the (a) design, (b) bio-engineering and (c) manufacture of vaccines capable of responding to the 501 and 484 variants of covid-19 has commenced.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government is currently undertaking its own laboratory work as a priority to better understand the impact of the new Covid-19 variants on the vaccines currently in deployment, in particular the risk of vaccine resistance. We maintain close contact with vaccine developers to understand their own studies as to the efficacy of their vaccines on variants and the impact on current supply chain arrangements for their manufacture.
We continue to take a portfolio-based approach that monitors the landscape of Covid-19 vaccine development and we remain confident that the three vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech, Oxford University/AstraZeneca, and Moderna) that we have purchased, which have been authorised by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), will continue to be effective against the virus.