Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
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 it his policy to explore alternative methods to fracking for extracting shale gas.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Ministerial Statement of 4 November 2019 makes clear that the pause on shale gas exploration and extraction applies specifically to operations that require Hydraulic Fracturing Consent. The definition of associated hydraulic fracturing is set out under section 4B of the Petroleum Act 1998 (inserted by Section 50 of the Infrastructure Act 2015), and involves the injection of more than 10,000 cubic metres of fluid in total, or more than 1,000 cubic metres of fluid per stage.
Activities outside of this definition are not included in the pause.
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
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 protect workers' rights in the retail and distribution sector in response to the Taylor Review.
Answered by Jane Hunt
We are committed to supporting all workers across the UK and have recently brought forward several reforms which will help protect workers in the retail and distribution sector.
In April 2022 we made sure 2.5 million people received a pay rise raising the National Minimum and National Living Wages. This was the largest ever cash increase to the National Living Wage and will put over £1,000 a year into a full-time workers’ pay packet, helping to ease cost of living pressures.
Additionally, on 6 July we brought forward legislation to widen the ban on exclusivity clauses, which restrict staff from working for multiple employers, to contracts where the guaranteed weekly income is equivalent to or below the Lower Earnings Limit of £123 a week.
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
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 take steps to ensure that energy customers using a preferred payment method are not disadvantaged compared with customers using other payment methods.
Answered by Greg Hands
Under the terms of the supply licence enforced by Ofgem, gas and electricity suppliers cannot charge more for one payment method compared with another, unless it costs more to provide the preferred payment method to customers.
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
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 potential merits of including the Gambling Commission's decisions on control of assets, in so far as those decisions may affect national security, within the scope of the National Security and Investment Act 2021.
Answered by Paul Scully
The National Security and Investment Act 2021 enables the Government to scrutinise and – if necessary – intervene in qualifying acquisitions which may raise national security risks. We will not hesitate to use these powers where our national security is at risk.
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
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 hold discussions with the National Audit Office about the production of a follow-up to the report on the Bounce Back Loan Scheme: an update.
Answered by Paul Scully
The National Audit Office (NAO) is independent of Government and sets its own agenda for investigations. It should be noted the Comptroller and Auditor General of the NAO has complete discretion in determining which areas of public spending to scrutinise.
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to his Department's response to FOI2021/05245, if he will publish his Department's final versions of the following files relating to calculations of the levelised cost of electricity generation (a) Solar Methodology.xlsx, (b) Onshore Methodology.xlsx, (c) Offshore Methodology.xlsx, (d) Generation Costs Summer Updates 2019 PR.pptx, (e) Offshore Wind Summer 2019 Update.docx, (f) Onshore Update Summer 2019.docx, (g) Solar Update Summer 2019.docx and (h) [OFFSEN] Electricity Generation Costs 2019.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Department is not intending to publish these documents as they are draft, working documents that do not reflect the final “Electricity Generation Costs Report 2020”[1] which has been published online. As such they have been withheld under Environmental Information Regulation 12(4)(d).
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/beis-electricity-generation-costs-2020
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what mechanism his Department used to ensure that the £200m in CFD payments made to the Low Carbon Contracts Company by renewables generators between September 2021 and February 2022 was passed through to consumers as energy bill savings.
Answered by Greg Hands
Due to current high energy prices, the Low Carbon Contracts Company (LCCC) has temporarily stopped collecting the compulsory levy from suppliers which funds the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. CfD generators have instead paid approximately £205 million back into the scheme from September 2021 to March 2022 inclusive. LCCC returned around £40 million of this to suppliers at the last quarterly reconciliation, with suppliers leaving the balance on account with LCCC to meet future liabilities towards funding the cost of the scheme. This ensures that consumers do not pay higher CfD support costs during periods of high electricity prices.
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
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 likely level of forthcoming price rises for heat network customers; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Greg Hands
Price increases for heat network customers vary depending on the type and owner of the network. Larger district heat networks are able to use their market size to purchase energy at scale and secure cheaper prices.
Whilst the Government does not yet have robust estimates of price increases for heat network consumers, those supplied by district heat networks are seeing price increases broadly in line with increases being seen by customers under the Retail Price Cap. The Government is seeing larger price increases for heat network customers on smaller communal networks where there are greater difficulties in purchasing at scale. These types of networks serve approximately 80,000 domestic consumers (18% of all domestic heat network consumers). The Government remains committed to legislating within this parliament to regulate the heat networks sector.
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many kWh of gas imported from Russia is used by the average UK household per year.
Answered by Greg Hands
According to the latest data available, in 2020 the average household used around 12,200kWh of gas. In that year less than 3% of UK gas supplies came from Russia via LNG. Once natural gas enters the UK transmission system, it is impossible to identify the distribution of specific molecules.
Asked by: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the level of UK gas imports from Russia over the last five years by (a) percentage and (b) GWh.
Answered by Greg Hands
The UK only receives direct gas in the form of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from Russia, since there are no gas pipelines directly linking the UK with Russia. Over the last five years (2017-2021), UK gas imports from Russia accounted for, on average, 2% of the UK’s gas supply portfolio.
On average, over the last five years (2017-2021), the UK received 21506 GWh of LNG from Russia.