Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what (a) assessment he has made and (b) consultation he has undertaken on the potential merits of introducing an energy social tariff.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government is considering new ways to protect consumers in the energy market as stated in the Autumn Statement. These changes will apply from April 2024. As part of the wider retail market reforms the Government will engage with consumer groups and industry stakeholders One option that will be considered will be a social tariff.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
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 households with children who need palliative care and who use pre-payment meters can access a secure and affordable supply of energy.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Government’s Energy Price Guarantee will bring a typical household bill down to the equivalent of around £2500 per year from 1 October 2022 to end of March 2023 (with equivalent support in NI). From April 2023, the Energy Price Guarantee will be adjusted to cap typical household bills at £3,000 until the end of March 2024. Additionally, the Energy Bills Support Scheme will provide electricity customers in Great Britain with £400 off their bills from October 2022.
Ofgem Standard Licence Conditions require suppliers to ensure that prepayment meters are only installed where it is ‘safe and reasonably practicable’ - including consideration of whether a consumer’s vulnerability makes a prepayment meter a poor choice, for example where medical equipment is required.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
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 the announcement of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme and the Energy Price Guarantee, for what reasons the level of support for off-grid households was set at £100; and when he plans to provide further information on support to off-grid businesses.
Answered by Graham Stuart
£100 provides comparable support to a typical household using heating oil as that provided to a gas heated household benefiting from the Energy Price Guarantee. The Government is working at speed to deliver robust support for off-grid non-domestic consumers and will publish more details in due course.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch 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 it his policy to require button batteries to be coated with a bitter agent to discourage children from putting them in their mouths and swallowing those batteries.
Answered by Paul Scully
The UK has a comprehensive consumer safety and protection regulatory framework that covers button batteries, with obligations on producers, manufacturers, importers and distributors to ensure their products are safe before they are placed on the market.
The safety of button batteries is regulated by the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 (GPSR) and there are specific requirements on button batteries used in toys under the Toys (Safety) Regulations 2011.
The Government commissioned the British Standards Institution (BSI) to publish a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) standard on the safe use of button batteries. Developed with technical experts drawn from a wide range of stakeholders including consumers and businesses, it was published on 30 April this year and specifies safety requirements for button and coin batteries to mitigate the risk of ingestion.
We will continue to work with stakeholders and other interested parties to assess how technologies such as bittering agents and any other options available can be used to enhance safety.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
If he will provide further support to energy transition projects in Scotland.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The Government is intending to support the development of at least two Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) clusters to support the energy transition at industrial sites across the UK. This process is ongoing with an announcement expected later this year.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his policy is on the reduction or elimination of the use of natural gas for domestic heating and cooking; and what targets his Department has on that matter.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan
As set out in the Energy White Paper, the Government will provide a clear path for moving away from fossil fuels, including natural gas, in homes over the next fifteen years as consumers replace their appliances.
By the mid-2030s, we expect all newly installed heating systems to be low carbon or to be appliances that we are confident can be converted to a clean fuel supply. In order to achieve this ambition, we are moving forward with plans to deploy low carbon technologies, having set a target for 600,000 heat pump installations per year by 2028. We are also continuing to support research and development projects to help determine the feasibility of using low carbon hydrogen for domestic purposes including trials planned throughout the decade.
For new homes, the Government is introducing the Future Homes Standard by 2025. We expect that homes built to the Future Homes Standard will have carbon dioxide emissions 75-80% lower than those built to current Building Regulations standards, which means they will be fit for the future, with low carbon heating and very high fabric standards. In order to support this, we will be consulting on whether it is appropriate to end gas grid connections to new homes.
We will be publishing a Heat and Buildings Strategy in due course, which will set out the immediate actions we will take for reducing emissions from buildings.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
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 monitor the number of redundancies made from a pool of one; and what assessment he has made of whether such procedures are being operated fairly.
Answered by Paul Scully
Employers are only required to notify my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State if they are proposing making more than 20 people redundant. However, the Office for National Statistics produce detailed statistics on redundancies by industry and individual characteristics.
There are laws in place to ensure that any redundancy process should be fair and reasonable with appropriate equalities considerations. Employees with the necessary qualifying service who believe that they have been unfairly selected for redundancy, or that the redundancy was unfair in some other way, can complain to an employment tribunal who will make an assessment. The Government publishes quarterly tribunal statistics, including on unfair dismissal and discrimination claims.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch 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 it his policy that applications for bounce back loans cannot be refused by lenders on the basis that the applicant is (a) a customer of another bank or (b) not using a business banking account.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) has been introduced to help small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between £2,000 and £50,000. Businesses are not required to bank with their provider in order to be eligible for a loan under the Bounce Back Loans Scheme (BBLS).
It is also not a requirement of the Scheme for businesses to operate via a business account. However, some lenders may request that an applicant opens a business account in line with their standard policies. This is at the sole discretion of the lender. There are now 14 lenders accredited under the scheme, providing more choice for SMEs. Details of accredited lenders can be found on the British Business Bank’s website.
In order to apply for the scheme, businesses need to complete a short, simple online application form. A lender may consider paying funds into a personal current account if no business bank account is held, if it has been satisfactorily evidenced that the personal current account is being used for business purposes. In some cases, borrowers may need to include their 2018-19 HMRC self-assessment tax return alongside the form to verify their status as a business.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions she has had with representatives from Cummins on that company's proposals to close its factory in Cumbernauld.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government regularly engages with manufacturers and manufacturing trade associations on opportunities to support the growth and competitiveness of manufacturing sectors in the UK. Ultimately, the proposed closure of Cummins’ Cumbernauld factory is a commercial decision for the company.
Asked by: Stuart C McDonald (Scottish National Party - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if she will respond to the correspondence dated 9 January 2020 from Jamie Hepburn MSP and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, on alternative proposals to keep open the Cummins factory in Cumbernauld.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The correspondence referred to is currently receiving attention. A reply will be issued shortly.