Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 Answer of 22 December 2015 to Question 19825, how many complaints were received by the Pay and Work Rights Helpline regarding employment issues in each of the last five years; and how many of those complaints were from (a) apprentices, (b) interns and (c) self-employed people in that same period.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
Information on all Acas helpline calls and those that relate to Pay and Works Rights Helpline (PWRH) issues specifically are available below. Information on self-employed status is not collected by Acas.
Table 1: Enquiries made to the Acas helpline by topic and caller type, 2015/16 to 2016/17
Caller Type | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | ||
All topics | PWRH topics | All topics | PWRH topics | |
Apprentices | 2,540 | 1,200 | 2,450 | 1,090 |
Interns | 130 | 60 | 90 | 40 |
Source: Acas
Notes
The answer given to the hon. Member on 22 December 2015, by the then Minister of State for Skills to Question 19825, reported Pay and Works Right Helpline (PWRH) data between 2009-10 and 2014-15. The PWRH was replaced by the Acas helpline in April 2015. Acas data is not directly comparable to data collected under the PWRH, as Acas handle a much wider range of enquiries on employment matters. It is not possible to specifically identify the number of calls received by Acas that would have been handled by the previous PWRH.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
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 15 January 2018 to Question 121674, for what reasons the calculation of projected savings under the new energy cap uses data on average consumption when people in receipt of the Warm Home Discount or in fuel poverty consume below that average consumption.
Answered by Claire Perry
Ofgem’s decision to extend the Pre Payment Meter safeguard tariff to those consumers in receipt of Warm Home Discount (WHD) was published on 7 December 2017 and is available at:
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2017/12/decision_letter_whd_safeguard_tariff_-_final.pdf.
In their decision, Ofgem describe their reasons for calculating projected savings under the energy price cap based on the Typical Domestic Consumption Value. They note the possibility that vulnerable customers may be more likely to be within lower consumption brackets than the Typical Domestic Consumption Value, and this could lead to an overestimation of the available savings within their impact assessment. However, they also note that consumption levels for all customers, including those considered vulnerable, are likely to vary considerably. Given the desire to implement the cap for these vulnerable customers quickly, and the lack of consumption data specific to WHD customers, Ofgem did not factor this into their analysis.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the average consumption of domestic energy and gas per household was for (a) those households in receipt of the Warm Home Discount and (b) other households in each year since 2010.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
The Department does not hold domestic energy consumption data for households in receipt of Warm Home Discount.
For the purposes of understanding fuel poverty, domestic energy consumption is modelled from survey data using assumptions about heating levels needed to ensure a household achieves an adequate level of warmth as opposed to data based on actual consumption.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what information his Department holds on the proportion of average household domestic gas and electricity bills which standing charges have constituted in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
Energy bill estimates are based on a BEIS survey of energy providers which covers around 82 per cent of the market. This data is published as part of BEIS’ Quarterly Energy Prices publication. The table below shows the proportion of average household domestic gas and electricity bills which standing charges have constituted in each of the last five years, using consumption levels of 3,800kWh/year of standard electricity and 15,000kWh/year of gas.
| Proportion of standing charge to bill | ||
| Electricity | Gas | Total |
2013 | 11.2% | 13.1% | 12.3% |
2014 | 11.6% | 12.1% | 11.9% |
2015 | 11.6% | 12.2% | 12.0% |
2016 | 11.8% | 13.3% | 12.6% |
2017p | 12.0% | 13.6% | 12.8% |
Note: p's indicate provisional data.
Source: Quarterly Energy Prices
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/annual-domestic-energy-price-statistics
Table 2.2.4 Average variable unit costs and standing charges for standard electricity
Table 2.3.4 Average variable unit costs and standing charges for gas
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the average consumption of domestic energy and gas per household was for (a) those households in receipt of the Warm Home Discount and (b) other households in each year since 2010.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
The Department does not hold domestic energy consumption data for households in receipt of Warm Home Discount.
For the purposes of understanding fuel poverty, domestic energy consumption is modelled from survey data using assumptions about heating levels needed to ensure a household achieves an adequate level of warmth as opposed to data based on actual consumption.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many accredited renewable energy generators operate in (a) Hampstead and Kilburn and (b) London in each of the last three years; and how many Renewables Levy Exemption Certifications Ofgem issued in those areas in those years.
Answered by Margot James
The information requested is set out below, based on the postcode for the installations. For Hampstead and Kilburn, we have used the postcodes of N8, NW2, NW3, NW6, NW8, NW10, W9 and W10.
For the Renewables Obligation and the Feed-in Tariffs scheme, the “New” column shows new installations in the specified year. The “Total” columns show the cumulative number since the schemes started, in 2002 and 2010 respectively.
Renewables Obligation | Number of installations granted accreditation | |||||
2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | ||||
New | Total | New | Total | New | Total | |
Hampstead and Kilburn | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
London | 9 | 45 | 1 | 46 | 0 | 46 |
Feed-in Tariffs Scheme | Number of operational installations | |||||
2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | ||||
New | Total | New | Total | New | Total | |
Hampstead and Kilburn | 55 | 475 | 60 | 535 | 33 | 568 |
London | 4,616 | 22,545 | 5,574 | 28,119 | 1,769 | 29,888 |
Levy Exemption Certificates (LECs) | Number of LECs issued | ||
2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | |
Hampstead and Kilburn | 8 | 4 | 0 |
London | 944,803 | 333,854 | 0 |
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many and what proportion of people employed by his Department are from other EU countries.
Answered by Margot James
Like all Government Departments, BEIS is bound by legal requirements concerning the right to work in the UK and, in addition, the Civil Service Nationality Rules. Evidence of nationality is checked at the point of recruitment as part of pre-employment checks but there is no requirement to retain this information beyond the point at which it has served its purpose. Holding this information then is not mandatory and as a result is not available for the whole BEIS workforce.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress his Department has made in implementing (a) all the recommendations and (b) the recommendations that seek to achieve fairer energy tariffs for disabled people in the report by the Extra Costs Commission, Driving down the extra costs face disabled people.
Answered by Jesse Norman - Shadow Leader of the House of Commons
We welcome the Extra Costs Commission’s report ‘Driving down the extra costs disabled people face’, and in particular the Commission’s recommendation that disability organisations should consider setting up price comparison and collective switching schemes to assist disabled consumers to compare and switch tariffs so as to achieve better energy deals.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the Answers of 25 May 2016 and 31 March 2016 to Questions 37757 and 31997, if he will publish data on referrals made by the Pay and Work Rights Helpline in 2014-15.
Answered by Nick Boles
The table below shows the number of referrals (complaints) from the Pay and Work Rights Helpline (PWRH) to relevant enforcement authorities for the 2014/15 financial year.
Table 1: Referrals from the PWRH to each enforcement agencies, 2014/15
| 2014/15 |
HMRC | 3,510 |
EAS | 800 |
HSE | 260 |
DEFRA | 90 |
GLA | 50 |
Notes
1. Numbers are rounded to the nearest 10.
2. Calls can be referred to more than one agency so the sum does not amount to the total number of calls referred for the period.
3. Calls referred to agencies include complaints, complex queries and calls where intelligence was passed to other agencies.
4. Figures include referrals via all PWRH communication channels, including telephone calls, post and online complaints.
5. These figures are based on final data submitted by BSS on closure at the end of March 2015. They may not reconcile with provisional data provided while the old helpline was operational.
Asked by: Tulip Siddiq (Labour - Hampstead and Highgate)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to the Answers of 19 April 2016 to Questions 34108, 34137 and 34138, when the data on overseas and UK-based ownership of property will be placed in the Library.
Answered by Anna Soubry
I have done so.