Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
What recent steps he has taken to support small businesses.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Through our modern Industrial Strategy, we are making the UK one of the best places in the world for businesses to start up and grow.
The Government-owned British Business Bank is supporting nearly 78,000 small businesses with over £5.5 billion of finance; and we’ve extended funding for the Start Up Loans Company until 2021, supporting 10,000 more entrepreneurs.
We’re also providing £56m of funding to boost business productivity, including £11m to create a Small Business Leadership Programme.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on the merits of introducing statutory paid leave for parents who suffer the loss of a child.
Answered by Margot James
I know my Hon. Friend has done a considerable amount of work on this, given his own tragic experience. I would like to reassure him that we are exploring options for supporting bereaved parents in employment.
We would expect employers to be compassionate and flexible at such a difficult time, however we understand this is not always the case.
So we are looking at ways to enable parents to take time away from work to grieve.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 21 April 2016 to Question 34465, if his Department will take steps to allow web-users to include honours when completing government online forms.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
All future digital services, including online forms, will follow the Government Digital Service design principles. Our approach to personal data is to require the information that is relevant for the transaction.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 10 March 2016 to Question 30709, when he expects his Department's response to the call for evidence on tips, gratuities, service and cover charges to be published.
Answered by Nick Boles
The Government is analysing the responses to the Call for Evidence on tips, gratuities, service and cover charges, with a view to announcing its next steps shortly.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps his Department is taking to tackle late payment to businesses.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Government remains committed to tackling late payment. We are creating the Small Business Commissioner, whose primary function will be to tackle and change the culture of late payment. We are already seeing some of the larger supermarkets and retailers offering considerably better payment terms to small businesses. Larger companies will have a duty to report on payment practices and performance from October.
Asked by: Will Quince (Conservative - Colchester)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what proportion of the UK's energy was generated from renewable sources in the last 12 months.
Answered by Amber Rudd
In 2014, the latest full year for which data is available, 7 per cent of the UK’s energy came from renewable sources, and 19 per cent of the UK’s electricity. This is a 15 per cent increase from the level of electricity generated from renewable sources in 2010.