Asked by: Tim Loughton (Conservative - East Worthing and Shoreham)
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 publish the (a) properties classified as heritage assets by his Department, (b) most recent estimate of the value of those properties and (c) annual income derived from those properties.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is advised on the management of designated heritage assets in its portfolio by Historic England’s Government Historic Estate Unit. Further details can be found here:
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy does not collect or collate data on the value or income data for these assets.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of developing a strategy for decarbonising traditional domestic buildings that were built before 1919.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
There is a package of policies, including grants, incentives, and advice, currently in place to support low income and fuel poor households, as well as to encourage investment in decarbonisation and energy efficiency improvements within the domestic housing stock. This package includes grant funding delivered via local authorities (including the Local Authority Delivery Scheme, Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and the Home Upgrade Grant). The Energy Company Obligation is not a grant scheme, but an obligation on the largest energy suppliers to deliver heating and energy efficiency measures to low income and vulnerable and fuel poor households.
Traditional properties built before 1919 will be eligible for upgrades through these schemes. Advice is also provided through the Simple Energy Advice service. We are consulting on requirements for lenders to support homeowners to improve the energy performance of their homes.
Further, the most recent PAS2035 and PAS 2030:2019 standards set out clear requirements for retrofitting homes built before 1919 to ensure that the most appropriate measures are installed for the building. The risk assessment in the standard is used to help the installers and designers take into consideration the age of the building and any features of heritage or design that need to be considered when upgrading these buildings.
Asked by: Alex Sobel (Labour (Co-op) - Leeds North West)
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 allowing heritage sites to offer socially distanced showgrounds to couples looking to book a wedding venue, ahead of Step 3 of the Roadmap.
Answered by Paul Scully
BEIS Ministers are in regular contact with Cabinet colleagues on matters related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including issues relating to reopening.
Venues will only be able to open for viewings, including show rounds for wedding couples, where the venue is permitted to open, or where a relevant exemption applies. Where a venue is required to close for the purposes of a viewing people could have a virtual tour.
Asked by: Paul Maynard (Conservative - Blackpool North and Cleveleys)
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 maintaining domestic coal supplies for the heritage rail sector.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
In line with our Net Zero target, the Government is committed to phasing out unabated coal-fired electricity generation by 2025, and recently consulted on moving this date forward to 2024. This policy applies to coal-fired power stations only – it does not apply to other coal consumers such as heritage railways.
Although coal will soon no longer be part of our electricity system, it will continue to be used as a fuel by a wide range of other industries such as the iron, steel and cement industries. We are confident that heritage railways will continue to have the option to tap into this significant domestic market. The decision on where to source coal for use in heritage railways and other industries is a private matter for the companies involved
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress his Department has made on providing support for the culture and heritage sector through the Culture Recovery Fund in (a) Greater London, b) the London Borough of Bexley and (c) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Over £1bn from the Culture Recovery Fund has been distributed to over 3000 organisations across England.
Across recovery grants, repayable finance, and capital awards so far, support for London (including Greater London) in the first round of funding was over £300m.
Across recovery grants, repayable finance, and capital awards so far, support for Bexley Borough in the first round of funding was approximately £340,000.
Across the arts and heritage recovery grants, support for Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency was approximately £310,000.
This included funding for councils and local government owned assets including museums, theatres and music venues. Organisations and sites including museums; archives; historical areas; designed landscapes; buildings; monuments and industrial transport also received support.
Asked by: Andrew Gwynne (Labour - Denton and Reddish)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will ask Network Rail to set out a timetable for (a) the removal of graffiti, (b) the restoration of the brickwork and (c) the removal of overgrowth and vegetation on the Stockport rail viaduct.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Stockport Viaduct is a vital part of the railway infrastructure and Network Rail take seriously the responsibility to maintain it in safe working order. They carry out detailed examinations of the structure and address any defects or problems these highlight. This year Network Rail have spent £50k on repairing the brick work in areas highlighted by their examinations.
The main vegetation growth on the viaduct is buddleia which is challenging to manage as it grows so quickly. Network Rail have a specific £1m fund for Control Period 6 (1 April 2019- 31 March 2024) to be used on brick repair and de-vegetation work on the viaduct.
The viaduct is a listed structure in recognition of its importance to Stockport’s industrial heritage. Network Rail look to manage any graffiti on the viaduct in accordance with their policies and will review any specific areas of concern and will take action where appropriate.
Asked by: David Evennett (Conservative - Bexleyheath and Crayford)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, how much funding from the Culture Recovery Fund has been allocated to the culture and heritage sector in (a) Greater London, (b) Bexley Borough and (c) Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency since that fund was established.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
As of 11 December, £1bn from the Culture Recovery Fund has been distributed to over 3000 organisations across England.
Across the arts and heritage recovery grants, repayable finance, and capital awards so far, support for London (including Greater London) was approximately £300m
Across the arts and heritage recovery grants, support for Bexley Borough was approximately £340,000.
Across the arts and heritage recovery grants, support for Bexleyheath and Crayford constituency was approximately £310,000.
This included funding for councils and local government owned assets including museums, theatres and music venues. This also included funding for organisations and sites including museums; archives; historical areas; designed landscapes; buildings; monuments and industrial transport.
Asked by: Jonathan Gullis (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent North)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what progress his Department has made on delivering support for local authority owned culture and heritage assets through the Culture Recovery Fund.
Answered by Nigel Huddleston - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Support for the Arts for Local Authorities in Round 1 was £23,376,244. Support for Heritage for Local Authorities in Round 1 was £1,435,900. This included funding for councils and local government owned assets including museums, theatres, music venues, archives; designed landscapes; buildings; monuments and industrial transport.
In addition to the arts and heritage emergency recovery grants, The CRF Heritage Stimulus Fund ‘Covid-19 Emergency Heritage at Risk’ stream granted £89,870.
Under the CRF Heritage Stimulus Fund ‘Repair Grants for Heritage at Risk Fund’ Lincoln City Council received £1,086,629 for Lincoln Castle and Blackpool City Council received £764,000 for the Blackpool Tower Ballroom.
Asked by: Justin Madders (Labour - Ellesmere Port and Neston)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment has he made of the potential effect of the covid-19 outbreak on science and discovery centres.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Government recognises the impacts of COVID-19 on science and discovery centres across the UK and Ministers and officials have met the Association of Science and Discovery Centres.
Science and discovery centres in England have access to the unprecedented support the Government has announced for business and workers, to protect them against the current economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Many are also part of museum groups or are heritage sites. Museums and heritage organisations can access over £200 million of coronavirus support schemes from Arts Council England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Science and discovery centres outside England may be eligible for further support from the devolved governments.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the economic effect of the covid-19 outbreak on London’s economy in the (a) retail, (b) culture and (c) hospitality sectors.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government recognises that these are challenging times for London businesses within the retail, culture, and hospitality sectors.
Hospitality, culture, retail, leisure, and tourism employ 1 in 5 Londoners and generate £62bn in GVA. On a normal working day roughly 2 million Londoners use the tube to travel to work. The loss of a large proportion of this daily office foot traffic represents a major challenge to the capital’s hospitality and retail businesses, especially in Central London where the residential population is low such as Westminster and the West End.
Businesses in the hospitality sector across the economy are being supported through a range of measures including Local Authority Discretionary Grants, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, the Eat Out to Help Out and the reduced VAT rate to 5%, along with Coronavirus Business Interruption loans.
Take-up of these schemes across the UK have been high. The accommodation and food services sector has seen 73% take-up rate in terms of employments, with over £4.1 billion claimed through CJRS. With 87% of employers in this sector furloughing at least one employment. The sector has been offered 3,924 CBILS facilities worth £956m, and 88,427 BBLS loans worth £3.10bn.
On 5 July, the Government announced a major £1.57 billion support package for key cultural organisations to help them through the coronavirus pandemic. This funding will provide targeted support to organisations across a range of sectors, including performing arts and theatres, museums and galleries, heritage sites, live music venues and independent cinema.