Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
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 paragraph 4.74 of the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 Red Book, what steps the Global Britain Investment fund will take to ensure that economic opportunities are spread more evenly across the UK.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Global Britain Investment Fund (GBIF) will provide grants to encourage internationally mobile companies to invest in the UK’s critical and most innovative industries, where the UK has natural strengths and geographic spread. For example, the GBIF will cover the automotive sector, which has key regional clusters in the West Midlands, North West, and North East, as well as the life sciences sector, which currently has two thirds of jobs already located outside of London and the South East. Also included is the offshore wind sector, which is attracting significant new investment to our coastal communities, including floating offshore wind in Scotland and Wales.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to help protect leaseholders from unfair practices in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.
Answered by Eddie Hughes
The Government is committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service. We are taking forward a comprehensive programme of reform to end unfair practices in the leasehold market.
The Government asked the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to investigate potential mis-selling of homes and unfair terms in the leasehold sector. On 19 March 2021, the CMA announced that it is requiring the removal of ground rent terms which it thinks are unfair from all existing Countryside and Taylor Wimpey contracts to make sure they are no longer in breach of the law. The companies must also agree not to use the terms again in any future leasehold contracts. On 23 June the CMA announced commitments secured from Aviva and Persimmon to amend their practices regarding doubling ground rents and houses sold as leasehold. This is a hugely important step and demonstrates our determination to support affected leaseholders.
In January we announced we will abolish marriage value, cap the treatment of ground rents at 0.1% of the freehold value, and prescribe rates for the calculations at market value. We will also introduce an online calculator, further simplifying the process for leaseholders and ensuring standardisation and fairness for all those looking to enfranchise. Through our reforms, the length of a statutory lease extension will increase to 990 years, from 90 years (for flats) and 50 years (for houses). Leaseholders will be able to extend their lease with zero ground rent on payment of a premium. Leaseholders will also be able to voluntarily agree to a restriction on future development of their property to avoid paying ‘development value’.
Having closely reviewed the Law Commission’s report on Commonhold we have established a new Commonhold Council as a partnership of industry, leaseholders and Government that will prepare homeowners and the market for the widespread take-up of commonhold. This will take time and close working with consumers and industry, and the Commonhold Council will be the critical first step of this.
The Government will respond to the Law Commission’s remaining recommendations on enfranchisement, commonhold and right to manage in due course.
We have brought forward legislation in the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill to set ground rents on newly created leases to a genuine ‘peppercorn’ rate of only one peppercorn per year or effectively zero financial value. This will be the first part of seminal two-part legislation to implement reforms in this Parliament.
Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many companies are registered in (a) Sandwell and (b) the West Midlands.
Answered by Paul Scully
Please find below the number of companies and Limited Liability Partnerships for (a) Sandwell and (b) West Midlands as at Friday 14 May 2021:
Sandwell: 18,691 active companies registered;
West Midlands: 377,299 active companies registered.
Asked by: Sarah Olney (Liberal Democrat - Richmond Park)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the total level of expenditure on Emergency Recovering Measures Agreements for train operating companies is since October 2020.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Train operators provide management accounts to government, and are paid by government, once per rail period and there are 13 such periods in each financial year. Reliable data therefore cannot be produced from 1 October exactly as the accounting dates do not align.
However, periodic data on operational support payments made to each franchised operator from 1 March 2020 to 6 February 2021, is published at the link below:
Financial Year 2020-21 Rail Period 7 started on 20 September 2020, and 1 October 2020 fell within it.
The nine ERMA train operators include: C2C (Essex Thameside), South Western Railway, TransPennine Express, West Midlands Trains, Greater Anglia (East Anglia), GTR (Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern), Chiltern Railways, East Midlands Railways, and Avanti West Coast (West Coast Partnership).
Asked by: John Spellar (Labour - Warley)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many companies are registered in (a) Sandwell and (b) the West Midlands.
Answered by Paul Scully
It has not proved possible to respond to the Rt. Hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 29 March 2021 to Question 174247, what changes in (a) services and (b) safety procedures have been made by (i) Avanti West Coast, (ii) London Northwestern Railway and (iii) West Midlands Railway since the easing of covid-19 restrictions on 12 April 2021.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
From 12 April, train operating companies have increased their service levels from 70 per cent of pre-pandemic levels to around 75 per cent. With Government support, operators continue to refine their safety procedures including advice to the public about social distancing, the cleaning of trains and stations, and the wearing of face coverings.
Asked by: Gareth Thomas (Labour (Co-op) - Harrow West)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, pursuant to the Answer of 1 February 2021 to Question 142762 on Department for International Trade: Trade Promotion, which companies are delivering those contracts; how those companies were chosen to deliver those contracts; and how the performance of those companies is monitored by her Department.
Answered by Graham Stuart
The Department for International Trade has contracts for trade advisor services with the following companies:
South East | Newable Ltd |
London | Newable Ltd |
South West | GWE Business West Ltd |
East Midlands | East Midlands Business Ltd |
West Midlands | West Midlands International Trade LLP |
East of England | Exemplas Trade Services Ltd |
North East | North East Worldwide Ltd |
North West | Chamberlink Ltd |
Yorkshire & Humber | Enterprise Growth Solutions Ltd |
The companies were selected via a competitive open procurement procedure in April 2015 that was advertised on OJEU (Official Journal for the European Union) and Contracts Finder, the government’s procurement portal.
Performance is monitored through monthly contract review meetings to track delivery against targets and key performance indicators, as well as via qualitative survey feedback. Targets/Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are reviewed annually to ensure they align with government priorities.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions he has had with rail operators on the potential merits of temporarily suspending peak fares during the Christmas period.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
A number of train companies are planning to relax peak travel restrictions over the Christmas period, including Avanti West Coast, London North Eastern Railway, CrossCountry and East Midlands Railways, while others are planning to lift restrictions on some services or on particular days such as Christmas Eve.
Asked by: Jim McMahon (Labour (Co-op) - Oldham West and Royton)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to his announcement of 3 December 2020 of a Christmas travel plan, how many train operating companies are suspending their peak travel times on 23 and 24 of December 2020.
Answered by Chris Heaton-Harris - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
A number of train companies are planning to relax peak travel restrictions over the Christmas period, including Avanti West Coast, London North Eastern Railway, Cross-country and East Midlands Railways, while others are planning to lift restrictions on some services or on particular days such as Christmas Eve.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the number of households in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England that have fallen into arrears with their water supplier; and what steps his Department is taking to protect vulnerable households in water arrears during the covid-19 outbreak.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Regional water companies are regularly assessing the needs of their customers. Across England, all companies have measures in place for households who may struggle to pay their water bills, including the WaterSure, social tariffs and payment breaks. Water consumers are also protected from being disconnected from their water supply if they are unable to pay their bill.
Feedback from companies to date has shown no significant impacts on the number of non-payments by households. This could be attributed to an initial increase in the take up of water support schemes, which may have reduced the risk of customers falling into long term arrears.
It is too early to fully assess the impacts of COVID-19 on water bills as the impacts of general support is still being understood. However, we continue to work with the Consumer Council for Water (CCW), Ofwat and Water UK to monitor the industry’s regional and national response to Covid-19.