Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
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 representatives of energy companies on the use of smart meters that have ceased to operate in smart mode and are underestimating future energy bills.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Smart meters, which are temporarily operating in traditional mode continue to accurately record energy consumption. With manual meter readings provided to the energy supplier, customers will continue to receive accurate bills.
Energy suppliers are required by their licence conditions to take all reasonable steps to ensure their customers’ smart meters are fully functional, which includes providing automatic meter readings. The Government works closely with energy suppliers and other industry parties, so that that households across Great Britain can realise the benefits of smart meters.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
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 help ensure that people who live on mobile home sites receive energy grants rather than the site owner.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
The Government is aware that not all households have electricity provided through a domestic electricity supply contract, such as mobile home residents. The Government raised this in its technical consultation on the Energy Bills Support Scheme. Households without a domestic electricity supply contract are not eligible for the scheme and the Government is exploring options for other ways in which they might receive similar support. The responses to this consultation are being analysed and a response will be published later in the summer.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
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 planning to take to support fish and chip shops; and what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the finding by the National Federation of Fish Friers that one third of those shops are likely to close in the coming months.
Answered by Paul Scully
We recognise the impact the pandemic and inflation is having on businesses of all sizes and the Government is in regular contact with business groups and suppliers to understand the challenges they face and explore ways to protect businesses.
This Department is working closely with Defra, who lead on food supply chain and is in regular discussions with the National Federation of Fish Friers to understand better the impacts on hospitality businesses including fish and chip shops.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent discussions he has had with (a) the electric vehicles industry and (b) local authorities on provision for electric vehicle charging points for properties with no off-street parking provision.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The Government continues to work closely with vehicle manufactures on the transition to zero emission vehicles.
Ministers regularly engage with industry, including vehicle manufacturers, energy companies and chargepoint operators as well as local authorities (LAs) regarding electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure. For example, my Rt. Hon. Friend the Prime Minister hosted an event at the Global Investment Summit on 19 October which was attended by leading British and global companies involved in the UK’s electric vehicle revolution. The meeting was attended by my Rt. Hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Secretary of State for Transport, and the Secretary of State for International Trade, and by my Hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury.
The Secretary of State for Transport wrote to the chief executives of all UK LAs in February this year to update them on the funding available to them. My Hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary for Transport also wrote to the Chief Executives and Leaders of 20 councils that had a lower than average chargepoint per head of population to encourage them to engage with OZEV officials. Since this letter, officials have hosted several meetings with members of these councils, providing support and advice. Officials from the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles (OZEV) have a programme of activities to engage and support LAs, to help mainstream local capability and leadership and ensure LAs are working to support chargepoint rollout in their areas.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he plans to implement further measures to prevent the use of postcode location centroids that are determined on private property.
Answered by Paul Scully
BEIS has responsibility for the Arms Length Bodies who collect, curate, and maintain the foundational data that underpins the use of post codes and addressing.
Ordnance Survey (working in a consortium of members including Royal Mail, Office for National Statistics, Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland, National Records of Scotland) publishes 1.7m centroids for postcodes across the UK.
The location of the postcode centroid is automatically generated by averaging more granular address data and 'snapping' to the nearest address – which includes residential properties – in order to ensure it sits on a building, rather than potentially in the middle of a road, a lake or a field. This was designed to support the primary use case for post code and address-based navigation (i.e. getting to the right approximate location). Ordnance Survey are currently exploring how they locate the centroid for postcodes in their Code Point products and would welcome engagement from any interested parties.
Ordnance Survey also publishes the location of every individual address in its AddressBase products, which is used by emergency services and delivery companies to navigate to the correct property more efficiently and effectively.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has made an estimate of the potential effect of adopting British Summer Time permanently on levels of carbon emissions.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government believes that the current daylight-saving arrangements represent the optimal use of the available daylight across the UK.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much the special shareholder approved in the Post Office Horizon litigation; and whether the special shareholder took into account the amount claimants were asking for in the settlement mediation.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government is pleased that a resolution has been reached between the parties to settle this long-running litigation and the steps they have taken through the mediation talks. Postmasters are the backbone of the Post Office, and their branches are vital to communities across the country. That is why Government takes Post Office Limited's (POL) relationship with its postmasters very seriously.
On 11 December following mediation talks, the parties to the litigation agreed a settlement figure of £57.75m. Government was not party to the mediation discussions. The agreed settlement included all legal and other costs, The settlement was funded entirely by POL’s commercial revenues. The Government as shareholder specifically required that government funding was not used for this purpose.
Given the nature and scale of the settlement payment, the Government did approve the final figure.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
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 Horizon software litigation, whether the Government has provided Post Office Ltd with funds in addition to the £57 million cost of that litigation.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government is pleased that a resolution has been reached between the parties to settle this long-running litigation and the steps they have taken through the mediation talks. Postmasters are the backbone of the Post Office, and their branches are vital to communities across the country. That is why Government takes Post Office Limited's (POL) relationship with its postmasters very seriously.
On 11 December following mediation talks, the parties to the litigation agreed a settlement figure of £57.75m. Government was not party to the mediation discussions. The agreed settlement included all legal and other costs, The settlement was funded entirely by POL’s commercial revenues. The Government as shareholder specifically required that government funding was not used for this purpose.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans the Government has to continue the Renewable Heat Incentive.
Answered by Jesse Norman
In the 2015 Autumn Statement the government announced continued funding for the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) schemes, with the budget rising to £1.15bn by 2020/21. Reforms to the RHI were announced on Wednesday 14th December 2016, which are designed to ensure that the RHI focuses on long-term decarbonisation, offers better value for money and protects consumers, supports supply chain growth.
Asked by: Andrew Bridgen (Independent - North West Leicestershire)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which regulations he has asked the EU Commission to (a) amend and (b) repeal on the basis of their effects on businesses in the UK.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Government regularly presses the European Commission to amend or repeal EU rules in order to minimise the regulatory burdens imposed on UK business.
In particular, we do this through the European Commission’s Regulatory Fitness (REFIT) programme – established in 2012 to review the stock of existing EU legislation in order to identify burdens, inconsistencies, gaps or ineffective measures and address them. This has generated progress in areas of significant UK priority, including Occupational Health and Safety and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) – where the Commission’s 2016 Work Programme put forward burden-cutting proposals
Overall, the Commission’s 2015 and 2016 Work Programmes proposed 100 withdrawals or modifications of pending proposals, and 39 repeals and 56 evaluations of existing EU laws.
As part of the UK’s settlement with the EU, the European Commission is committed to reviewing the burden of regulation each year and introducing specific targets to reduce costs for businesses in the most burdensome areas.