Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 11 May 2016 (HL8016), what further progress has been made towards appointing the proposed Small Business Commissioner to help small businesses resolve payment disputes with large businesses.
Answered by Lord Prior of Brampton
We expect to appoint the Commissioner in 2017 and we continue to make progress on implementation. Our public consultation on the policy for regulations underpinning the Commissioner’s complaints handling function closed in December and we are preparing the Government Response.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress is being made towards appointing the proposed Small Business Commissioner to help small businesses resolve payment disputes with large businesses.
Answered by Baroness Neville-Rolfe - Shadow Minister (Treasury)
Government has taken powers to establish the Small Business Commissioner via the Enterprise Bill, which is currently waiting for Royal Assent. We have started the implementation process and will begin the recruitment of the Commissioner later this year with the expectation of appointing him or her in 2017. We are completing the rest of the implementation in parallel which includes: consulting on, preparing and laying secondary legislation; setting up the Commissioner’s office; and creating a web presence.
Asked by: Baroness Golding (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what independent reports, if any, they have commissioned from Ecofys in the past five years; when they received those reports; whether those reports were published; and if not, whether they will now publish those reports.
Answered by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth
Data on the number of smart electricity and gas meters installed in Great Britain is set out in the Government’s ‘Smart Meters, Great Britain, Quarterly report to end September 2015’, published on 22 December 2015:
The roll-out is making good progress with more than 2 million meters now operating under the Programme which covers Great Britain. Northern Ireland is undertaking a separate roll-out programme.
Currently, data is published only at Great Britain level. Data is not collected from energy suppliers in a way that allows constituency or regional-level data to be produced.