Health: Ebola
Debate between Countess of Mar and Baroness Verma(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, I am sorry if the noble Lord thinks that I did not respond, so I shall try again this time. We are supporting the strengthening of healthcare systems in Sierra Leone and other places. In Sierra Leone in particular we are investing £37 million to strengthen President Koroma’s recovery plan, which will help build up the strength and capacity of local health workers—and, of course, will look at patient safety.
The Countess of Mar (CB)
My Lords, I understand that it is possible that Ebola will become endemic in some of the populations that have been affected in the recent crisis. Can the Minister tell us what assistance is being given to these countries to monitor their people and make sure that we do not have such a huge epidemic as we had before?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I am pleased to say that so far we are now looking towards 16 March as being the zero-plus-42 days since the last outbreak of Ebola, but we continue to monitor. Sierra Leone has active surveillance activities. Throughout the communities, health workers, health facilities and community surveillance programmes are continuing, even though we are coming to a zero point.
Renewables Obligation Closure (Amendment) Order 2015
Debate between Countess of Mar and Baroness Verma
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
As the important players are back, perhaps we can make a start.
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I will continue from where I stopped and get my thread back.
The grace periods are not, however, designed to provide protection against the reductions in support that were set out in the last comprehensive banding review. The first grace period is for operators of generating stations that were granted preliminary accreditation by Ofgem on or before 13 May 2014—the day on which we published our consultation. The second is for generating stations where significant investments had been made on or before 13 May 2014. There was extensive engagement with the industry during the consultation period and we have listened and made changes to the eligibility criteria in response to its views. As a result, the requirements around grid connection, land rights and planning are now more aligned with the practical realities of solar PV project development processes and timelines.
The final grace period is for operators of generating stations that have been subject to grid connection delays that are outside their control. Again, the case for this grace period was made by the industry during consultation to reduce the risks to investments. It has been designed to align with that available to other technologies experiencing grid delays when the scheme closes to new generation in March 2017. This will enable Ofgem to take a consistent approach to the administration of the grace periods.
To benefit from one of those grace periods, the new generating station will need to be commissioned and accredited by 31 March 2016. To reduce the administrative burden, a decision on eligibility for both accreditation and the grace period will be taken at the same time by Ofgem. Similar grace periods for significant investments and grid connection delay will also apply to existing generating stations wishing to add additional capacity.
When the closure comes into force, we believe that there will still be a valuable route to market for large-scale schemes, with developers being able to apply for support under the contracts for difference regime. The announcement last week that five solar projects have successfully competed in the first auction round, all at less than £80 per megawatt hour—far below the support rate under the RO—indicates that the new allocation process can work for solar PV.
Those developers with projects at or below 5 megawatts are not affected by this closure and can continue to apply for accreditation until the scheme closes to all new generating capacity on 31 March 2017. That decision was taken on the basis of the available information, which suggested that they posed less of a risk to the levy control framework. However, consistent with our responsibility for managing RO expenditure under the levy control framework, we are closely monitoring deployment of sub-5 megawatt projects and will consider taking measures to protect it if deployment is growing more rapidly than can be afforded.
I am sure that noble Lords will agree that there is a need to avoid the kind of spending bubble we saw in the feed-in tariff scheme back in 2012, which still costs the levy control framework budget £300 million a year over and above what was originally planned to the solar PV sector. Our current assessment of expected deployment without intervention under the RO would cost up to £400 million a year more than our delivery plan projections and would cause us to exceed the levy control framework cap, putting at risk our commitment to deliver value for money to consumers. It is therefore important that we take steps now to ensure that large-scale solar PV remains affordable in the context of the RO and contracts for difference, not least because without action it is likely there would be little or no money for the early years of new contracts for difference, which has been shown to offer better value for money than the RO.
I commend the order to the House.
Energy: Green Deal
Debate between Countess of Mar and Baroness Verma
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the party opposite really does not get long-term investment in the energy sector. To bring Ukraine into a Green Deal question is a little far-fetched.
The Countess of Mar (CB)
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the homes that would benefit most from the Green Deal are largely owned by elderly people who do not have a long-term view because they are probably not going to live long enough to make the repayments? How are they going to deal with that problem?
Energy: Hydropower
Debate between Countess of Mar and Baroness Verma(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, hydropower is an important part of the renewable energy mix and currently contributes around 15% of the renewable generation capacity in the UK. There is further potential for hydro schemes but it is limited by size. However, we still estimate that there is a potential to increase the number of small-scale projects to produce an additional capacity of around 1 gigawatt.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, what is the level of subsidy for hydropower compared with that for solar power and wind power?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, all the different technologies have different subsidy levels. I should like to write to the noble Countess on the different subsidy levels, if she will allow that.
World Development Report 2011
Debate between Countess of Mar and Baroness Verma(13 years ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right about many of the issues that he has raised today. That is why focusing 30 per cent of aid on those countries where fragility and conflict have set back the ability to move forward has been a key reform to how DfID works. Through our bilateral reviews, we recognised some of the countries where we needed to change how we gave aid to them, directing it to the causes of conflict rather than just looking at poverty.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, does the noble Baroness accept that land hunger is a major cause of conflict in developing countries, and that if the smallholders have a sound agricultural basis it is a springboard for both security and development?
Baroness Verma
I absolutely agree with the noble Countess that we need to ensure that addressing poverty means that people have a stake in the countries in which they live, and are empowered to take decisions for themselves.
International Aid
Debate between Countess of Mar and Baroness Verma(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, what my noble friend refers to is an agreement with the previous Government under the Lisbon treaty. We did not agree with that, but unfortunately it is now in place and we will need to make it work. We will need to make sure that controls are in place. However, spending through the EU has its own management systems—the Internal Audit Service, the European Court of Auditors and the independent European Anti-Fraud Office.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that in African countries and other third-world countries agriculture is the primary source of income for a vast majority of their populations? What proportion of DfID’s spending goes directly on agricultural projects?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the noble Countess is right. Some 75 per cent of the developing world’s poor—2 billion people—live in rural areas. The majority depend on agriculture to provide jobs and incomes. Agriculture has a key role to play in helping to meet the millennium development goal of halving the proportion of people in the world suffering from extreme poverty and hunger. Further allocations to agricultural programmes in each country will be determined after the bilateral reviews.
Violence Against Women
Debate between Countess of Mar and Baroness Verma(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness for all her work in raising these issues. Some 66,000 women subject to FGM are living in England and Wales. We need to ensure that practitioners in front-line services are better informed so as to recognise that this practice is prevalent, particularly among certain communities. We need to be able to address these issues much earlier on so that victims feel confident that they will be given support once they have been raised.
The Countess of Mar
My Lords, is anger management a component of the management of people who are abusers?
Baroness Verma
The noble Countess raises an important issue which perhaps I need to take away. We know that there are many abuses which lead to domestic violence, and I am sure that anger management will be involved.