Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the compliance of employers with their requirements to pay the national minimum wage.
Answered by Lord Henley
In April 2017, the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) produced by the Office for National Statistics estimates there were 342,000 jobs with pay less than the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) held by employees aged 16 and over, this constitutes 1.2% of all UK employee jobs. This represents a slight decrease from 365,000 jobs (1.3%) in 2016. Further information is published on the ONS website (copy attached), including important caveats in interpreting the data.
The Government is committed to increasing compliance with the minimum wage. We are clear that anyone entitled to be paid the minimum wage should receive it. We have more than doubled the enforcement budget for the NMW and NLW to £26.3 million for 2018/19, up from £13 million in 2015/16. In 2017/18, HMRC identified a record number of £15.6 million in arrears for over 200,000 workers.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the regulations governing the sale of laser pens and other such devices.
Answered by Lord Henley
Under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005 only laser pointers that are considered to be safe for normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use should be made available to the public through general sale. It is an offence for manufacturers to market or supply dangerous products to consumers.
Last year the Government issued a call for evidence on the market and use of laser pointers to better understand the nature and scale of the hazards associated. As a result, the Government has introduced new measures to tackle the sale of unsafe laser pointers, including additional funding for enhanced border checks to stop high-powered lasers entering the country and working with manufacturers and retailers to improve labelling to help consumers identify unsafe lasers.
A Government Bill to introduce a new offence of shining or directing a laser beam at a vehicle is currently before Parliament.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much liquefied natural gas has been imported into the UK since 1 January; and from which countries.
Answered by Lord Henley
The Department’s Energy Trends Table 4.4 includes an extensive monthly breakdown of all gas imports, including liquefied natural gas, by country of origin. Due to the large amount of data in Table 4.4, I have included a copy of it as an attachment:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/682882/ET_4.4.xls
The latest data in Energy Trends is for two months prior to the publication month, and the publication on 29th March will include new data for January 2018.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how much steel was produced in the UK in 2017.
Answered by Lord Henley
Statistics from the World Steel Association show that 7.5 million tonnes of crude steel was produced in the UK in 2017.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the value to the UK economy of the space industry.
Answered by Lord Henley
The UK’s space industry had revenues of £13.8bn in 2014/15, directly employing 38,500 jobs and contributing £5.1 billion Gross Value-Added to UK economic output. Moreover, Space services and data contribute to a broad range of industrial activities across the UK economy. London Economics, in their Sector Size and Health report for the UK Space Agency, estimated that over £250 billion (14%) of the UK’s non-financial business economy GDP was supported by satellite services in the same period.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which provisions govern contesting the ownership of a trademark in the UK.
Answered by Lord Henley
There are a range of provisions, set out in the Trade Marks Act 1994 (as amended), under which the validity of a trade mark or its ownership may be contested. These include where another party is the owner of an earlier right, or where the application can be shown to have been made in bad faith. Full details and guidance can be found on the Intellectual Property Office’s pages on the Government’s website.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government who has the right to register a trademark in the United Kingdom.
Answered by Lord Henley
Any individual or legal entity who has an intention to use the trade mark on the relevant goods or services may make an application for a trade mark in the UK. Full details and guidance can be found on the Intellectual Property Office’s pages on the Government’s website.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment have they made of the potential for 3D printing to boost skilled job creation in the UK.
Answered by Lord Henley
The Government’s Industrial Strategy has set out a long term approach to boost the UK’s productivity growth and ensure that we’re building an economy fit for the future. The White Paper has set out a range of measures aimed at increasing investment from the private and public sector, which will both be vital in meeting the objective of increasing our productivity and earning power for people across the UK. This includes a commitment to increase total R&D investment to 2.4% of GDP by 2027.
We remain committed to making the UK the best place in Europe to own and grow a manufacturing business by cutting business taxes, slashing red tape and investing in new scientific infrastructure on a record scale. Through our Industrial Strategy, we will make sure that we are using all the tools we have to stimulate growth throughout the UK. That means using our record investments in infrastructure to unlock growth in every part of the country; using the major new investment in research to support innovative manufacturing businesses across the country; and encouraging inward investment into the parts of the country where we need to get growth going faster.
We are working closely with UK industry to create the right conditions for competitive, world leading manufacturing businesses to flourish and grow across the UK. Government recognises the importance of 3D printing in the UK manufacturing sector when developing manufacturing policy. One example is through the independent industry-led Made Smarter Review on industrial digitalisation, which identifies additive manufacturing as one of the key technologies’. Another is by investing over £300m in the last five years in the High Value Manufacturing Catapult to support the commercialisation of the innovation and new technologies such as 3D printing.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the one-off charges received by customers of the energy company Iresa; and what steps they will take to protect consumers in similar circumstances in future.
Answered by Lord Henley
Ofgem, as the responsible regulator, are aware of concerns around the one-off payment requested by Iresa, and are discussing these issues with the company. Under the Direct Debit Guarantee, organisations have to give advance notice of any change to the payment arrangement. If a payment by direct debit has been taken in error, consumers are entitled to a full and immediate refund. Energy suppliers are also obliged to take customers’ ability to pay debt into account when setting up repayment plans.
Asked by: Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to eliminate fuel poverty.
Answered by Lord Henley
The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) requires energy companies to fund household energy efficiency improvements each year. 70% of ECO is now focussed on improving the energy efficiency of low income and vulnerable households and we intend to consult on moving that to 100% for the next Obligation period. Combined with energy bill rebates provided under the Government’s Warm Home Discount scheme, this is at least £770 million of support to low income and vulnerable households in 2017/18.
In the Clean Growth Strategy, the Government committed to extend support for home energy efficiency out to 2028 at least as the current levels of ECO funding (£640m per annum), and review the best form of support beyond 2022, recognising the need both to save carbon and to meet the Government’s commitment to upgrade all fuel poor homes to Band C by 2030.
In addition, Government has legislated so that from April 2018 all landlords of the worst performing privately rented properties must meet a minimum standard of Energy Performance Certificate Band E, before properties can be let. In the longer term, Government has committed to looking at raising energy performance standards across the private rented sector further, with a view for as many properties to reach Band C by 2030.