Asked by: Lord Lilley (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of whether present rates of decline in the extent of Arctic sea ice are consistent with reasonably expected natural variability.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has not made its own assessment of the above question.
Evidence that present rates of decline in the extent of Arctic sea ice are not consistent with reasonably expected natural variability is synthesised in the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5). Long-term records of Arctic sea ice extent in this report show that the decline from 1980 onwards lies outside of what would be expected from natural variability alone. IPCC AR5 reports high confidence that human influences are very likely (>90% probability) to have contributed to the observed Arctic sea ice loss since 1980.
Asked by: Lord Lilley (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what information he holds on whether there are declines of snow or ice, other than of Arctic sea ice extent, that are inconsistent with reasonably expected natural variability.
Answered by Nick Hurd
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has not made its own assessment of the above question.
Evidence that present rates of decline in the extent of Arctic sea ice are not consistent with reasonably expected natural variability is synthesised in the 5th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5). Long-term records of Arctic sea ice extent in this report show that the decline from 1980 onwards lies outside of what would be expected from natural variability alone. IPCC AR5 reports high confidence that human influences are very likely (>90% probability) to have contributed to the observed Arctic sea ice loss since 1980.
Asked by: Lord Lilley (Conservative - Life peer)
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 meet his Russian counterpart to discuss a programme of student exchanges between the UK and Russia.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Government has no current plans to meet Russia to discuss student exchange. We remain committed to welcoming the brightest and best students to study at our world class institutions. In 2014/15 there were 4,105 students from Russia enrolled on higher education programmes in the UK.
Asked by: Lord Lilley (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, with reference to his letter of 15 December 2015 setting out Skills Funding Agency priorities and funding for 2016-17, whether it is his policy that an area can only have its adult education budget devolved once it has fully implemented the recommendations of its area review.
Answered by Nick Boles
The Area Review process has been designed to bring about a more resilient and sustainable post-16 sector in the given locality, better able to exploit the opportunities made available through the recent SR and better placed to meet local skills needs. As such the completion of an area review, leading to an agreed plan for implementation, is an essential pre-cursor to the full devolution of the adult education budget.
Asked by: Lord Lilley (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, with reference to the report, The Size and Performance of the UK Low Carbon Economy, published in March 2015, whether estimates of gross value added for electricity generation include (a) the value of renewable obligation certificates and (b) the element of the feed-in tariff and Contract for Difference prices which are above the market price of energy.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The report on the Size and Performance of the UK Low Carbon Economy is based on a bottom-up analysis of company accounts from those businesses participating in the sector.
The report estimates gross value added within the sector by taking gross profit less the sum of employment costs, depreciation and amortisation. This definition is consistent with the approach generally taken in official statistics as a measure of the value of goods and services produced in an area, industry or sector of an economy.
To the extent they are included within company accounts, the report captures the value of renewable obligation certificates and the element of the feed-in tariff which is above the market price of energy. However, this will exclude payments to householders and other non-business or charity electricity generators.
No element of Contracts for Difference (CfDs) will be included in the estimates as the report only covers the period 2010 to 2013, before the introduction of CfDs.
Asked by: Lord Lilley (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what contingency plans the Skills Funding Agency has in place to launch tenders for training contracts in 2017 open to all training providers and including current sub-contractors in the event of the introduction of the European Union rule that contracts must be fairly awarded in open tendering processes; and what discussions the Government has had with representatives of the EU on this matter.
Answered by Nick Boles
The Skills Funding Agency is aware of the requirements of the Public Contracts Regulations which came into force in February 2015 and has processes in place to ensure that it complies with the requirements of the Regulations when procuring education and training services.