Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much and what proportion of the funds the Exchequer has paid out to lenders because of defaults in the bounce back loan scheme is a result of fraud.
Answered by Paul Scully
As of the end of December 2021, the British Business Bank, on behalf of government, has settled claims by lenders under the Bounce Back Loan Scheme of £70m. Of this, £13m or 19% were flagged by lenders as suspected fraud.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate he has made of the value of fraudulent loans made through the bounce back loans scheme.
Answered by Paul Scully
The latest estimates for fraudulent losses in the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme can be found in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts 2020-2021
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the value of fraudulent loans made through the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme.
Answered by Paul Scully
The latest estimates for losses in the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme can be found in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts 2020-2021
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate he has made of the (a) value and (b) proportion of loans made through the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme which will not be repaid.
Answered by Paul Scully
The most recent estimates for losses in the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme can be found in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts 2020-2021.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what his estimate is of the (a) value and (b) proportion of loans made through the bounce back loan scheme which will not be repaid.
Answered by Paul Scully
The latest estimates for losses in the Bounce Back Loan Scheme can be found in the Department’s Annual Report and Accounts 2020-2021.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many households (a) overall and (b) broken down by (i) core and (ii) broader group received the Warm Homes Discount in each of the last ten financial years.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
Since its introduction in 2011, the Warm Home Discount has provided over £3 billion in rebates worth £140 to households, in addition to other forms of support. Around 2.2 million households receive a rebate under the current scheme.
The Warm Home Discount is a key policy in the Government’s strategy to tackle fuel poverty and reduce the energy costs of low-income and vulnerable households, which is why the Government committed to extend the scheme until 2026 in the Energy White Paper last December.
The Government is currently consulting on expanding and reforming the scheme from 2022. Under the plans, households would receive £150 and the total spending will increase to £475 million a year, up from £354 million currently.
Scheme Year | Core Group | Broader Group | Total |
2019/20 | 1,067,568 | 1,156,768 | 2,224,336 |
2018/19 | 1,116,226 | 1,103,968 | 2,220,194 |
2017/18 | 1,214,571 | 969,757 | 2,184,328 |
2016/17 | 1,271,861 | 896,633 | 2,168,494 |
2015/16 | 1,350,403 | 836,201 | 2,186,604 |
2014/15 | 1,445,100 | 758,132 | 2,203,232 |
2013/14 | 1,236,770 | 605,472 | 1,842,242 |
2012/13 | 1,157,879 | 489,494 | 1,647,373 |
2011/12 | 701,746 | 234,297 | 936,043 |
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many households (a) overall and (b) broken down by (i) core and (ii) broader group were eligible for the Warm Homes Discount in each of the last ten financial years.
Answered by Greg Hands - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
For the 2020/21 scheme year of the Warm Home Discount, around 1 million of the approximately 1.2 million Pension Credit Guarantee Credit (PCGC) recipients received the rebate automatically as a result of data matching between the Department for Work and Pensions and participating energy suppliers. A further 50,000 claimed a rebate through calling the helpline, having been sent a letter from Government requesting that they provide further information. There may be a number of reasons why the remainder did not receive a rebate, and some would not have been eligible, for instance if they were not with a participating energy supplier. The Government do not currently have the data for previous scheme years available.
Under the Broader Group, it is up to each energy supplier to set the eligibility criteria they use to decide which customers receive rebates. The Government sets mandatory Broader Group eligibility criteria, of which the potential eligible pool for 2020/21 is estimated to be around 3.1 million households. However, most energy suppliers expand their eligibility criteria, subject to approval from the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets, the scheme administrator. This means that the actual eligible pool was larger, and the eligibility criteria tend to vary between energy suppliers and scheme years. The Government therefore do not have data on the total number of households who would have been eligible for Broader Group rebates in each scheme year.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
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 the the geographical spread of technology and knowledge economy jobs by region of the UK.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
There is no single accepted definition of knowledge economy jobs. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes workforce jobs by region and industry in its JOBS05 dataset, and more detail is available through Nomis official labour market statistics at :https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/.
Separately the ONS publishes a country and region breakdown of business R&D employment in table 18 of the annual release on research and development performed in UK businesses (BERD). The rounded aggregate figures for 2019 were:
| Full time equivalent |
| Total |
United Kingdom | 263,000 |
North East | 6,000 |
North West | 20,000 |
Yorkshire and the Humber | 14,000 |
East Midlands | 20,000 |
West Midlands | 26,000 |
East of England | 42,000 |
London | 31,000 |
South East | 50,000 |
South West | 22,000 |
England | 232,000 |
Wales | 7,000 |
Scotland | 15,000 |
Northern Ireland | 9,000 |
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
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 the geographical spread of research and development spending by (a) region and (b) local authority of the UK.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes a country and region breakdown of R&D spending in table 6 of the annual release on UK gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD). The aggregate figures for 2018 were:
Current prices | £ million |
| Total |
United Kingdom | 37,072 |
North East | 780 |
North West | 2,950 |
Yorkshire and the Humber | 1,641 |
East Midlands | 2,209 |
West Midlands | 3,285 |
East of England | 6,598 |
London | 5,886 |
South East | 7,029 |
South West | 2,483 |
England | 32,862 |
Wales | 786 |
Scotland | 2,706 |
Northern Ireland | 715 |
The ONS does not publish a breakdown of R&D spending by local authority area.
HM Revenue and Customs publish a breakdown of corporate R&D tax credit claims by county and unitary authority area at https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878879/200408-_R_D_Supplementary_final_tables.xlsx, though those numbers are distorted by headquarters reporting effects, since the local and regional allocation is based on the postcode of the company's registered address, which might not correspond to where the R&D activity takes place.
Asked by: Rachel Reeves (Labour - Leeds West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many meetings the Government has had with UK businesses on how they adapt to the new UK-EU trading relationships since the end of the transition period.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government has extensive engagement with businesses of all sizes, trade associations and business representative organisations. Engagement for the transition period supports the Government’s public information campaign to inform businesses and citizens of the actions they need to take now we have left the EU. Since October last year, BEIS has contacted over 4.7 million businesses. This engagement includes letters, meetings, webinars, and email bulletins.