Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will he make an assessment of the potential contribution of 3D printing to UK GDP by 2020.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
The industry backed Additive Manufacturing strategy identifies that the UK’s High Value Manufacturing Sector can capture over £3.5bn per year (Gross Value Added) for the UK of the rapidly growing global market for additive manufacturing products (3D printing) and services by 2025, supporting 60,000 jobs in the knowledge economy and generating new, highly skilled employment opportunities. The industry led Made Smarter Review also identifies the contribution of digitally enabled technologies to manufacturing-including additive manufacturing- to the UK economy to be as much as £455 billion over the next decade.
As part of the Industrial Strategy, 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 and additive manufacturing and since 2012 The UK’s EPSRC and Innovate UK’s combined investment in additive manufacturing R&D, including capital grants, has been well over £200 million, helping to develop and maintain UK capability in additive in the UK. In addition we have invested over £300m in the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, including establishing the National Centre for Net Shape and Addictive Manufacturing housed in the Manufacture Technology Centre in Coventry. Its aim is to develop production-ready additive manufacturing processes, to overcome barriers to wide-scale adoption, and to work on legislative and standardisation issues to support the commercialisation of the innovation and new technologies such as 3D printing.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how catapult networks will support the delivery of the Industrial Strategy.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The Catapult network exists to transform the UK’s capability for innovation in emerging technologies, promoting commercialisation and so future economic growth. The network forms a key part of the innovation ecosystem for delivering the Industrial Strategy. We are using the recent review of the network to improve the strategies, governance and performance management of the Catapults to maximise their impact.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that smart meter software is secure by design.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Department has worked with industry and security experts, including GCHQ, to design a smart metering system that has robust security controls in place. System security is based on international standards. It includes encryption of sensitive data, protection from viruses and malware, access control, two-party authorisation of important messages to the meters and system monitoring.
Further information on smart metering security and GCHQ’s role in it can be found on GCHQ’s website: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/articles/smart-security-behind-gb-smart-metering-system
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of whether his Department is on course to complete the roll-out of smart meters by 2020.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Government is committed to every home and small business being offered smart meters by the end of 2020. The Programme is making good progress. More than 4.2 million meters have been installed in homes and businesses across Great Britain.
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 June 2016’, published on 29 September 2016: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistical-release-and-data-smart-meters-great-britain-quarter-2-2016
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether his Department has made an estimate of the potential number of jobs which will be replaced by automation over the next two decades.
Answered by Nick Boles
The Department has not made a specific forecast of how many jobs will be replaced (or how many additional jobs will be created) over the next two decades due to automation. However, the Government’s Horizon Scanning Programme exploring the impacts of automation on the labour market, and engaging with our international partners.
Government is taking action to provide individuals with the skills that will help prepare them for changes to the labour market, such as the new school computing curriculum, developing new apprenticeship standards, growing the apprenticeships programme, and introducing the Institute for Coding.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps the Government is taking to promote action to remove space debris.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The United Kingdom, through the UK Space Agency (UKSA), is one of the thirteen members of the Inter-Agency Debris Coordination (IADC) Committee, which considers the risks posed by space debris. Our national experts, along with more than a hundred experts from other agencies including NASA, met at Harwell in March 2016 for the annual IADC meeting to discuss many issues, including the need for the removal of space debris from orbit, and how that could best be accomplished.
The UK is leading studies in partnership with other national agencies to model the future space environment and identify the most effective ways of mitigating the future hazard of space debris.
UKSA is working with its international partners in technical forums such as the IADC to develop scientific consensus on the best way to manage the hazard posed by debris, such as how many objects might need to be removed, and from where. UKSA is also working to build political consensus within UN forums such as the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to enable such missions to go ahead with appropriate supervision and support from the international community. This includes developing appropriate regulatory/oversight frameworks within the UK’s Outer Space Act which allow such technologies to be tested and demonstrated safely in the increasingly congested and contested space environment.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he has taken to support (a) peer-to-peer lending and (b) challenger banks.
Answered by Anna Soubry
Access to finance on flexible, competitive terms is essential for growing businesses. Challenger banks and alternative finance providers have an important role to play in widening choice and promoting competition.
Government is bringing into effect provisions in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 which will require the largest banks - where they decline lending requests from small business customers - to offer those customers the opportunity for their details to be referred to a government-designated funding platform. These platforms will be brought into operation later this year and will allow SMEs to match their requirements with offers from peer-to-peer platforms and challenger banks.
During the last 12 months, the British Business Bank has supported 3,301 businesses through the peer-to-peer platforms Funding Circle, RateSetter and Zopa. The British Business Bank also supports the growth of challenger banks by providing wholesale funds alongside private sector investors.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what recent assessment he has made of the cyber security implications of driverless cars.
Answered by Anna Soubry
Government recognises that vehicle security is a priority to ensure the safety and security of the public and their data.
Government believes connected and autonomous vehicles should be “secure by design” and handle data appropriately. We are working closely with industry to achieve these aims as part of a wider programme of activity to ensure that the significant opportunities of these technologies can be realised safely and securely.
Connected technologies present cyber security challenges across a range of sectors. Cyber security has been identified as a key priority in the latest National Security Strategy. The Government has announced the formation of a National Cyber Security Centre, which will bring together the UK’s cyber expertise from different parts of Government into one organisation. The Government will also publish a new National Cyber Security Strategy later this year.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to support research into and development of machine learning.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills supports the research and development of machine learning through the Research Councils, for example the current Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council portfolio contains nearly 150 research and training grants involving aspects of artificial intelligence.
The Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Hartree Centre uses high performance computing combined with big data analytics, cognitive computing and visualisation techniques to collaborate with industry and research partners. The latest government investment of £113 million at Hartree in a cognitive and data centric computing centre (announced in the 2014 Autumn Statement) has attracted inward investment from IBM and other hi-tech industry exceeding £200 million.
Research Councils also support existing machine learning applications, for example the Medical Research Council support programmes which involve the use of machine learning tools for image analysis and in analysing and predicting risk of Serious Adverse Events for hospital patients.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council also support aspects of research and development on machine learning relating to its importance within the rapidly emerging field of the digital humanities and issues relating to ethical, philosophical, legal and historical perspectives of machine learning and human-computer interactions.
Asked by: Adam Afriyie (Conservative - Windsor)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, when the Government will introduce incentives for the adoption of new technologies designed to manage noise from aircraft on the ground.
Answered by Anna Soubry
The Government is supporting investment in new technologies to reduce aircraft noise through grants for R&D supported by the Aerospace Technology Institute. The Government has committed £1.95 billion for aerospace R&D to 2025/26, bringing the total joint Government and industry funding commitment since 2013 to £3.9 billion. So far, 20 projects, worth £136 million, are directly concerned with new technologies to reduce noise from aircraft engines, propellers, rotors, wings and landing gear. These projects are focused on demanding international environmental targets and ensure UK aerospace companies are leading the technological evolution to achieve these.