Asked by: Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative - Wetherby and Easingwold)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to ensure that high street lenders do not require firms to conduct costly third party audits before being considered for a loan under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme.
Answered by Paul Scully
There are now over 90 accredited lenders of CBILS and individual lending decisions remain at the discretion of these lenders. We would expect a lender to follow its normal credit policy when assessing security. There has been significant demand for the Scheme and lenders are fully aware of the current urgency, so we expect them to respond appropriately to their customers’ needs.
Since the CBILS was introduced, Government has made several improvements to speed up the application process and ensure businesses are getting the support they need. These include:
- Clarifying that all lenders should use automated, rather than manual, credit checks when assessing the viability of a business;
- Removing the forward-looking viability test;
- Removing the per lender portfolio cap; and
- Removing any requirement for the main lenders to interact with the British Business Bank systems before issuing loans.
Asked by: Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative - Wetherby and Easingwold)
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 issue guidance to local authorities to allow (a) businesses whose business rates are included in their rent and (b) regular market traders to apply for the funds through the Discretionary Grant Scheme.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
On?1 May,?the Government announced that up to £617 million has been made available to local authorities?in England to allow them to provide discretionary grants. The?Local Authority Discretionary Grants Fund is aimed at small businesses with ongoing fixed property-related costs that are not liable for business rates or rates reliefs.
We are asking local authorities to prioritise the following types of businesses for grants from within this funding pot:
Local authorities are responsible for defining the precise eligibility for this Fund?and?may choose to make payments to other businesses based on local economic need,?subject to those businesses meeting the specific eligibility criteria.
Guidance to support local authorities to administer the Fund was published on 13 May at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-business-support-grant-funding.
Asked by: Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative - Wetherby and Easingwold)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether community centres and memorial halls in Elmet and Rothwell constituency are eligible to apply to the rural community energy fund; and what the application process is.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Rural Community Energy Fund is being run by five regional Local Energy Hubs, established as part of the BEIS Local Energy Programme. Elmet and Rothwell is covered by the North East Yorkshire and Humber Energy Hub.
The fund is open to all communities defined as rural, this is any community with less than 10,000 residents. The Local Energy Hub can help to determine the eligibility of communities in Elmet and Rothwell. The fund accepts applications from the following legal entities which represent rural communities:
Please find out more about how to apply and how to contact the Local Energy Hubs here
Asked by: Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative - Wetherby and Easingwold)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans his Department has to make it easier for private companies to install charging infrastructure for Electric Vehicles on 3rd-party land.
Answered by Lord Harrington of Watford
Negotiations to facilitate charging infrastructure for electric vehicle installation across third party land rights is a private negotiation between the company and the relevant landowner. As a last resort if agreement cannot be reached, electricity licence holders (as statutory undertakers and installers of such connections on behalf of the private company) have powers under the Electricity Act 1989 that permits them to apply to the Secretary of State for a Compulsory Purchase Order or a necessary (compulsory) wayleave relating to the third party land.
Asked by: Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative - Wetherby and Easingwold)
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 his Department has made of the total number of (a) paid and (b) unpaid internships in the UK.
Answered by Andrew Griffiths
The Government has not made an estimate of the number of interns in the UK since 2010. The estimate produced in 2010 was based on evidence from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), combined with a number of other assumptions and should be treated as indicative only.
If an intern is classified as a “worker”, they are entitled to at least the National Minimum Wage from day one of their employment.