Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he is taking steps to encourage additional investment in the life sciences cluster in the North East.
Answered by Jane Hunt
I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave him today to Questions 32527 and 32528.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he is taking steps to support life sciences manufacturing in the North East.
Answered by Jane Hunt
I refer the hon. Member to the answers I gave him today to Questions 32527 and 32528.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps his Department has taken to help secure investment in the North East’s life science cluster.
Answered by Jane Hunt
The Life Sciences Vision aims to build upon the UK’s geographic diversity of the Sector, by supporting clusters of excellence like the Northeast.
The Government has supported Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies in bringing a £400m investment to Billingham; and awarded a grant to Piramal Healthcare to upgrade facilities in Northumberland.
In March, we launched the £60m Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund to support businesses investing in UK life sciences manufacturing projects. The fund received a large number of applications, including companies in the Northeast. Applications are now under review. We expect to announce the first wave of successful applicants in Autumn.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps his Department has taken to help support life sciences manufacturing in the North East.
Answered by Jane Hunt
In April 2021, the Government launched the £20m Medicines and Diagnostics Manufacturing Transformation Fund (MDMTF). Five companies were awarded funding through the MDMTF, including Piramal Healthcare, which will undertake a facilities upgrade at their Morpeth site in Northumberland.
In March 2022, the Government launched the £60m successor Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund (LSIMF) to support businesses investing in life sciences manufacturing projects in the UK. This received many Expressions of Interest and approximately 5% were from companies in the North East. It is expected that the announcement of the first wave of successful applicants will take place in Autumn 2022.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many smart meters have been installed in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Greg Hands
The smart meter rollout is making good progress, with 27.8 million smart and advanced meters in homes and small businesses across Great Britain as of the end of December 2021.
The Government’s official statistics on the rollout of smart meters are available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/smart-meters-statistics.
These statistics, based on data from energy suppliers, cover all smart meter installations from 2012 onwards.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
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 number of energy company meter readers that have lost their jobs in the last ten years.
Answered by Greg Hands
Smart meters are modernising the energy system, bringing an end to estimated bills and manual meter reads, which reduces costs and improves service for consumers.
Energy suppliers are responsible for managing their workforce and the provision of metering and billing services. They have adopted a number of approaches to their changing workforce requirements, including re-training meter readers for other roles such as smart meter installers.