Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether the Permanent Secretary of his Department was informed by his predecessor the Rt hon. Member for North East Somerset of the stake held in Yandex Ltd by Somerset Capital Management LLP on taking up his post on 6 September 2022; and whether an assessment was made of whether this could have constituted a conflict of interest.
Answered by Kevin Hollinrake - Minister of State (Department for Business and Trade)
My Rt Hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset declared his interests to the Permanent Secretary soon after his appointment as Secretary of State, in line with the requirements of the Ministerial Code. I refer the Hon. Member to the answer given to her today by my Rt. Hon. Friend the Member for Horsham to Question 82488 for further detail on the ministerial conflicts of interest process.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how the £20 million of funding, announced on 27 May to support early career researchers, can be accessed.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Like many sections of the economy, medical research charities have been hit hard by COVID-19. This funding to support early career researchers will help to protect the pipeline of research superstars who will have a fantastic impact, and improve patient lives, in the future. We will announce further details about the way in which this funding will be distributed by UKRI on behalf of BEIS and DHSC in due course.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how the £20m within his Department's Research and Development Budget Allocation announced on 27 May 2021 is planned to be used to support early career researchers.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Like many sections of the economy, medical research charities have been hit hard by COVID-19. This funding to support early career researchers will help to protect the pipeline of research superstars who will have a fantastic impact, and improve patient lives, in the future. We will announce further details about the way in which this funding will be distributed by UKRI on behalf of BEIS and DHSC in due course.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, pursuant to the Government’s response to the Pregnancy and maternity discrimination consultation published in July 2019, what progress the Government has made on establishing a taskforce on that matter.
Answered by Paul Scully
The Government remains committed to bringing together a broad set of key stakeholders to look at what improvements can be made to address pregnancy and maternity discrimination in the workplace.
We are finalising plans and will be setting up the first meeting shortly.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
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 covid-19 vaccine distribution deliveries that have been (a) delayed and (b) cancelled as a result of procurement issues in (a) England, (b) Wales, (c) Scotland and (d) Northern Ireland; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Government has procured 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and 100 million doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccines.
The UK was the first country in the world to start a vaccination programme using these vaccines. Due to our swift and decisive action there has been a regular and steady supply of vaccine doses arriving into the UK since early December 2020.
As of 27 January 2021, over 7.1 million people across the UK have been vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine. We continue to work to meet our target of vaccinating all four priority groups by 15 February. The UK COVID-19 Vaccines Delivery Plan sets out how the Government will work with the NHS, devolved administrations, local councils, and the Armed Forces to deliver the largest vaccination programme in British history.
Vaccines are a precious resource in very high demand across the world; therefore, for security reasons it is not possible to provide detail about the size of our supplies and exact detail about deliveries.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
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 data collected by businesses in the hospitality industry to support test and trace is not being used for marketing purposes.
Answered by Paul Scully
Government advice from the Department for Health and Social Care is clear. The data that is being asked to collect is personal data and must be handled in accordance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to protect the privacy of your staff, customers and visitors.
Personal data that is collected for NHS Test and Trace, which organisations would not collect in their usual course of business, must be used only to share with NHS Test and Trace. It must not be used for other purposes, including marketing, profiling, analysis or other purposes unrelated to contact tracing, or they will be in breach of GDPR.
Asked by: Alex Davies-Jones (Labour - Pontypridd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what guidance his Department has provided to small businesses on data use and collection in relation to the coronavirus test and trace system.
Answered by Paul Scully
The guidance on Test and Trace record collection can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/maintaining-records-of-staff-customers-and-visitors-to-support-nhs-test-and-trace.