Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
Whether the Government has made an estimate of the number of businesses that do not qualify for the Government’s covid-19 grant schemes.
Answered by Paul Scully
Local Authorities are responsible for identifying and contacting eligible businesses for either the Small Business Grants or the Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grants. No assessment has been made of the number of businesses not qualifying for the schemes; rather we estimate about 1 million businesses will benefit.
I am personally calling local authorities that have reported slow progress to offer any support they need to get grants out to businesses as soon as possible.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department plans to increase the resources allocated to labour inspection and labour law enforcement.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government is exploring options for a single labour market enforcement body – we will publish proposals on this for consultation shortly. More recently we announced that this consultation will consider extending the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority’s licensing scheme to further sectors and that we will ensure trade unions and businesses are consulted on the strategic direction of labour market enforcement.
As part of the forthcoming Spending Review we will consider what level of funding is appropriate to ensure that it is adequately resourced to deliver its strengthened remit.
Government is committed to ensuring fair and effective enforcement. We have taken concrete measures to increase the number of labour market inspectors and extend their coverage.
The Good Work Plan went further, setting out a number of measures to improve state enforcement of core employment rights. In addition to introducing state enforcement of holiday pay for vulnerable workers, we also committed to expand protection of agency workers to cover umbrella companies.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has plans to make (a) the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service and (b) other services more accessible for non-English speaking workers.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Acas has a contractual relationship with ‘The Big Word’ to provide translation services. This commenced in July 2017 following the end of a contract with a previous provider. Acas are contacted by customers who require a translation service approximately 536 times per month, and the majority of these contacts are customers phoning their employment law Helpline for advice. Acas are supplied by ‘The Big Word’ with translators which cover many languages with Polish being the most popular, though they have used translators who are able to speak less common languages such as Turkmen.
The Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, based in BEIS, provides support direct to agency workers and also offers translation facilities through ‘the Big Word’.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
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 is taking to ensure that gas and energy (a) interconnectors, (b) import export routes and (c) infrastructure mechanisms will remain fully functional after the UK leaves the EU.
Answered by Claire Perry
As set out in our Technical Notice the Government is working closely with Ofgem, interconnectors and wider industry on the steps needed to maintain continued cross-border energy trading. This includes supporting engagement with EU Member State authorities. The Government does not anticipate changes to non-EU import export routes for gas by EU exit and there are no non-EU import export routes for electricity.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham 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 plans to support employers in the provision of pastoral care programmes.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The Government encourages businesses to support the Stevenson Farmer mental health core standards, including the commitment to provide employees with good working conditions and ensure they have a healthy work life balance and opportunities for development. We are working with the Campaign to End Loneliness and a group of leading employers to develop case studies and good practice guidance to tackle loneliness and build social connections within the workforce. Acas has also published guidance for employers on how to promote wellbeing at work.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support his Department is providing to improve energy usage through better domestic insulation.
Answered by Claire Perry
Last year, the Government published the Clean Growth Strategy which set out our aspiration that as many homes as possible will be upgraded to an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band C by 2035, where practical, cost-effective and affordable. A number of policies have been put in place to help drive domestic insulation including:
- The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme which requires obligated energy suppliers to install energy efficiency and heating measures to people’s homes in England, Scotland and Wales. ECO is funded at £640 million per annum (2017 prices, rising with inflation), and we are taking steps to focus that scheme on those in fuel poverty. The Clean Growth Strategy announced that we would extend support for home energy efficiency out to 2028 at least at the current level of ECO funding.
- The Private Rented Sector Minimum standard regulations which were introduced on 1st April 2018 and require landlords to bring their properties to EPC Band E or above; or register an exemption, if one applies. We have recently announced that we will be strengthening those regulations further to require a contribution of up to £3,500 from landlords towards the cost of improvements.
- Six local supply chain demonstration projects which are about to be launched across the country. They will focus on reducing the cost for retrofit and building supply chain capacity whilst also addressing the non-financial barriers to deeper retrofit, such as supply chain fragmentation and the high hassle costs of installing measures.
- The Simple Energy Advice Service, which was launched as part of Green Great Britain Week. The new digitally-led service provides impartial and tailored advice on how homeowners can cut energy bills and make their homes greener. Individuals can also find out which insulation measure best suits their home, how much they could save and what governmental financial support is available.
- The BEIS Thermal Efficiency Innovation Fund which awarded organisations £7.5m grant funding to develop technologies and approaches to improve the energy efficiency of existing UK (domestic and commercial) buildings in summer 2018. Funded project activities include piloting approaches to optimising the specification and performance of domestic insulation measures, and the development of innovative insulation materials and processes to reduce the installation costs of measures.
- The launch of a new quality mark for home energy improvements following the independent Each Home Counts review to help provide greater consumer confidence in the quality of installations.
We also committed in the Clean Growth Strategy to bring forward further measures in the future, including our intention to consult on making improvements to Building Regulations, and to look at a long-term trajectory for energy performance standards in the rented sector, with a view to as many rented homes as possible reaching EPC Band C by 2030.
Asked by: Alex Norris (Labour (Co-op) - Nottingham North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to help energy suppliers improve gas storage to minimise the risk of a National Grid gas deficit warning this winter.
Answered by Claire Perry
Great Britain benefits from a diverse range of gas supplies, including our indigenous production, which means that demand can be met even under severe weather conditions, as was the case in March 2018. The Government keeps gas security of supply under constant review producing, with Ofgem, annual security of supply reports for Parliament. National Grid, as the system operator, also produce a Winter Outlook each year. Both National Grid’s Winter Outlook and the statutory security of supply report conclude that gas supplies are secure this winter. As part of its ongoing work on security of supply, the Government is currently engaging with providers of flexible supply sources, including gas storage, on the trends in these markets and their implications for security of supply.