Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
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 protect energy customers from companies exploiting remotely programmable features of energy smartmeters.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Ofgem rules require energy suppliers to assess whether installing a prepayment meter, or the remote switching of a smart meter, is safe and reasonably practicable for a customer. Prepayment meters should not be installed, or smart meters remotely switched, without carrying out appropriate assessments, including identifying any vulnerability. When making this assessment, suppliers are required to consider whether a customer’s vulnerability makes a prepayment service a poor choice, for example where medical equipment is required.
The Government welcomes the steps Ofgem is taking to ensure energy suppliers comply with these obligations.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
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 help prevent misuse of remotely programmable features of energy smart meters by provider companies.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Ofgem rules require energy suppliers to assess whether installing a prepayment meter, or the remote switching of a smart meter, is safe and reasonably practicable for a customer. Prepayment meters should not be installed, or smart meters remotely switched, without carrying out appropriate assessments, including identifying any vulnerability. When making this assessment, suppliers are required to consider whether a customer’s vulnerability makes a prepayment service a poor choice, for example where medical equipment is required.
The Government welcomes the steps Ofgem is taking to ensure energy suppliers comply with these obligations.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
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 make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the Energy Bill Relief Scheme for businesses beyond 31 March 2023.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
HM Treasury is currently conducting a review of the Energy Bill Relief Scheme. Evidence from a broad range of stakeholders has already been received. The Government will announce the outcome of this review in the New Year.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
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 help businesses decarbonise their supply lines.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government currently provides voluntary supply chain (Scope 3) emissions disclosure guidance for UK organisations in the Environmental Reporting Guidelines. The Government is also encouraging small UK businesses to join the ‘Race to Zero’ – a global effort to achieve Net Zero by 2050. In the Race to Zero, organisations are required to set emission reduction targets which must include Scope 3 emissions. The Government has also publicly outlined, in the Government response to the ‘Mandatory climate-related financial disclosures by publicly quoted companies, large private companies and LLPs’ consultation, that officials will consider the issue of Scope 3 emission disclosures in due course.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
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 make an estimate of the number of homes that have been retrofitted through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund in Huddersfield constituency since the introduction of that fund.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The 2019 Conservative Manifesto committed to a £3.8bn Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF) over a 10-year period. The SHDF Demonstrator and Wave 1 awarded a combined total of around £240m of grant funding, including to projects in Yorkshire, but these projects do not include any homes in Huddersfield. The SHDF Wave 2.1 competition, which closed on 18th November 2022, will allocate up to £800m of grant funding, with successful projects likely to be notified in March 2023.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
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 support the development of (a) local heat networks and (b) industrial heat connections.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
As set out in the Heat and Buildings Strategy, we are investing £338 million over 2022/23 to 2024/25 into a Heat Network Transformation Programme to scale up low-carbon heat network deployment and to enable local areas to deploy heat network zoning, which will create a step-change in low-carbon heat network market growth. This programme includes support for heat being supplied from industrial waste or recoverable heat sources and this is outlined further in our National Comprehensive Assessment for heat networks published in 2021.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he has held discussions with Kirklees council in the last 12 months on increasing the number of electrical vehicle public charging points in Huddersfield.
Answered by Nusrat Ghani - Minister of State (Minister for Europe)
In June, my Rt. Hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Transport wrote to local authorities, including Kirklees Council, encouraging engagement with the upcoming Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund, and the existing On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme. The On-street Residential Chargepoint Scheme is currently open for applications.
Officials from the Department for Transport subsequently met with Kirklees Council to discuss LEVI, which will provide councils in England with resource and capital funding to plan and deliver local charging infrastructure.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
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 make an assessment of the potential merits of introducing a requirement for statistics relating to carbon capture and storage to be published before Carbon Capture and Storage projects become operational.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government will publish information on projects that are recipients of government support before they become operational. For industrial and power capture projects, this may also include information submitted under supply chain reporting requirements. The Government is also developing a plan to monitor and evaluate statistics from emitters in the longer term.
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of developing carbon capture storage facilities in the North Sea.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The UK has one of the largest offshore carbon dioxide storage potential of any country in the world. It is estimated that the UK Continental Shelf could safely store 78 billion tonnes of CO₂[1], the equivalent of 200 years of the UK’s annual CO₂ emissions.
Unlocking this potential through the development of carbon dioxide transport and storage networks could generate strategic national assets. This market, according to government commissioned analysis, could be worth up to £54 billion by 2050[2].
[1]http://www.eti.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/D16-10113ETIS-WP6-Report-Publishable-Summary.pdf
[2]Energy Innovation Needs Assessment: Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage. (October 2019). Commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy & Industry Strategy and lead by Vivid Economics. Report available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/845655/energy-innovation-needs-assessment-ccus.pdf
Asked by: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress the Government has made on its plans for four industrial carbon capture and storage clusters by 2035.
Answered by Graham Stuart - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government is committed to establishing Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) in four industrial clusters by 2030.
In November 2021, Hynet and the East Coast Cluster were announced as Track 1 CCUS clusters. In August 2022, Government took a significant step forward in the Cluster Sequencing process by announcing a shortlist of 20 projects.
The Government is developing and refining the Track-2 process and is developing business models designed to address the commercial barriers that have previously had an impact on the development of CCUS in the UK.