Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
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 waiting time for the technical solution for all homes to have a SMETS2 smart meter installed.
Answered by Claire Perry
Energy suppliers are continuing to increase their SMETS2 meter installations with over 450,000 in operation across Great Britain as of 27th February 2019.
The national communications infrastructure is open and available for energy suppliers to install SMETS2 meters. Some energy suppliers do not yet have SMETS2 meters that meet the required Radio Frequency (RF) limits in all regions.
The energy suppliers that are impacted by this issue are working with their respective meter manufacturers to ensure the meters in question meet the required limits as soon as possible. A number of the relevant suppliers expect devices that meet the required RF limits to be available for testing from April this year.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
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 (a) reduce unnecessary use of plastics and (b) encourage the use of mobile phone apps and other technologies by energy suppliers.
Answered by Claire Perry
The Government set out in the 25 Year Environment Plan our commitment to eliminate all avoidable plastic waste by the end of 2042; my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs set out in our Resource and Waste Strategy how we will do this. These proposals are subject to consultation, which will close on 13 May.
The UK is building a sustainable plastics industry through research and innovation. The Department is working through UKRI and closely with industry is providing up to £60 million through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to establish the UK as the world’s leading innovator in smart sustainable plastic packaging, and gathering international experts to tackle marine plastic waste through the Commonwealth Marine Plastics Research and Innovation Framework. These activities will ensure that we produce, consume and treat plastics sustainably.
The Government is working with Ofgem, the energy regulator, on various initiatives to improve data quality and data access in order to enable the wider use of new technologies in the energy market. A key part of this is midata in energy intervention, which will provide customers a secure way to quickly and easily give accredited third parties access to their energy data; encouraging consumer engagement and driving market innovation and competition. The future energy retail market review is looking at measures to reduce barriers to innovation and open up the market to new types of propositions.
In addition, BEIS has recently launched the Smart Energy Savings (SENS) competition which will provide up to £4.4m of funding to support the development and trialling of products and services that use smart meter data to help consumers manage their energy use.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
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 carry out a review of the Pubs Code including the attractiveness to tenants of the Market Rent Only option.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
As required by the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015, my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State will review the operation of the Pubs Code for the period of 20 July 2016 to 31 March 2019. The review will be informed by responses to the Pubs Code Adjudicator’s Market Rent Only (MRO) questionnaire and the 2019 Tenants Survey which asks tenants about MRO offers they have received.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much and what proportion of his Department's funding for research and development he allocated to the healthcare sector in each of the last three years.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
We do not currently hold data in the format which enables a direct answer to this question.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
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 made a recent comparative assessment of the level of spending on research and development in (a) the UK and (b) EU member states; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Department regularly assesses comparative levels of R&D expenditure in the UK and EU member states.
The latest ONS data estimates that overall gross R&D expenditure in the UK was £33.1bn in 2016, which was 1.7% of GDP in that year. 2017 data is due to be released in March 2019. The latest OECD international comparison of R&D expenditure ranked the UK 10th among EU nations in 2016. More details can be found here http://oe.cd/msti.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in what ways the Government and HM Land Registry (a) monitor and (b) prevent land banking in local communities.
Answered by Margot James
HM Land Registry is responsible for maintaining the register of land and property in England and Wales.
As set out in the Housing White Paper, HM Land Registry is working with the Department for Communities and Local Government to improve the availability and quality of data on land ownership and interests, which will allow local communities to better understand how land is being used.
I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given on 20 November 2017 by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to Question UIN 112668.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the (a) number and (b) financial value of start-up loans was for small businesses in (i) Bolton and (ii) Bolton West constituency in the last 12 months.
Answered by Margot James
For the 12 month period up to end of March 2017, the Start-up Loans Company granted 28 loans totalling over £333,500 to businesses in Bolton.
For the same period, 11 loans were granted totalling over £114,750 to businesses in Bolton West.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what financial support his Department provides to (a) small and (b) start-up businesses in Bolton.
Answered by Margot James
We are working hard to support businesses and entrepreneurs across the UK to ensure they can access the finance and wider support to grow and have the right conditions for companies to invest long-term.
At Budget 2016 we announced reductions in business rates worth almost £9 billion over the next 5 years, included permanently doubling Small Business Rate Relief and extending the thresholds of the relief ensuring the smallest businesses pay no rates at all.
For the 12 month period up to end of March 2017, BBB programmes have facilitated over £6.17m of finance to 76 businesses in Bolton. Within this, the Start-up Loans Company granted 28 loans totalling over £330k.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what progress has been made on creating a roadmap for increasing investment in science to three per cent of gross domestic product in the last 12 months.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
This Government has set out its vision to meet R&D investment of 2.4% of GDP within ten years and 3% in the longer-term. We have already increased research and development investment by £4.7 billion over the period 2017-18 to 2020-21. This equates to an extra £2 billion per year by 2020-21 and is an increase of around 20% to total government R&D spending, more than any increase in any parliament since 1979.
We will support business to do more R&D and innovation through our industrial strategy by making sure the wider business environment supports R&D investment and ensuring businesses have access to the skilled people they need to do R&D.
Asked by: Chris Green (Conservative - Bolton West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what steps he is taking to encourage private investment in laboratories involved in research and science.
Answered by Lord Johnson of Marylebone
Government has put in place incentives to encourage private investment in capital facilities (which includes investment in research facilities) and to encourage business investment in research and development.
The Government is providing £900m through the UK Research Partnership Investment Fund (UKRPIF) to secure and accelerate private co-investment into university research infrastructure. It provides funding for large long-term capital projects, which must demonstrate at least double external private co-investment and build on a strong record of research excellence. So far £500m from the Fund has levered over £1.4bn additional investment into over 30 strategic research collaborations between universities and businesses and charities.
Annual UK Government support for innovation includes £800m through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, predominantly through Innovate UK and around £1.75bn through fiscal support measures. The Government’s investment in innovation is attracting increasing investment from private sources. In 2014, UK Business Enterprise Research and Development expenditure, increased by 6% to its highest level on record (£19.9 billion), surpassing 2013’s high by £0.9 billion. In the same year, total business employment in R&D in the UK increased by 7% to 192,000 (Full Time Equivalents).