Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many face-to-face Brexit Readiness Roadshows his Department has organised for the purpose of providing information and advice in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal; and what the locations were of those roadshows.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department has organised 30 Brexit Business Readiness events over 6 weeks to help prepare businesses for 31 October. Roadshow event locations are: Northampton, Nottingham, Swindon, London, Sheffield, Leicester, Perth, Glasgow, Birmingham, Southampton, Brighton, Hull, Plymouth, Leeds, Derry/Londonderry, Cambridge, Belfast, Ipswich, Newcastle, Carlisle, Cardiff, Liverpool, Wrexham, Bristol, Reading, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Stoke on Trent, Wolverhampton and Canterbury.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to Operation Yellowhammer: HMG Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumptions paragraph 5, what steps her Department is taking to safeguard electricity supply in the event of participants exiting the energy market in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
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 Answer of 1 October 2019 to Question 291262, if he will place in the Library a copy of the provisions of the referenced fuel supply contingency programme which would be deployed in the event of disruption to fuel supplies in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Government’s long-standing fuel supply contingency programme is not publicly available to protect the sensitive operational information it contains, and to prevent the efficacy of the plans from being compromised. The specific plans for Brexit also contain sensitive commercial information.
As set out in my previous answer, the Government believes that in most circumstances the fuel industry is well positioned to respond to disruptions to the supply chain. However, if required, our contingency programme includes measures to help the industry coordinate their response and increase its effectiveness as well as a reserve fleet of road tankers to increase the logistics capacity available for fuel supplies in the event of a disruption. The appropriate elements of this programme required will be decided in the context of any specific incident.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment she has made of the potential effect on just-in-time manufacturers of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The Department is maintaining efforts to ensure businesses across the UK are ready to leave the EU on 31 October. We continue to robustly assess the potential impact of no-deal and are engaging widely with businesses across all sectors and meeting regularly with business representative organisations and trade associations. In addition, we have also secured £1.3 million central funding which we are directing towards targeted sector-specific engagement across the UK through sector teams to complement the Business Readiness Fund and Public Information Campaign.
We have published an SME Brexit guidance leaflet and launched a series of Get Ready Roadshows. These specifically target businesses with information and advice and ensure intermediaries, such as banks and accountants, have the information needed to support businesses. We also recently unveiled a £10 million Business Readiness Fund for business organisations and trade associations to support businesses across the UK in understanding the steps they should take to prepare for 31 October.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to Operation Yellowhammer: HMG Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumptions paragraph 5, what estimate she has made of the level of change to electricity prices in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Government recognises the importance to businesses and households of having access to an affordable, secure and sustainable supply of energy. The Yellowhammer Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumptions are not based on a single forecast of expected prices. Many factors impact electricity prices including factors such as fuel prices, exchange rates and generation mix.
We expect that any change in electricity prices in Great Britain as a result of changes to interconnector trading arrangements would fall within the normal range of market volatility.
We assume in this Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumption that the Single Electricity Market (SEM) shared between Northern Ireland and Ireland may not be able to continue. If this is the case we would expect higher and more volatile electricity prices in Northern Ireland as a result of losing benefits from the more efficient, shared market. By far the best outcome for electricity in Northern Ireland is to maintain the SEM and the Government remains committed to seeking to maintain the SEM in any scenario.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to Operation Yellowhammer HMG Reasonable Worst Case Planning Assumptions, what assessment she has made of the probability of disruption to fuel supplies in each (a) nation and (b) region in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Answered by Kwasi Kwarteng
The Government has been implementing a significant programme of work to ensure the UK will be ready to leave the European Union from day one in all scenarios, including in the event of Brexit without a withdrawal agreement.
Operation Yellowhammer planning assumptions are not a prediction of what is going to happen, but reflect a responsible Government preparing for a reasonable worst-case scenario.
The Government believes that in most circumstances the fuel industry is well positioned to respond to disruptions to the supply chain from whatever cause. In addition, Government has a long-standing fuel supply contingency programme that can be deployed in support of industry to maintain fuel supplies as close to normal levels as possible.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many applications for research into mindfulness-based therapies were (a) accepted and (b) rejected by the Medical Research Council in each of the last three years.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
In the last three years the Medical Research Council has funded one project relevant to mindfulness-based therapies. £149k was awarded in 2018 to researchers based at the University of Bristol for two years to evaluate a multi-stage intervention to improve foster carers mental health and well-being.
The number of applications and success rates for projects relevant to mindfulness-based therapies cannot be provided. All applications to UK Research and Innovation are submitted in confidence and when research topics are specialised in nature, releasing information on the number of applications may result in Research Organisations and applicants potentially being identified.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent estimate he has made of the average time it takes for a new business to become fully operational in the UK.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The World Bank Doing Business 2019 report measures the ease of starting a business. This involves measuring procedures, time, cost and paid-in minimum capital to start a limited liability company for men and women.
The average time taken for a new business in the UK to complete all the procedures required to become operational is 18 days.
Source:
World Bank, Doing Business 2019, https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/reports/global-reports/doing-business-2019
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
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 Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Corporate Responsibility has made in strengthening the Department’s consideration of loneliness as a policy concern.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Employers can play an important role in tackling loneliness in their workforce and wider society. The Department worked closely in partnership with the Campaign to End Loneliness to develop the Employer Pledge. Take up has been positive and I am pleased that there is continued interest among employers to tackling loneliness in their workforce as part of their wider approach to workplace wellbeing
The Department continues to work with the Campaign to End Loneliness to run an Employers’ Leadership Group on Loneliness. The group strengthens cooperation and coordination between Government, business and other groups with an interest in tackling loneliness. The group is currently carrying out work to identify good employer practice and produce case studies and guidance to help employers tackle loneliness in the workforce and in the wider community.
Asked by: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the loneliness strategy 2018, what progress has been made on his Department’s commitment to establish and grow a network of champions to encourage employers to support employees’ social wellbeing.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Employers can play an important role in tackling loneliness in their workforce and wider society. The Department worked closely in partnership with the Campaign to End Loneliness to develop the Employer Pledge. Take up has been positive and I am pleased that there is continued interest among employers to tackling loneliness in their workforce as part of their wider approach to workplace wellbeing
The Department continues to work with the Campaign to End Loneliness to run an Employers’ Leadership Group on Loneliness. The group strengthens cooperation and coordination between Government, business and other groups with an interest in tackling loneliness. The group is currently carrying out work to identify good employer practice and produce case studies and guidance to help employers tackle loneliness in the workforce and in the wider community.